Panty & Stocking: A Casual Perspective on Animated Garbage
An editorial by J. the "Screaming Soulcatcher"

Oh Gainax, what have you unleashed upon this world? Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt is what you created and it's by far one of the most appalling pieces of trash I've ever seen someone attempt to pass off as entertainment. And I don't mean by anime standards; I'm referring to any piece of media ever spawned. There are some episodes of Jersey Fucking Shore better than this.

This show becoming a major overnight success utterly baffles me. Well, considering the mindless drones that salivate over anything Gainax squats out, I guess it's not that surprising. But still, I'm absolutely appalled that so many people think that this series is a wonderful breath of fresh air with incredible humor. When I summon up the courage to watch this abomination, all I see is a poorly-produced timeslot filler full of toilet humor devoid of any real comedic worth, reference humor that wouldn't make it in a Friedberg and Seltzer movie, and way too damn much screen time focusing on two utterly unlikeable bitches we're supposed to fall in love with for their "edgy" personalities.

I wanted to cover this series not only because it's pretty much the worst show I've ever seen, but also because more people need to see just how awful the show really is. Also, I'm not going to pretend that I'm some grand wizard of anime knowledge. I'm a casual viewer of anime at best. I also want to make it clear that I'm not here to criticize the show solely for being full of raunchy toilet humor. Hell, there are times when I love shit like that. I laughed when I saw White Chicks for god's sake! I even watch Air Gear and Beater Angel Dokuro-Chan! So don't get the impression that I'm writing this for the sake of getting to act all high and mighty and look down on a show brimmed with toilet humor. The problem is the toilet is fucking broken. So let's take a look at all the rancid, stinking waste clogging up that toilet, shall we?
 

The Animation and Art Style

I am aware that Gainax has a really bad habit of spending way too much on a show early in production and then having to resort to cutting an obscene amount of corners to finish it. Evangelion is notorious for this, giving us one of the laziest endings animation-wise one could make. Gurren Lagann was slightly better when it came to balancing its animation budget but still had obvious signs of "Oh fuck, we ran out of cash! Quick! Get some migrant workers!" But Panty and Stocking is special. Because this is the point where the animators collectively said "Fuck this, we've drawn enough frames. Time to hit the bar."

The animation in P&S is TERRIBLE. Everything feels rushed and looks cheap. It literally looks like a bad fanime web series on Newgrounds. Watching this show, I feel like Chip and Ironicus should be snarking on it in the background. There are occasional moments scattered throughout the show when the team will create a fully-animated sequence or design some decent-looking effects (like the chase scene with the panty wearing ghost car... train thingy) but these rare gems of actual effort never reach a point where we as an audience should be wowed by them. Maybe this would be excusable if P&S was a new studio's first anime, but it's made by fucking Gainax and directed by the same guy who did Gurren Lagann!

But wait a minute! Could the shitnificent animation be intentional? It's because of the art style, right? The excuse often brought up by fans is that the animation is supposed to be primitive since it's meant to satirize the faux anime western animation boom of the early 2000s. The overall look of the characters in P&S are supposed to mock shows such as Powerpuff Girls, Totally Spies, and...some other show—I don't know, something about a beast teen and a Robin Titan person. Anyway, the point is just saying that the art style merits bad animation doesn't excuse the fact that your horrible anime has terrible, lazy animation! I could puke on you right now and call that a perfect analogy of Panty and Stocking, yet you're still gonna be pissed that I just threw up on you.

As utterly devoid of effort as the show's visuals are, the animators can't even keep the presentation bad in a consistent way. The level of detail in the props and environments the characters interact with seems to change from one episode to the next completely at random, the fact that they keep switching art styles during certain scenes seems desperate, like the director couldn't think of a better way to keep your attention. "See, look, they are in South Park art style now! See, aren't we awesome and mold-breaking? Haha! Look at the monster blow up! It's an actual model because we ran out of money! Please love us!"
 

The Characters

Every single character in this series is fucking awful. I haven't seen characters this thoroughly unlikeable since post-cancellation Family Guy.

Panty and Stocking have to be the most self-centered, egotistical, one-dimensional bitches in all of fiction. And yet, they're supposed to be fan service objects to all the otaku viewers out there (a fact made creepier when you consider one of the characters isn't even legal and the crappy art style makes them both look like children a lot of the time) Panty fucks everyone, Stocking eats, they both bitch at each other and make crude sex jokes. That is it! That's literally the unabridged description of the titular protagonists' personalities. I'm not expecting super-deep characters with fascinating back stories here, but there's so little to make them interesting as characters that, in the end, I just don't care about what happens to them. Actually, their bitching is so obnoxious that I hope they get mutilated in the worst possible ways at the end of every episode ala Aeon Flux (which, ironically enough, happens at the end credits of every episode to remind us that Gainax loves to play fucked up mindgames with their audiences). The show looks like it's aware that the main characters are utter assholes, but the issue is that we are still supposed to like them. Which is anything but easy. And when the writers do try to give Panty and Stocking some more depth late in the series, it turns out they're too flat to be taken seriously. Trying to build up their characters is like trying to build a skyscraper on top of an enormous pool of quicksand.

