This Week in Anime

What's the Big Deal About Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt?

Chris
Turns out the crew that would go on to give us a whole series starring Transformers gijinkas knew exactly what I wanted even back in the ancient past of 2010.

Amazing that a show that seemed tailor-made for Adult Swim probably has enough content in its dialogue and action that it would have been too spicy to air on Adult Swim.

Meanwhile, we're combing through these episodes getting screenshots of the frames of those characteristic criminal captions specifically FOR work. This is a series that supposedly has over 400 swear words over the course of its script, and while I don't think we need to match that level in column form, readers will definitely be getting a taste of that salty language.

As well as a taste of salty...other things.

The story goes that Imaishi and his Funky Bunch went out after finishing up Gurren Lagann, getting a bunch of drinks to unwind. As you do, they started throwing out ideas for what their next series was going to be, coming up with the concepts of the main characters 'Panty' and 'Stocking', and just generally getting as rowdy and raunchy with their ideas as they could.

Imaishi's "Sex and Violence at Machspeed" approach to animated action has always driven his ability to just go hog-wild at putting his id on screen in projects, and it shows in Panty & Stocking's...unique kinds of content.

And the crew's love of western animation and comics comes through in the visual style. Do you get the idea that maybe the people who added this dog sidekick into the show enjoy the works of Jhonen Vasquez?

Which...pretty much sums up the effectiveness of the 'humor' part of PSG's sense of humor, in my opinion. Even back in 2010, when a younger, more-easily-amused me got totally sucked into the show, I never really thought it was especially funny. This is a show that basically has one joke, and that joke is "What looks like a mid-2000's Cartoon Network production has a bunch of swearing and boning."

It's an approach that effectively leaves you with the early spectacle of something like South Park (which the crew at Gainax were also noticeable fans of) but without any of the attempts at satire, and even beyond the parts that have since aged poorly, never made for the laugh-a-minute content it was so clearly shooting for.

Truth be told I always kind of admired the show for opening by making extremely clear where the bar was as you were walking into this.

And it even works to highlight how full-throatily they're committing to the 'American Cartoon' parody, episodes being made up of two half-length shorts, complete with title cards like you'd expect from Ren & Stimpy and the like.

Making pole-dancing transformation sequences cool nearly a decade before Kirika Akatsuki would cop that style. And I think that transformation sequence, coming as it does at the climax of that first episode, is where the true strengths of Panty & Stocking become apparent, apart from its attempts at scatological humor. The real entertainment value here, for me anyway, is watching Gainax's freshest animators and directors just cut loose stylistically at coming up with an extended Teddyloid music video.

Whether it's Gainax or Trigger, it all comes back to tokusatsu effects somehow.

I'm not sure how I feel about the woman behind a celebrated BL entry like Yuri on Ice being the one who gave us the episode that starts the running gag about Garterbelt hitting on Brief, but it sure is something.

For real though, on rewatch here I was immensely grateful for those episode credits, since it contributed to that kinda-sorta anthology aspect you referenced, and let me view it looking forward to what I knew these names would end up creating afterwards.

Like even in this speedrun shitpost form, you can pick up on Imaishi prototyping ideas he'd use to drive Kill la Kill.


And as mentioned at the start of this column, of course Akira Amemiya's contribution is just an extended Transformers riff.

A lot of that's definitely down to the show's pursuit of shock value, I think. Openly promiscuous heroines are a rarity in both anime and the kinds of cartoons this series is parodying, so as with so much of that up-front statement of intent, having the girls be so unabashedly sexual is part of the whole subversion. But that frankness actually ends up being one of the most refreshing things about the show!

It's not even a joke purely at the expense of fucking around being Panty's thing, as the show makes clear regularly that Stocking also has a consistent sex life, if not as non-stop as her sister's.

Well then it's a good thing that right after that, they brought in a ringer!

This episode is an absolute trip the first time you get to it. Even without knowing who made it, it works as basically an Opposite Day entry to everything else about Panty & Stocking. It's quiet, it's contemplative, and it focuses on a humble, old, barely-hanging-in-there office worker instead of those loud angels who think they're Queen Bitches of Shit Mountain.

And then when Panty and Stocking DO come in at the end, their contrast against the Kobayashi characters just makes their style stick out even more amusingly.

All that while still sticking to the show's overall theme of focusing on some sort of bodily excrement.

Oh yeah, that gag was one the few get a genuine laugh out of me in this show's run. Then again, that whole episode's one of my favorites, being another of the more 'experimental' ones— In this case 'filmed' as a single, continuous shot of Panty and Stocking sitting in a room, BS-ing with each other and bitching about being hungry.

That episode makes me so mad, because it shouldn't work half as well as it does. On paper it's an extended return to the show's well of poop jokes and other gross-out humor. And sure, there is something funny about Stocking's indecipherable taste in men prompting her to go Full Anime for an outing.

Right? But then it comes around to being one of the few instances in the series where we see Panty actually caring for her sister as, well, a sister. And mixed with the unconventional resolution of this horrible shit-ghost-man's existence, turns into a very strangely affecting poop-star-crossed-lovers story.

