| Kimio Ikeda | |
 Ikeda (left) with artist Tasayu Tasnaphun | |
| Born | 1934 Kohriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan |
| Died | May 4, 2007 (age 73) |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Occupation | Producer |
| Years Active | 1957-2007 |
Kimio Ikeda ( 池田公雄 Ikeda Kimio, 1934-May 4, 2007) was a Japanese Television producer. He was co-creator and producer of X-Bomber. Ikeda has a long career in producing Japanese anime.
Kimio Ikeda was born in Kohriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan in 1924, and graduated from Meiji University, Tokyo. Kimio first worked under Shintoho and was involved as staff producer of some of their tokusatsu films such as Super Giant and once worked as 3rd Assistant Director to Akira Kurosawa. He would go on to work for Rankin-Bass' stop-motion team for The New Adventures of Pinocchio for English transmission.
Ikeda would go on to contribute to many well known works such as Astroboy, Speed Racer and Gatchaman. He was the founder of Jin Productions Inc. in Tokyo in 1975.
X-Bomber was the initial brain child of Ikeda, who wanted to make a production that basically merged George Lucas' Star Wars with Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation techniques. Not having a wealthy financial banker like Anderson did in ITV's Lew Grade, Ikeda turned to Go Nagai to help envision the series, resulting in X-Bomber. When the series failed, Ikeda's reaction was philosophical: "I was quite sad. I thought that if the program proved popular, we could establish a new genre. It's a shame things didn't work out as planned."
Ikeda would go on to do another Gerry Anderson inspired show Scientific Rescue Team TechnoVoyager (known as Thunderbirds 2086 in English market). From 1996-2002 Ikeda produced various TV commercials and created many cartoons and animation for magazines.
Kimio Ikeda died on May 4, 2007. His then-upcoming series Shiden, which was planned to have 26 episodes for both that Japanese and US audiences, went unfinished and abandoned as a result of his death.
Filmography[]
- The New Adventures of Pinocchio (1960) (filming, editing and sound editing)
- Astro Boy (1963) (producer)
- Speed Racer (1967) (producer)
- The Genie Family (1969) (producer)
- The Adventures of Hutch the Honeybee (1970) (producer)
- Akaki Chi no Eleven (1970) (producer)
- Scientific Ninja Team Gatchaman (1972) (producer)
- Time Bokan (1975) (producer)
- UFO Warrior Dai Apolon (1976) (producer)
- Megaloman (1979) (planning, producer)
- X-Bomber (1980) (co-creator, producer)
- Don Dracula (1982) (producer)
- Thunderbirds 2086 (1982) (producer)
- The Legend of Kentauros (1986) (producer)