Nice girls finish last.
"You either are a wrestler or you aren’t. No one can give you permission."
— Aunt P
Invincible Fight Girl is a 2024 animated action comedy series created by Juston Gordon Montgomery (My Dad the Bounty Hunter, DC Super Hero Girls) and produced by Cartoon Network Studios. It stars the voices of Sydney Mikayla, Paul Castro Jr., TK Weaver, and Rolonda Watts.
The series follows Andy, a young girl from an island of accountants who sets out to the legendary Wrestling World to become a pro-wrestler. The series premiered on [adult swim] November 2nd, 2024 as part of the Toonami block. An early preview of the show was unveiled at the 2024 San Diego Comic Con. The full first episode was included on a NIGHT OF NEW livestream on the [adult swim] YouTube channel on July 26, 2024.
Has no connection to the comic book Invincible (2003) or its cartoon adaptation.
Previews: Comic Con clip
, NIGHT OF NEW livestream, Trailer, Clip 2
Invincible Fight Girl contains examples of the following:
- Acrofatic: Immaculate, the first wrestler Andy faces . For a guy with a lot of belly, he's surprisingly fast and agile.
- Actor Allusion: Andy is voiced by Sydney Mikayla, who's well-known for voicing the aloof temperamental fighter Maya from Craig of the Creek. Also, one of the other characters is literally named Craig.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: The majority of Immaculate's body is blue, while the top half of his head is red.
- Animesque: The entire presentation is heavily inspired by action anime, in particular Kill la Kill. Beyond just the aesthetics, the battles themselves are laden with flourishes found in the stereotypical battle shonen like Pummel Duels and the action slowing down so that characters can monologue about the techniques and emotions on display.
- Armor-Piercing Response: Andy had secretly spent her childhood training under the notion that "Wrestling is for everyone", but wonders if she is actually cut out for it. She asks two sets of people if someone like her can become a wrestler. She gets a hard NO twice, but for different reasons.
- The Perm Gang ridicules her for asking that because she is born on Accountant Island, where she is raised to be an accountant, so there is no way she could amount to anything beyond that.
- Auntie P, an old lady Andy meets right after the Perm Gang, gives her a slightly more positive reason: No one can become a wrestler. One has to determine if one has what it takes and work from there.
- Central Theme: Well, wrestling, obviously. However, the other theme it has tends to skew towards how wrestling and obsession in general have ruined the wrestlers and by extension their families in pursuit for stardom and how Andy comes to learn from them:
- The wrestlers at Busters all have their own stories about things that got in the way of their wrestling careers before retiring, but despite sounding like they're discouraging Andy from following her dream, they simply teach her that wrestling shouldn't be all that the world has to offer.
- The Beefpunchas are headed by Mega Beefpuncha, who has strictly trained all his sons to be a team of wrestlers. The only exception is Mikey, who, despite being blessed with Super-Strength and a massive muscular body at the tender age of 8, doesn't wish to become a wrestler but a wrestling journalist, which infuriates his father and seemingly most of his brothers. Luckily, Mikey grows a spine and decides to follow Andy.
- Bertie's parents Ruff and Tumble divorced in their unhealthy obsession to master the Perfect Strike, devolving into stupidity and general chaos as both started to pick on each other for over a decade, destroyed their wrestling destination Rumbleweed into a ghost town, and heavily neglected their daughter for that long. This caused Bertie to steadily become obsessed with destroying her parents' toxic groups that she ended up becoming a literal Tragic Monster when it's revealed her bandages contained her huge muscular form that she had trained out of pure frustration over the years. And to drive the point home even further, neither of her parents is willing to reason that the "monster" is their daughter, and choose to kick her out of town as a threat before going back to their feuds. The whole experience causes Andy to realize that she shouldn't take her parents' support for granted and calls them just to reassure herself that they're not going to end up the same to her as Bertie's family ended.
- Even the Perm Gang isn't safe from this: they all used to be living on the streets trying to become wrestlers and dreaming on buying their own home, but they were constantly bullied by other wrestlers. Immaculate, instead of putting a stand, snapped and convinced the rest of his group that they had to be the ones to take from others what they'd call theirs, leading to their infamous reputation.
- Chekhov's Skill: Andy has only ever learned to use a leg lock for wrestling. It turns out to be the one move she can use to force Immaculate to surrender, barely managing to pull it off after receiving so much punishment.
- Combat Commentator: Going along with the show's anime influences, fight scenes often have time slow down between major attacks for characters to monologue about the tactics and emotions on display.
- Combat Referee: Wrestling matches come complete with a built-in robot known as a Ref-Bot.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Andy's version of the perfect strike is ultimately this. It beats the entire Perm Gang in one go, though it also has such a delay that Immaculate mocks her right before the strike takes effect. The problem is, thanks to Andy being skinny and the sheer amount of force the technique puts out, it hurts the shoulder of the arm she used to perform it with. And it was hurt for quite awhile, as her shoulder was still in a sling for days after she used it.
- Delayed Causality: Andy's perfect strike again. When she finally lands it in the first season finale, there's a huge buildup complete with Speed Stripes and Dramatic Wind...and then nothing. Andy's fist doesn't even connect with Immaculate. The Perm Gang's fear gives way to relieved laughter.Immaculate: Is that it? That was-(explosion of wind and energy tears apart the arena and blows him and his gang through the roof)
- Doomed Hometown:
- Downplayed, as while the main town of Accountant Isle is wrecked by the Perm Gang, the home of Andy and her family is far away enough from the area that it's untouched by the chaos.