Honestly, my favorite part of that bit is how few fucks it gives about the setup. Like you think there's going to be a whole story to Panty and Stocking getting shrunk down, but then no, it just opens up with them having fallen prey to another trick by the Demon Sisters and needing to wait for it to wear off while Brief messes with them in their tiny state. "I'm so fucked up."

The second part of that animated by my old friends at Sanzigen, even! Though this is about as far away from my beloved BanG Dream as is physically possible.

And speaking of evil counterparts, oh right, we haven't actually talked about the Demon Sisters yet!

Oh I absolutely feel the same. Just to begin with, I think if you're going to watch any one episode to get an idea of what's coolest about the overall energy of PSG, it should be the sixth episode, the debut for these two. It's a double-length entry where the second half is one of the very few places where the animated action of the show really cuts loose. There's still a ton of toilet humor in-between everything (and even figuring prominently into the fights), but then you're watching two giant Humvees race up the side of the school in some pastel-shaded CGI prototype of Promare's absurd action, and suddenly the fact that it's not that funny doesn't matter any more.

But then yeah, bringing in Scanty and Kneesocks and their dedication to RUUUULES finally gives a more effective sounding board for the Anarchy of the Anarchy Sisters to bounce off of, selling their...chaotic appeal a bit better.

For Teddyloid as an excuse to make more banger EDM songs, that's who.

Again, I wonder if we'll ever be able to figure out the sorts of works that influenced Imaishi and crew on this.

I could never keep up with you on music references, so my closest equivalent was being someone who was also way too into Jhonen Vasquez comics in the 2000's recognizing the Slave Labor Graphics logo on Panty's shirt here.

This show is so 2000's in so many ways, for better, and for worse.

I mean, the question of how much they actually planned, all the way up to that infamous final stinger, is always going to be at odds with how freewheelingly stream-of-consciousness each entry feels. The idea that they can even prompt people to concoct 'theories' around a show that cartoonishly spit in the face of 'continuity' until that final storyline is a testament to Imaishi and the gang's dedication to screwing with the audience.

It's an element that lines up with those occasional out-of-sorts episodes we already mentioned, and continues through the show providing a strength to it: Even if you aren't really vibing with its sense of humor, it continues to get by on that chaotic question of never knowing what's coming next, even right up to the literal last second.

This is the show that introduces an obligatory Panty simp as a recurring character in the second episode, only to take me aback in the second-to-last episode with an "Oh no, he's hooooot!" reveal that should have been easy to see coming.

I'd completely forgotten about that parody by the time I got there for this rewatch, only to spit-take the instant that title card came on.

Nobody told Imaishi 'No', and that's why he was able to walk out and take all his pals with him shortly after this.

If I had a nickel for every time in this final episode Brief's dick unlocked a previously-sealed biblical power, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it is weird that it happened twice.

What's the opposite of the chastity-powered magic from Maria The Virgin Witch?

That's another one of those inexplicable swerves I'm totally on-board for. So many other stories make their characters losing their virginity into a major shake-up. Only Panty & Stocking could set up its final conflict around a previously-promiscuous lead regaining her virginity. Somehow.

I legit love the message she gets from the (fake) dying granny earlier in the episode that leads up to this. It takes the 'Girls as embodiments of emotions and feelings' idea that shallowly powers so many actual femininity-focused cartoons (western and otherwise), and turns it into an argument for doing what you want with no compunctions instead.


Like with the episode about Stocking's inexplicable taste in men, it's that unexpected swerve into the unironic and genuine that makes it stick out from all the rest of the show's more basic indulgences.

Dude spent the entire season sheepishly hoping he could get into Panty's panties, and then in place of pillow talk she lets him plummet schlong-first into unzipping Satan's giant fly.

I mean, the series ends with him set to get another piece of that.

Or 666 pieces, as it were.

Honestly, I wasn't even mad, personally, the first time I watched it. Gainax wasn't exactly not known for trolling the shit out of their viewers in these days. And for the kind of series that PSG had (mostly) been up to this point, it felt like the perfect "What the fuck?!" escalation to end things on. Everyone's reactions to it just made it all the more worth it.

Aw, those guys even managed to botch the obvious raunchy pun!

That was the big question I was approaching this from, this being a rewatch of the series for myself: How well does Panty & Stocking hold up? As said, a lot of the jokes that weren't great to begin with have aged into being worse, and there's concern over how they could move past or double-down on those. As a big fan of Studio Trigger these days, I'm excited to see that second season as an illustration of just how much they've grown after all this time. In terms of both talent and taste.

But for all the parts that made me cringe in recognition of what boundaries I thought were acceptable in 2010 (surely the subtitles for the new project will have less slurs in them), I was happy to find that all the parts I remembered being good about PSG still held up.

In that respect, I think if you missed this show the first time, or it was before your time (because again, twelve years), and the shockwaves of that announcement got you curious, it's at least worth going back and giving a look to see what all the hubbub is about. Even as I recognize that its...proclivities are going to cause a lot of people to just bounce right off of it.