Invincible Fighting Girl will soon make its highly anticipated debut with Adult Swim, and we were able to chat with series creator Juston-Gordon Montgomery about the new series ahead of its premiere. Invincible Fighting Girl has been in production for quite a whileand was one of the animated series that evolved during all the changes at Warner Bros. Discovery over the years. But thankfully, it’s gearing up to finally debut after all this time and soon fans will be treated to a new type of action series blending the fun of anime and wrestling together in a new experience.

As Invincible Fighting Girl iwill finally will premiere on Saturday, November 2 to midnight with Adult Swim with its first two episodes (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 animated influences that went into the new animated series, incorporating wrestling into the storytelling, teasing its power system and more. Read our full interview (which has been edited for clarity) below.

Videos from ComicBook.com

NICK VALDEZ, COMICBOOK: I remember for the first time (Invincible Fighting Girl) announced in 2022, and it has likely been in development long before that. So how does it feel to see that it will finally premiere on Toonami, the big anime showcase block for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim?

JUSTON-GORDON MONTGOMERY: It’s surreal. This somehow exceeded my wildest hopes and expectations. I think when I started this project, it was just an opportunity to maybe create a different type of show than we had seen in the West, and to do something that, who knows what impact it would have, would have. It would be something different in space. So the fact that it’s been sort of elevated to this level where it’s going to be visible to everyone and it’s going to be on Toonami, this place where it personally makes a lot of sense to me. It seems surreal. It’s not something that, if you had asked me in 2022, I would have said it was planned for us, yes.

Toonami also feels perfect for this because, as you just mentioned, there’s a bit of an anime flow that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in an action anime here in terms of inner monologues, a lot of dust. vomit everywhere, stuff like that. And so I wanted to know, what are some of your direct influences in anime that influenced the way you presented this series and its action and its world?

MONTGOMERY: Dragon Ball Z It’s a place I always start, because it’s a bit like the grandfather, just for the tone, for the intensity. You might have noticed that some of our sound effects even sound a little bit like…we whistle a little bit to people who know this to say, “Hey, do you hear that kind of flying sound?” But as we sort of get into the genetic makeup of the series, Naruto is a big, big place that I’m personally starting. It is one of the first anime outside of Dragon Ball Z as a kid I discovered it, and I was just sort of mystified by this mixture of awkwardness and at the same time, very heavy adult themes.

You know, we’re dealing with this main character who feels an insane and oppressive loneliness, and he’s ostracized by his community. And at the same time, he has to constantly do this, to the point of self-talk, he has to constantly talk to himself to get to that point where he can say, “No, I’m going to be someone that people want to do.” respect. I am going to realize this dream that seems improbable and impossible” and the worldview, the worldbuilding that results from it.

One piece, the same for this construction of the world. Hunter x Hunter is also a big problem. This was more of a recent discovery for me, within the last 4 years. And as someone who had watched a lot of anime and for some reason missed it, and even saw Yyou Yu HakushoI don’t know how I missed it. I was so blown away by the twists and turns and the way the show almost seemed to reach out to people watching Shonen and say, “I know what you think is going to happen. I’m going to deliberately subvert this. Oh, do you think we’re going to follow these characters? No. We are going to the other side of the world. We’re going to follow these guys.

And you’re going to think, “Who the hell are these people?” Why am I following them? And then you’ll say, “Ah, shit. It’s really convincing. Okay.” What’s going to happen, you know? So it was big. Just as a way of rethinking what it meant to make a show and what it meant to create the center of a show, the construction of the world, complexity and everything else And then finally, I would say. Hajime no Ippo was huge. As someone who loves boxing myself, I have done boxing for many years.

The show is beautiful in its ability to, whether you’re familiar with boxing or not, convey to you what’s at stake and why it all makes sense, as well as the struggle and difficulty of it all. Again, whether or not you have any training to understand boxing or not. And so that storytelling ability was huge for us looking at that and saying, well, 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 portion of our audience might not. So we want to explain to them why things make sense, why wrestling is great, but why in every moment certain things they should feel a certain way.

It’s interesting also because wrestling is also a very narrative-driven art. And so, what particular era of wrestling were you most drawn to? Are you following anything by chance at the moment?

Not as much now. For me, my kind of formative era was the Attitude Era. I’m a child of the ’90s. So it was interesting too because, in my opinion, that was when wrestling really took up a lot of the public attention. You know, even people who weren’t interested. It was sort of unavoidable. It was kind of the perfect time for me as a kid to find it. There was something about the pageantry and the heights to which they would push the storytelling. The characters, characters, and mistakes that you felt felt like a type of storytelling that rivaled and surpassed anything we could see that was written in terms of TV shows, sitcoms, movies, or anything like That.

It’s cool to see Andy too because Andy is a character that combines all of that. She has the underdog struggle story as well as that Shonen hero vibe that wants her to overcome and eventually achieve her dreams. So what motivated Andy’s development as the main character in this series?

Andy, I kind of like to think of her as representing the spirit of youth. So in this sort of big metaphor that the show is where we talk about people following their dreams and following their passions, I think there’s a sort of universal truth to whatever you’re pursuing. There’s sort of your entry into this space that you’re not aware of, and then there’s the space itself, the institution that has these pre-established hierarchies. He has this dynamic. There are already these big, dominant players. Everything is sort of already settled.

So here you are coming into space as a young person who kind of has to fight for your place. And I think a lot of that has to do with that kind of boldness. The audacity of youth and the hunger of youth. The ability, while respecting what came before, to sort of ignore it and say to yourself like a boxer, “Yeah, one day I’ll be as good as, or better than, Mayweather.” I think once you’ve lived a little, these kinds of statements seem a little crazy.

But for young people looking to establish themselves and make their mark, it’s their lifeblood. That’s what fuels them. And so for me, it’s Andy. Andy is this kind of young, bold hunger that has this respect for this world that already exists, is fascinated by it, is in love with it, and at the same time he says, “I’m going to go in and find my way.” be on top. “There’s a combination of a lot of different complex things that have to come into play for someone to be able to say that and stick with it. They encounter many different obstacles and adversities, but still push through and decide, “Yes, this dream is something that is possible for me.” »

Speaking of dreams, Quesa Poblana – a great name by the way – has an aura. Talking the way we talked Dragon Ball Z And One piece earlier, she has a literal aura that has the kind of Dragon Ball Z visual and audio. Then there is a little One piece Haki while knocking everyone out. So, as a foreshadowing of the future, is this something Andy can potentially do? Is this only specific to Poblana? Is this something that if Andy is able to train, she can unlock?

Honestly, I would say yes. I think, for the audience that understands it, we’re teasing a system of power that exists in this world. Quesa Poblana is not the only one that can do this. She’s just the only one we’ve seen do this. Andy will get there eventually, but there’s a secret beyond just building your strength to a certain level. Quesa Poblana is sort of a big window into our world, into what some of the higher level matches and 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 at?