Juston Gordon-Montgomery grew up during the Attitude Era of professional wrestling, a time when the personalities were huge, the storylines were wild, and the theatrics of it all borderline high. Although he has achieved much easier to see Struggling in the streaming era, the sport's cultural dominance has waned in the years since it first captured Gordon-Montgomery's imagination. Especially for non-fans, the idea of getting into wrestling can still be a little daunting. But that feeling is part of what inspired Gordon-Montgomery to create Invincible fighting girla new series coming to Adult Swim.
Invincible fighting girlThe story of a young accountant named Andy (Sydney Mikayla) who dreams of becoming a legendary fighter is the stuff of shonen classics like Dragon Ball Z and one piece. But the show's setting, a world where everyone is some kind of masked wrestler with unique costumes and signature combat moves, feels like a loving parody of the pro-wrestling culture that defined the sport in the late '90s. On paper , Invincible fighting girlThe combination of influences makes its premise sound a little busy, but you can immediately see how the vision comes together as soon as its characters step into the ring.
When I recently sat down with Gordon-Montgomery to talk about Invincible fighting girlhe told me that he wanted his love for the Attitude Era of wrestling to shine “not just in Andy as a character, but in the show as a whole.”
“When I was a kid, wrestling seemed magical to me, but the characters and their stories also seemed real to me,” Gordon-Montgomery explained. “I fully believed that Undertaker really was a dead guy. The Attitude Era felt like it lent itself to the question, “What would a world be like if it were full of professional wrestlers?”, because they would all be very distinct, very clear characters with ideologies that would be reflected in their speech and delivery. struggle.”
From the beginning, Gordon-Montgomery knew he wanted to tell a story that focused on someone pursuing his passion and captured the feeling of being carried away by the emotion of a wrestling match. Naturally, Invincible fighting girlThe creative team took some cues from real-world wrestling. Because the show is about a feisty fighter who trains to be the best in a world full of magical people, anime series like Pokémon and naruto They were an obvious source of inspiration.
If those programs He could create entire worlds out of concepts like catching monsters and being a shinobi, Gordon-Montgomery felt he could do something similar with professional wrestling. However, to truly capture the spirit of wrestling, Gordon-Montgomery and his team found themselves searching for “one of the most fantastic mediums out there”: director Satoshi Nishimura's 2000 adaptation of Hajime no Ippo.
“I don't know if many people know about Hajime no Ippobut he was the north star for us because, on that show, the fight is not just a fight,” Gordon-Montgomery explained. “It's a way to visualize colliding philosophies and illustrate how characters grow and change. “A lot of wrestling matches are just storytelling and pageantry, and it was important to make sure our matches weren't just people punching each other and doing moves that you recognize.”
At the beginning of the series, when Andy was the first to strike out on her own, many of her usual maneuvers are Wrestling basics that you may recognize from live-action matches because she's a rookie who learned everything she knows through instructional videos. His skills increase as he meets new allies such as aging wrestling legend Quesa Poblana (Rolonda Watts) and aspiring journalist Mikey (TK Weaver). But Andy's transformation into Invincible Fight Girl takes time, something many networks seem increasingly nervous about offering newer projects.
When Gordon-Montgomery started in animation, he didn't see Western studios producing many serialized shows the way he wanted. Invincible fighting girl be. Prolonged narratives that unfold over dozens of episodes are a hallmark of the anime Gordon-Montgomery was taking notes from, but he knew that pushing that kind of story structure would be a challenge.
“Especially because we're in this era of requests for shorter seasons, there was definitely some concern about, 'How long are you trying to squeeze out these plot beats and revelations?'” Gordon-Montgomery told me. “But we have to give credit to our network partners: I think they understood our vision. “We were really able to convey that this is how Andy's story needed to be told so that the audience would really experience it the way we intended.”
Although Gordon-Montgomery doesn't want to put a number on how many episodes he imagines Invincible fighting girl running for the moment, is confident that the show's core concept has similar legs to Pokémon's.
“Pokémon “It's at the point where it's going to go on forever, which is not exactly what we want to do,” Gordon-Montgomery said. “But I think there's a very, very long trail of different ideas that we're exploring philosophically with Andy and this world that we've created. “There are a lot of things that haven't been done here in animation that I think we'll do if we get the shot.”
Invincible fighting girl premieres on Adult Swim on November 2.
