Invincible Fight Girl: An Underappreciated Gem
I love animation. I have since before I could speak. The art of bringing ideas to life through unique moving artwork is something I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of. As such, I like to think I do my due diligence when it comes to finding and appreciating the latest and greatest in the medium. Unfortunately, I have a confession to make. I, like far too many, failed to notice and appreciate a true gem when it released back in 2024 – I didn’t watch Invincible Fight Girl. Or at least I hadn’t, until three days ago, when I discovered the series on HBO Max and marathon-ed the entire thing. And after having watched the ten-episode run, I’m truly sorry we’ve yet to see a follow up to such a captivating first season.
Invincible Fight Girl follows Andy, a young girl on a parallel version of Earth where professional wrestling is considered the highest calling one can achieve. Although born and raised on Accountant Isle, Andy’s fervent wish to become a wrestler seems within reach after defeating a nasty bully in a wrestling match. She moves out to Rustburn, where her real journey begins. Andy encounters her childhood idol, Quesa Poblana, and resolves to become strong enough to become her disciple.
Andy’s story is a familiar one – a story of chasing one’s dreams, challenging your own limits, and redefining what is possible for you. Andy’s journey in particular mirrors that of the traditional shonen anime protagonists: Izuku Midoriya, Naruto Uzumaki, Son Goku, with each of them striving to become stronger to achieve their own dreams.
Where Andy’s path differs is in its execution. In Invincible Fight Girl, super powers are few and far between – what dominates the wrestling world is the pure physical effort, along with the will and the drive to achieve it. That realistic approach helps to ground the series, and makes the few moments of superhuman ability that much more impactful. In that way, Invincible Fight Girl nails the excitement and exhilaration that great episodes of My Hero Academia and Yu Yu Hakusho bring out in me.
That familiar feeling is no accident – it’s by design. Invincible Fight Girl was very clearly and proudly influenced by anime, and you can tell just by watching it. From small details like the cast of Cowboy Bebop appearing on screen, to more overt references like the way characters will often think to themselves as action is progressing (a classic anime trope). Even some of the sound effects are ripped straight from Dragonball Z! For an anime fan like myself, it’s mystifying seeing the people who grew up on anime create one of their own.
Now, what I said there is important as Invincible Fight Girl’s Andy is an unfortunate rarity - a Black, female protagonist. Andy and in fact, most of the cast of Invincible Fight Girl offer a diverse, expansive cast of characters that provide so much life to the world within the series. Aside from Andy herself, we have the curmudgeonly Quesa Poblana, her nephew Craig - a scoundrel with a heart of gold, and Mikey, a huge kid with a brain just as big. Every single character introduced fleshes out this world, making it feel more and more lived-in.
The diversity of Invincible Fight Girl extends beyond the screen too, as the cast of the series is filled with a wide array of talent. Sydney Mikayla – an award-winning actress - voices Andy, while Rolonda Watts of daytime television’s Rolonda plays Quesa Poblana. Other voice talents include Tony Baker [Immaculate], Anjali Kunapaneni [Bertie] and the legendary Keith David [Scouter/Narrator]. Invincible Fight Girl portrays its characters with the proper casting necessary for people of color (both experienced and novice) to all shine.
Invincible Fight Girl was created by Juston Gordon-Montgomery, an animation industry veteran who’s written for DC Superhero Girls and Netflix’s My Dad the Bounty Hunter. Invincible Fight Girl has been a passion project for him, one that he’d been working on as early as 2017, and went through many trials and tribulations before it was broadcast on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim in 2024.
While it is true that I didn’t watch Invincible Fight Girl while it was airing, I wasn’t unaware of it. I saw the series was announced as an HBO Max Original series back in 2022, but then things went radio silent. I didn’t hear about the series again until it was airing, and on Adult Swim of all places!
While the series does portray wrestling moves which in theory could be repeated, I don’t believe moving the series aimed at young adults to midnights on Saturdays was the right decision. This later timeslot led to fewer people seeing the show or even knowing about it at all.
Of course, Invincible Fight Girl’s fate was hampered by the ill-fated Warner Bros.-Discovery merger, a corporate move that destroyed many animated series, including Final Space and Close Enough, which were marked as tax write offs and thus deemed never to be accessible to the public again, save for less than legal options. The production of the series was at many times in limbo, with the team not knowing if they’d be shut down or not. Thankfully, despite any animation-hating executive’s best efforts, Invincible Fight Girl lived to see the light of day.
I’m just glad that, for now at least, Invincible Fight Girl remains on HBO Max. I can only hope that WB sees the value in preserving this series with a DVD or Blu-Ray set, so that this series can enjoy a more permanent spot on my shelf, and maybe even a second life with good physical media sales.
Of course, now that Warner Bros. itself is set to be devoured by either Netflix or Paramount, it’s entirely possible that Invincible Fight Girl could simply be lost in the shuffle, or worse, written off for taxes. As of writing this article in February 2026, no official declaration has been made on the fate of Invincible Fight Girl. It hasn’t been renewed, but it hasn’t been cancelled either, much like Genndy Tartakovsky’s Unicorn Warriors Eternal.
As a fan of the world that Juston Gordon-Montgomery has created, I can only hope that all this red tape isn’t a knockout, but merely just the start of a new round.