- Played Straight for Bernie's hometown Rumbleweed, which became a ghost town due to Ruff and Tumble's warring groups making a mess of everything.
- Dramatic Irony: Andy's parents see wrestling as a waste of time despite being accountants for wrestlers themselves. Then there's also the fact they went to the wrestling match that convinced Andy to follow her wrestling dreams where they criticized the match anyway. Not to mention, while they encourage their daughter to be an accountant, they have zero hope for her to do a good job handling an actual wrestler's taxes.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Parent: Subverted. Andy's family were all accountants, they simply expect their daughter Andy to be one as well. They are horrified in seeing her fight a wrestler when their home is in danger but, after she explains later that she had a better feeling of fighting than following in their footsteps, they give her their support.
- Played straight with Mega Beefpuncha, who expects Mikey to be a wrestler like his brothers.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: Episode 2 has Andy meet a group of washouts called the Busters with this trope in mind. They all have certain quirks or injuries that prevent them from becoming successful wrestlers, but they don't drag her down by obsessing over their failures. Instead, they remind her not to make the same mistake they did of making their dream being the only thing that matters in life.
- Improbable Sports Skills: Reflecting its inspiration in sports anime, wrestlers in the setting are capable of moves that defy the laws of physics, from jumping dozens (or thousands!) of feet to causing miniature earthquakes by stomping the ground. This is exaggerated by the Perfect Strike technique used by Quesa Poblana and Andy, which creates a massive windstorm capable of launching people into the air and destroying buildings.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: In "Bertie Unbound", when Bertie shows up as a rampaging monster, Ruff and Tumble try to run "it" out of town, clearly showing how they've become so callous that they see her as a monster, and nothing else.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: The population of Wrestler World includes both humans and Funny Animals of various species.
- Made of Iron: Any modestly skilled wrestler is somewhere between this and Super-Toughness. While it is sometimes mentioned that a wrestler's life might be in danger from facing a particularly dangerous or brutal opponent, wrestlers can survive falling great distances or being thrown through multiple buildings without most people worrying that they might have sustained serious or lethal injuries.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: In Episode 1, Andy's low effort in accounting has her superiors forbid her from taking part in Tax Day. She sneaks in the office just so she can meet real wrestlers. After being mocked by a group when asking if she can become a wrestler herself, she takes their receipts for the tax returns, but run off, leading to said group trashing the town, which then leads to her fighting to save it.
- Object-Shaped Landmass: The first episode of the series shows the planet with a continent shaped like an arm flexing its bicep.
- Planet of Hats: The first episode establishes the world as revolving around wrestling, with the exception of Accountant Isle, a small island of accountants who handle the wrestlers’ taxes.
- Pro Wrestling Is Real: Played straight, naturally, though the comments made by the Ambiguously Evil Scouter, who works for the GWC, about how wrestling is all about the story hint that the GWC might engage in a spot of manipulation or outright Kayfabe in their competitive matches.
- Save Sat: Buff Corp has an entire fleet of satellites designed to send rings and robo refs to the planets surface whenever there is an impromptu wrestling match.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Buff Corp Ref-Bot’s “anti-theft” protocol is to basically blow up and take the ring with it.
- Serious Business: The whole world revolves around wrestling, which includes Accountant Isle...which handles wrestlers' taxes.
- Tax Day is an especially stressful for accountants because wrestlers tend to be irritable if they feel the people running their returns make a mistake. Andy learns this the hard way when she was ordered not to attend but snuck in just to see wrestlers.
- Shout-Out:
- The GWC has a supplier called Buff Corp, whose satellites launch portable wrestling rings all over the world whenever a match is initiated; each with its own Ref-Bot. This is similar to the Judge robots who oversee matches in Zoids: New Century.
- In episode 2, Auntie P displays a force that overwhelms most of the watchers and prevents Immaculate from retaliating against Andy after his match, similar to Spiritual Pressure in Bleach.
- Goldie of the Buster Bar in Rustburn is the spitting image of Samus Aran in the Metroid series.
- The music when Andy chases Craig in episode 3 sounds suspiciously like “Yakety Sax” from The Benny Hill Show.
- Episode 4 reveals that Mbrandon wears weighted clothing.
- During Andy's fight against Bertie, she's blitzed by Bertie's Finger Path Gatling Gun, which is a series of rapid punches, clearly referencing Luffy's Gomu Gomu No Gatling Gun from One Piece.
- To Be a Master: A version where superhero-inflected professional wrestling is the Serious Business. While Andy's baseline goal is just to be a wrestler, she later clarifies that she wants to be a great wrestler, and the first season shows her taking steps toward that goal.
- World of Jerkass: The many wrestlers may be famous, but the huge majority also turn out to be demanding jackasses who believe they rule everyone else and aren't above causing chaos over the pettiest of things and get away with it unless someone more threatening comes to stop them (that someone will not be Buff Corp., who heavily encourages wrestling matches of all kinds). Since Andy was a (faulty) accountant, the ridicule is even worse for her when a wrestler learns she was one.