Few recent American animated series have captured the spirit of anime like Invincible fighting girlthe new animated adult swimming series from 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 premiere captures the appeal of a classic shonen anime along the lines of Dragon Ball Z. The result is a show with fights that can rival some of the best fights in shonen anime history.
A passion project from animation director Juston Gordon-Montgomery, Invincible fighting girl just premiered its first two episodes on November 3rd. Although the series seems quite modern, it has been in development for nearly a decade, surviving several changes of guard at Cartoon Network and eventually making its way to Adult Swim and Max. Now, with the first two episodes available, the series is generating the kind of buzz reserved for some of the biggest shonen anime. Curious fans can check out the full first episode for free on the Adult Swim YouTube channel.
To celebrate the release of the epic series, we sat down to talk to Gordon Montgomery so we could ask him about the evolution of the series over time, what anime influenced the series, and whether there’s potential for a second season.
Screen Rant: I’ve heard a lot of really crazy stories about the ways in which shows, and especially animated shows, change tone for viewing, and I know Invincible fighting girl in particular, it has had a decades-long journey. So how much has the series changed from its initial core idea to what fans will actually watch?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: It’s pretty consistent, I think I’ve been fortunate that every one of the types of leadership changes that we’ve had a chance to look at it, more or less still seemed like a good idea. So I think I was lucky in that aspect. But you’re totally right, a lot of things change constantly. For me, when I first pitched this, I think what the network was looking for was a little more nebulous. It evolved a little over time. But yeah, I’ve been fortunate that what people will see on screen is more or less what I started with.
Screen Rant: One of the biggest changes I’ve seen is that this started out as a Cartoon Network show and then moved to Adult Swim and Max. Did that change any actual content of the show or was it just rethinking the target audience?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: It’s interesting because the change happened maybe in the middle of 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 asked, “Oh, let’s go to Adult Swim. Do we have an opportunity to tweak some things?” And we were told that they really didn’t want us to do it. It ended up being more or less exactly what people would have seen on Cartoon Network.
Screen Rant: One thing that I think makes sense about the move to Adult Swim is that Adult Swim has a big history with anime, and I think anime has a very clear influence on this show. Was there any particular anime you had in mind as a reference point for the series that you see as inspiration?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: Of course, there are many. I think a lot of the modern big names like Naruto, Hunter x Hunter, Hajime no Ippo, One piece these are all things we looked at and discussed with ourselves about what each of these programs does exceptionally well and wanted to take inspiration from. For example, One piece is a master of world-building and naruto is so beautifully able to balance the fun of this story about a boy in this strange world he’s trying to prove himself, but at the same time, the heartwarming nature of him chasing his dream and facing all these obstacles and finding other people who are chasing their dreams, who encountered these obstacles and were changed by them.
Hunter x Hunter it was actually more of a recent discovery for me. I would say in the last 5 years I discovered this and was very impressed. I saw Hunter x Hunter by creator Yoshihiro Togashi Yu Yu Hakushoso I was familiar with his previous work. I was perplexed by Togashi’s ability to easily switch between genres and then, at certain points, completely subvert his own narrative, where he would say, “You know those main characters I told you about? Let’s not focus on those guys. Let’s focus on this other group of people.” And it’s a different kind of world-building that really makes it feel alive and complex.
Screen speech: the naruto connection is interesting to me because I think something that naruto does very well in the first episodes that Invincible fighting girl It’s also going well, it’s balancing that silliness with that kind of sincerity. Was there ever any tension about how much to back off when lampshading things rather than running with the emotion of the moment?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: I don’t think there was ever necessarily any top-down tension about it. It was more of finding out that we only have shorter episodes here in the US in general. This show has 10 episodes and so, I think internally, the struggle was more like, ‘How much am I balancing coming up with a more substantial, in-depth narrative with establishing a tone that doesn’t hit you over the head like as soon as you start with stuff? heavy.”
That first episode of Naruto is so silly and silly. And then it flows beautifully into some of the deeper emotional stuff. And so that was definitely the challenge, like, in such a short 10 episodes, how much are we balancing that? How much are we serving up fun things that make you want to be with Andy and his 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 more anime-like special abilities, how do you choreograph a fight? Are you looking at real wrestling matches for inspiration?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: We try to treat fights almost like a dialogue. That was the kind of thing I was constantly saying to our artists and a lot of them were coming from shows where they did incredible acts. We had a lot of the team Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on our show, so I think what we wanted to do was use that same skill where you can give them any kind of fighting style, and not only will they be able to handle it beautifully, but they’ll also be able to treat the fights in a way a little more like conversations and treating wrestling moves as punctuation in those conversations. Instead of it being like, oh, if you’re familiar with professional wrestling, you’re just sitting there and yelling, “Oh, they’re doing this.” Making fights more like conversations gives the movements a little more weight. So it’s more similar. We’re talking, and then the end of the sentence is the moment when you say, “Oh, shit. That’s it.”
It allowed us to think about it a little deeper, which I think allowed some of the fights to feel like they had more weight to them. And I feel like there were a little more opportunities to further the narrative rather than just turning your brain off. People are hitting each other now.
Screen Rant: One thing I really liked are the Busters present in the second episode. I thought they were all great characters. And it felt like a very mature decision to have them there when the main character cares 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 to discover early on that I didn’t want the program to be prescriptive. I didn’t want you to watch the show and feel like we were teaching you. If I feel like it, if you watch it and come away with “Don’t give up on your dreams,” then maybe we made a mistake. Is our program a little more interested in meditating and exploring different aspects of what it means to follow a dream? And as part of that kind of conversation, you have to include what happens to people who do this for a while and notice. “Oh, the things I’m personally sacrificing aren’t contributing to what I’m going to get out of it.”
I’m someone in an industry where it’s very difficult to get to a point where you can direct and write things and make your own show. I know a lot of people who, even within my little bubble, were on the path and weren’t having a lot of fun along the way, and were giving up on a lot of things. At some point, they had to have an internal dialogue with themselves like, “Okay, even if I got there, the amount of things I gave up along the way means I’m not going to be happy. So if I just have this life for a living, like, what’s the calculus for this? Is there a better way to use my time?”
And that’s what I think was a little more interesting for me to explore, was this idea of yes, we have a character who is tireless in her pursuit of her dreams. And you will meet many characters who were also your starting point. And then their endpoint was somewhere else. How does this challenge a person’s view of themselves? How does this challenge your growth? And how does that complicate your view of the world, rather than just being a very simplistic sentence: “It doesn’t matter. All I have to do is keep going and everything will work out.”
Screen Speech: I think this is very 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 would be remiss if I didn’t ask: do you have any plans beyond the first season? Are you thinking about a second season?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: For me, I naturally think about stories longitudinally. So there’s a lot of things I go back to Hunter x Hunter on. A lot of what’s exciting to me about this series is the twists and turns it takes once you get past that kind of first section where you think it’s going to be just a normal kind of shonen, and then, for the people who know, they know they’re necessary. some terms that alter gender. So for me, I thought “What is our chimera ant arc? What is our arc that is much further away than where Andy is now”?
Thanks to Juston Gordon-Montgomery for speaking with us. Check it out Invincible fighting girl on Max and Adult Swim!