Few recent American animated series have captured the spirit of anime quite likeInvincible Fight Girl, the new adult swim animated series by Juston Gordon-Montgomery. Following a young woman named Andy who wants to be a professional wrestler in a fantastical world built around the elaborate sport, the series' premier captures the appeal of a classic shonen anime in the mold ofDragon Ball Z. The result is a show with brawls that can compete withsome of the best fights in shonen anime history.
A passion project of animation director Juston Gordon-Montgomery,Invincible Fight Girljust premiered its first two episodes on November 3rd. Though the series feels quite modern, it’s been in the works for nearly a decade, surviving multiple guard changes at Cartoon Network and eventually landing on Adult Swim and Max. Now, with the first two episodes available, the series is generating the kind of buzz reserved forsome of the greatest shonen anime. Fans curious can actually check out the first episode in full for free on Adult Swim’s Youtube channel.
To celebrate the release of the epic series, we sat down to speak with Gordon Montgomery so we could ask him about the series' evolution over time, what anime influenced the series, and whether there’s any potential for a season 2.
Screen Rant: I’ve heard a lot of really wild stories about the ways in which shows, and particularly animated shows, change from pitch to airing, and I knowInvincible Fight Girlin particular has had a decades-long journey. So how much has the series changed from your initial core idea to what fans are actually going to watch?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery:It’s pretty consistent, I think I’ve been fortunate enough that each of the sort of leadership changes who got a chance to look at it, more or less still felt like it was a pretty good idea. So, I think I was lucky in that aspect. But you’re totally right, lots of things change constantly. For me, when I first pitched it, I think what the network was looking for was a little bit more nebulous. It evolved a little bit as time went on. But yeah, I was lucky enough that the thing that people are going to see on screen is more or less what I started out with.
Screen Rant: One of the biggest changes that I’ve seen is that this started as a Cartoon Network show and then it moved to Adult Swim and Max. Did that change any of the actual content of the show, or was it more just rethinking the target demographic?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery:It’s kind of interesting because the change happened about maybe halfway through the production, so it was enough that we had been working on it for a while, but not enough that we couldn’t drastically, change what we were doing. So we had asked, “Oh, We’re going on Adult Swim. Do we have an opportunity to adjust some things?” And we were told that they didn’t really want us to. It ended up being more or less exactly what people would have seen on a Cartoon Network.
Screen Rant: One thing that I do think makes sense about the move to Adult Swim is Adult Swim just has such a big history with anime, and I think anime has a really clear influence on this show. Were there any particular anime that you had in mind as reference points for the series that you look to as inspiration?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery:Sure, there’s lots. I think a lot of the sort of modern greats likeNaruto,Hunter x Hunter,Hajime no Ippo,One Piecethese are all things that we looked at and had discussions with ourselves about what are things that each of these shows do exceptionally well that we wanted to take inspiration from. For example,One Pieceis a master at world-building andNarutois so beautifully able to balance the fun of this story about a young kid in this strange world who’s he’s trying to prove himself, but at the same time, the heart-wrenching nature of him pursuing his dream and facing all of these obstacles and meeting other people who are pursuing their dreams who have met these obstacles and have been changed by them.
Hunter x Hunterwas actually more of a recent discovery for me. I would say in the past 5 years I found that and I was just so impressed. I’ve seenHunter x Huntercreator Yoshihiro Togashi’sYu Yu Hakusho, so I was familiar with his previous work. I was mystified by Togashi’s ability to just effortlessly switch between genres and then, at certain points, completely subvert his own storytelling where he was like, “You know those main characters that I told you about? We’re not going to focus on those guys. We’re going to focus on this other group of people.” And it’s a different type of world-building that really makes It feel alive and feel complex.
Hunter X Hunter Subtly Explained One of Its Biggest Mysteries, Creating an Even Bigger One in the Process
Hunter X Hunter finally explains one Phantom Troupe mystery, creating an even bigger question in the process.
Screen Rant: TheNarutoconnection is interesting to me because I think one thing thatNarutodoes very well in the early episodes thatInvincible Fight Girlis also doing well, is balancing this goofiness with this kind of sincerity. Was there ever a tension on how much to pull back on putting a lampshade on things versus running with the emotion of the moment?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery:I think there was never necessarily any top-down tension about that. It was more in finding that we just have shorter episode runs here in the States in general. This show has 10 episodes and so, I think for myself internally, the struggle was more like, “How much am I balancing getting to some of that meatier, deeper storytelling with establishing a tone that doesn’t hit you right over the head as soon as you start with heavy stuff.”
