As it is with every year, the last stretch of 2024 has featured some last-minute highs. Earlier this year, TV audiences raved over the likes of Arcane, X-Men ’97, and Dan Da Dan, and have spent the weeks since their respective conclusions anticipating what’s next. But in the here and now, we’ve got a pair of cartoons that are both well worth putting some time into as the year winds down.
The first is Invincible Fight Girl, announced back in 2022 and whose just-wrapped first season started in October on Max/Adult Swim. The story sees a kid named Andy embark on a quest to become a legendary wrestler, which involves moving to a big city full of wrestlers and brushing shoulders with a number of ex-pros, could’ve beens, and aspiring talent as she works to become the very best that no one ever was. If this sounds familiar, that’s clearly intentional, as the show has shonen anime—and My Hero Academia in particular—fully embedded in its DNA. Whether you’re a diehard My Hero fan or only know of it through reputation, you will likely see shades of Deku’s story in this show, either through its music or watching Andy leave her island home of accountants to become a pupil of her now-retired childhood wrestling idol Quesa Poblana.
But much like how it was fun seeing the world of superheroes through Deku’s eyes, the same is true of Andy and her world. Invincible Fight Girl loves wrestling to a degree that it can’t help but be infectious and charming as Andy and her friends—Craig, an opportunistic hustler, and the very buff eight-year-old aspiring journalist Mikey—show how the world has been shaped by wrestling as the dominant culture, and provide some interesting nuance into what that looks like for all walks of life. Creator Juston Gordon-Montgomery’s affection for the sport comes through at all times, whether it’s the variety of (very good) stage names each character has, or how outdoor matches begin with satellites airdropping wrestling rings from space. Wrestling and boxing have provided the biggest, most theatrical stages for sports stories to play out, and Invincible Fight Girl found a sweet spot blending wrestling’s theatricality with the melodramatics typically found in shonen stories and their famous tournament arcs.
There’s a similarly successful fusion of teen melodrama and the supernatural in Echo Wu’s Netflix series, Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld. Like with Invincible Fight Girl, it’ll sound like you’ve heard this one before: the titular Jentry has just turned 16 as the show starts and finds herself reawakening fire powers she previously repressed, and she’s forced into heroism when her great-aunt Gugu brings Jentry back to her childhood home to protect her from a murderous demon. The shadow of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has loomed large over supernatural TV for years, and Jentry hits many familiar beats. Love triangles, elders who aren’t what they seem, you’ve seen this plenty of times before.
What ultimately makes Jentry work is in how confidently it carries itself; its opening is a flashy K-pop track that makes clear it wants the audience to have a good time as Jentry and her friends go through one harrowing situation after the other. Said situations often escalate to the point of supernatural chaos, and that Jentry’s more upfront with its horror from the outset rather than building to it over time is a pleasant surprise. At times, its playful (but still a bit messed-up) scares feel reminiscent of Adventure Time or even Billy & Mandy, particularly when the fights kick in or the supernatural elements are being used to inform the very good cast of characters, like Gugu and Jentry’s two love interests, her childhood friend Michael and pretty boy Kit.
Coming so late in the year, Jentry and Invincible Fight Girl can’t help but be viewed as scrappy upstarts. They’re both cut from the same cloth, but the material’s used in different ways: Invincible is literally an underdog story that puts Andy through the wringer, mostly physically. She really does live up to the show’s title as she endures several beatings by much more experienced opponents, only to get back up and dish it right back in what makes for some of the nicest, crunchiest animated action of the year. For the most part, things are lighthearted enough to play for the all-ages crowd, though it does occasionally flirt with heavier themes toward its second half. Those moments reverberate back to its wrestlers as they become reinvigorated to get back into the fight and give it their all, same as tales of shonen past. Any full exploration of this world’s darker side of wrestling seems to be understandably saved for future seasons.
Conversely, Jentry feels more pitched toward a slightly older crowd. It’s no stranger to some very impressive fights and consistent humor, but its strongest moments come when characters are forced to confront dark truths or unpack their own baggage, often with a crowd watching attentively. So much of the show is informed by Wu growing up as a second generation Chinese American teen in Texas, made apparent in an episode about Jentry’s class becoming possessed by racist ghosts from the Alamo, or the show’s brief exploration of Michael living as a second-gen Nigerian American. The show’s not all about the immigrant experience, but that and its southern setting give it a considerably different energy than if it were set on the coast, and the town eventually feels like the real place it needs to be for Jentry to want to have a normal life here and not have her powers discovered.
Whether you’re in the mood to see a teenage pyrokinetic grapple with Chinese mythology and her family upbringing or a girl fight a gang of wrestlers with perms, Jentry Chau and Invincible Fight Girl are each well worth the watch. Both shows clearly had a lot of thought put into them by their respective creators, and you can tell Gordon-Montgomery and Wu gave everything they had and then some. (Jentry especially carries the well-intentioned energy of something that would work perfectly fine as a film, but gets more room to breathe and just be as a 13-episode series.) It’s a shame they’ve come near the end of the year, as it feels like they’d have gotten more attention months prior. But here’s hoping things work out in Andy and Jentry’s favors, and we get more adventures with them both very soon.
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