Invincible Fight Girl creator talks favorite anime shows, coming to Toonami and more

Invincible fighter girl will soon make its highly anticipated debut with Adult Swim, and we spoke with series creator Juston-Gordon Montgomery about the new series ahead of its premiere. Invincible fighter girl has been in production for some timeand was one of the animated series that kept moving through all the changes that occurred at Warner Bros. over the years. Discovery took place. But thankfully, the game is gearing up to finally make its debut after all this time, and soon fans will be treated to a new kind of action series that combines the fun of anime and co-wrestling into a new experience.

If Invincible fighting girl iIt’s finally happening premieres on Saturday, November 2 at midnight with Adult Swim with the first two episodes (and then streaming with Max the next day), ComicBook had the chance to speak with series creator Juston-Gordon Montgomery about the new action series. Montgomery talked about the anime influences that went into the new animated series, incorporating wrestling into the stories, teasing about the power system and more. Read on below for our full interview (which has been edited for clarity).

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NICK VALDEZ, COMICBOOK: I remember it for the first time (Invincible fighter girl) will be announced as early as 2022 and will likely be in development long before then. So how do you feel when you see it finally premiere on Toonami, the big anime show block for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim?

JUSTON-GORDON MONTGOMERY: It’s surreal. It more or less exceeded my wildest hopes and expectations. I think when I started this project it was just an opportunity to maybe create a different kind of show that we had seen in the West, and do something that would have who knows how big of an impact. In space it would be slightly different. So the fact that it’s been kind of elevated to a level where it’s going to be out there for everyone to see, and it’s going to be on Toonami, a place where that has a lot of meaning to me personally. It feels surreal. It’s not something that if you asked me in 2022, I would have said it was on the horizon for us, yes.

Toonami also feels perfect for it because, as you just said, it has a kind of anime flow that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in an action cartoon here in terms of inner monologues, lots of dust thrown everywhere, that kind of thing. And so I wanted to know: What are some of your direct anime influences that contributed to the way you shaped this show, its action, and its world?

MONTGOMERY: Dragon Ball Z is a place I always start, because that’s kind of like the grandfather, just for the tone, for the intensity. You might have noticed that some of our sound effects are even a bit like… we’re dogs saying to people who know a little bit, “Hey, you hear that kind of flying sound?” But then if we get into the genetic makeup of the show a little bit, Naruto is a big, big place where I personally start. That’s one of the first anime out there Dragon Ball Z I discovered that as a kid, and I was just kind of baffled by this mix of weirdness and really heavy adult themes at the same time.

You know, we’re dealing with a main character who is experiencing the crazy, oppressive loneliness that he feels, and who has been banished from his community. And at the same time, he has to do this constantly, to your point of the inner monologue, he has to constantly talk to himself to get himself to this place where he can be like, ‘No, I’m going to be someone that people respect. I’m going to realize this dream that seems improbable and impossible” and the worldview, the worldbuilding of that.

One piece, same for that world building. Hunter x Hunter is also a big one. That was more of a recent discovery for me, like in the last four years. And as someone who had watched a lot of anime and missed it for some reason, and even watched Yu Yu HakushoI don’t know how I missed it. I was just so impressed by the twists and the ways in which the show almost seemed to speak to people who watched Shonen and said, “I know what you think is going to happen.” I am consciously going to undermine that.” Oh, you think we’re going to follow these characters? No. We’re going to this other side of the world. We’re going to follow these guys.

And you’ll say, ‘Who the hell are these people? Why am I following them?” And then you think, “Ah, shit. This is really convincing. Okay.” What’s going to happen, you know? So that was big. Just as a way to even rethink what it meant to create a show and what it meant to create the focus of a show, building it up of a world, and the complexity and all that stuff Hajime no Ippo was huge. Because I love boxing myself, I have been boxing for many years.

The show is beautiful in its ability, whether you’re familiar with boxing or not, to convey to you the stakes and why everything has meaning, and the struggle and the grind of it. Again, whether or not you have a background to understand boxing or not. And so the ability to tell stories was huge in us when we looked at it and said, we’re doing something like wrestling, where obviously we want people who have a background and understand it to be able to appreciate it, but we sort of assume that a large part of our audience may not. So we want to teach them why things are meaningful, why wrestling is great, but why they should feel certain things a certain way from moment to moment.

That’s also interesting, because wrestling is also an art that is mainly focused on storytelling. And so, which era of wrestling in particular were you most drawn to? Do you happen to keep track of anything?

Not so much now. For me, my kind of formative era was Attitude Era. I’m a child of the nineties. So it was interesting too because that was, in my opinion, the moment when wrestling really took over a lot of the public attention. You know, even people who weren’t interested in it. It was kind of inescapable. It was a perfect moment for me as a child to find it. There was something about the pageantry and the heights to which they would push the storytelling. The characters, the personas and flaws that, to your point, felt like a kind of storytelling that rivaled and surpassed anything we could see written in terms of TV shows, sitcoms, movies or the like.

It’s also cool to see Andy because Andy is one of those characters that combines all of that. She has the underdog wrestling story and the shonen hero vibe where she wants her to triumph and ultimately achieve her dreams. So what went into developing Andy as your main character for this series?

Andy, I like to think of her as a representative of the spirit of youth. So in these kind of big metaphors, the show where we talk about people following their dreams and following their passions, I think there’s some kind of universal truth in everything that you pursue. You enter a kind of space that you’re not aware of, and then there’s the space itself, the institution that has these pre-established hierarchies. It has this dynamic. It has all these big, dominant players. Everything is pretty much already arranged.

Then here you are, entering the room as a young person and having to fight a bit for your spot. And a lot of that, I think, has to do with this kind of boldness. The daring of youth and the hunger of youth. The ability, while revering what came before, to also be a little ignorant of it and be like a boxer: “Yeah, one day I’ll be as good or better than Mayweather.” I think once you’ve lived a little, these kinds of statements seem kind of crazy.

But for young people who want to establish themselves and make their mark, it is their lifeblood. That’s what feeds them. And for me that’s Andy. Andy is that kind of young, bold hunger who reveres this world that already exists, is fascinated by it, is in love with it, and at the same time says, “I’m going to come in and find my way.” to be on top of it.” There’s a combination of a lot of different complex things that it takes for someone to be able to say that and stick to it. They experience many different obstacles and setbacks, yet persevere and decide, “Yes, this dream is something that is possible for me.”

Speaking of dreams Quesa Poblana – great name by the way – she has an aura. About how we talked Dragon Ball Z And One piece rather, she has a literal appearance that has the kind Dragon Ball Z visual and sound. Then it has a bit of it One piece Haki, basically knocking out everyone else. So as a tease for the future, is this something Andy could possibly do? Is it only specific to Poblana? Is this something Andy can unlock if she can train?

I would say yes outright. I think we’re teasing, for the audience to understand, a system of power that exists in this world. Quesa Poblana is not the only one who can do it. She’s the only one we’ve seen do it. Andy will get there eventually, but there’s a secret behind it that goes beyond just developing your strength to a certain level. Quesa Poblana is kind of a great window into our world, where you can see what some of the higher level matches and higher level battles will be like. So she exists both as a character and as a window into what the ceiling of this world looks like. How much space is there between that and where Andy, and some of the people she’s fighting, are currently.