That first episode of Naruto is so goofy and silly. And then it really beautifully flows into some of the deeper emotional stuff. And so that was definitely the challenge, was like, in such a short 10 episodes, how much are we balancing that? How much are we serving fun stuff that makes you want to be with Andy and her friends on the journey, but at the same time getting to some of these heavier story points and these heavier thematic storytelling opportunities?
Screen Rant: Wrestling is obviously a big part of the series' premise and that focus leads to some really great choreography in the episodes. So when mixing real wrestling moves with the more anime-esque special abilities, how do you handle choreographing a fight? Are you looking at real wrestling matches for inspiration?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery:We tried to treat fights almost like a dialogue. That was the sort of thing that I constantly told our artists and a lot of our artists were coming from shows where they had done incredible action. We had a lot of the team fromRise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtleson our show, so I think what we wanted to do was use that same ability where you can give them any sort of fighting style, and they’re not just going to be able to handle it beautifully, but to also treat the fights a little bit more like conversations and to treat wrestling moves as punctuation within those conversations. Instead of it being a thing that is like oh, if you’re familiar with pro wrestling, you’re just sitting and calling out like, “Oh, they’re doing that.” Having the fights be conversations gives the moves a little bit more weight. So it’s more like. We’re talking, and then the period at the end of the sentence is the moment where you go “Oh, shit. That’s the thing.”
That allowed us to think about it in a little bit more of a deep way that I think allowed some of the fights to feel like they had more weight to them. And I feel like there were a little bit more opportunities to further the storytelling as opposed to just, turn your brain off. People are hitting each other now.
Screen Rant: One thing I really liked is the Busters present in episode two. I thought they were all great characters. And it felt like such a mature decision to have them there when the main character is so much about not giving up and following her dreams, and then having these characters who did.
Juston Gordon-Montgomery:I think I was lucky enough that I found very early on that I did not want the show to be prescriptive. I didn’t want you to watch the show and feel like we were teaching you. If I feel like, if you watch it and you come away with “Don’t give up on your dreams,” then we’ve maybe made a mistake. Our show is a little bit more interested in meditating on and exploring the different aspects of what does it mean to follow a dream? And as a part of that sort of conversation, you have to include what happens for people who do that for a bit and realize. “Oh, the things that I’m sacrificing personally aren’t adding up to what I’m going to get out of it.”
I’m someone in an industry where it’s like very hard to get to a point where you may direct things and write things and make your own show. There are a lot of people I know who even just within my little bubble, like were on the path and weren’t having a great time on the path, and were giving up a lot of things. At a certain point they had to have an inner dialogue with themselves of “Okay, even if I got there, the amount of stuff I’ve given up along the way means that I’m not going to be happy. So if I only have this one life to live, like, what’s the calculus of that? Is there a better way that I can be using my time?”
And so that’s what I think was a little bit more interesting for me to explore was this idea of yes, we’ve got a character who is relentless in her pursuit of her dreams. And you’re going to meet a lot of characters who that was their starting point as well. And then their ending point was somewhere else. How does that challenge a person’s view of themself? How does that challenge their growth? And how does that complicate their world view rather than it being just a very simplistic, “It doesn’t matter. All I got to do is keep going and it’ll work out.”
Dragon Ball Daima Hints That One Underrated Classic Series Character Is Much More Powerful Than Fans Would Think
Dragon Ball DAIMA might have revealed the truth of how powerful Dende truly is, and it is not what fans expected.
Screen Rant:I think that’s really pertinent in the world of professional wrestling, where it’s like your body is literally on the line, it’s not just your dreams. I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask, do you have plans beyond the first season? Are you thinking about a season 2?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery:For me, I think about stories naturally longitudinally. So there’s a lot that I go back toHunter x Hunteron. So much of what is exciting to me about that series are the turns that it takes once you get past that sort of first section where you think it’s going to be just this regular sort of shonen, and then, for the people who know, they know it takes some wild genre-bending terms. So for me, I’ve thought about like “What’s our Chimera Ant Arc? What’s our arc that’s much farther than where Andy is right now”?
Thank you to Juston Gordon-Montgomery for speaking with us. Check outInvincible Fight Girlon Max and Adult Swim!
Invincible Fight Girl
Cast
Andy, a young girl with dreams of wrestling greatness, teams up with a motley crew including her retired wrestler aunt and an earnest wrestling analyst. As they battle fierce opponents in Wrestling World, Andy and her friends face obstacles that test their strength, unity, and determination to reach the top.