But there's more! We also got GIR— Er, I mean Chuck, the GIR ripoff! And I mean it is one blatant ripoff. You know it, I know it, my ancestors know it, people on other planets know it! But whereas GIR was slightly annoying yet strangely endearing due to certain spots of competence, Chuck is pure, unfiltered ANNOYING. It's like someone combined Jar Jar Binks and Scrappy Doo and ramped up the irritation factor to the point of being weaponized! It's no saving grace that the show kills him in various ways because he just keeps coming back to annoy us some more.

Then there's Garterbelt, the black, afro'd priest who acts as Panty's and Stocking's guardian/superior officer. At first I thought he would be the saving grace of this show, seeing as he looked cool, had a fairly talented voice actor, and didn't put up with the bullshit the two angels gave him all the time. But then they pulled the whole "Durr hurr, priests are gay pedophiles so Garterbelt is one too!" Predictably, this tired shtick ultimately ended up becoming the sole defining characteristic of his personality (because fuck quantity when you've got that kind of quality). Congrats guys, you ruined what could have been the only good character in this shit!

There's also Brief, who's a geek clad in a Ghostbusters jumpsuit and has the hots for Panty. I honestly don't know why since Panty has fucked a thousand guys (no joke—that's actually a major plot point an entire story arc hinges on); sticking your tackle in there must be like throwing a toothpick down an empty elevator shaft. Other than him being a ragdoll for Panty to beat on and becoming a plot device later on, he is pretty much useless.

Finally, we have the Demon Sisters known as Scanty and Kneesocks, our recurring villains who work for Corset, the Big Bad. S&K are, to be honest, the most tolerable factor in this whole damn series. They're the archetypical evil counterparts to P&S, but they actually acknowledge that they are in every way better than Panty and Stocking, which gets the show closest to real parody. Also, they have a much better transformation theme than the insufferable FLY AWAY NOW! FLY AWAY NOW! And hell, they even have a very cool (if a bit too homage-laden) fight scene which serves as the series' high mark. But then they get bumped down to bumbling Team Rocket-style villains. They also fall prey to the Gainax fan service curse where anything with a female body must be exploited for tacky T&A shots as frequently as possible, even if the art style makes said shots about as sexy as nude drawings of Hagar the Horrible characters.

I could ignore all this. I could ignore the bad animation, the awful characters and the asinine plot. I could ignore how cheap the show looks and feels, and the way it makes you believe the staff had Battle Royal collars strapped on that would kill them if they didn't finish the series by the third quarter. I could ignore the awful fanbase full of holier-than-thou otakus who think Neon Genesis Evangelion is the pinnacle of animation and constantly complain how I don't get the shows they love and make horrible crossover fan art of Panty and Stocking with my favorite shows and DAMN IT YOU FUCKING IDIOTS STOP RAPING THE SHOWS I LOVE! YOUR SHITTY FAN ART IS FUCKING HORRIBLE AND A WASTE OF TIME! GO OUT AND MEET A GIRL INSTEAD OF SWADDLING YOUR PANTY LOVE PILLOW AND...

Okay, deep breaths... Tree falling in the woods, tree falling in the woods...

Anyway, I could ignore all that. And hell, some of the music in the show is actually good (except for shit like Fly Away Now, Beverly Hills Cock, and that fucking Anarchy song). But there still remains one factor of Panty and Stocking that makes me despise the show with all the burning passion of a supernova.
 

The Humor

This show is like anti-humor. I feel my skull wanting to cave in just thinking about some of the "jokes" in this thing. I put sarcastic air quotes around jokes because there are barely any real jokes to speak of. The majority of intended humor comes from references! Dated references! My god, if Lucky Star is the anime equivalent of a Seltzerberg movie, Panty and Stocking is the equivalent of ThanksKilling! Overused clichés used perfectly straight (Look, Garterbelt's a gay pedophile priest! How topical!), punny names (Tom Cruise = Tom Croos. GENIUS!), toilet humor (Panty. Taking a shit. FUNNY!), and the worst offender, parody that doesn't parody anything! This was advertised as a parody of western cartoons, yet there's nothing that denotes that. The titles to the episodes give a punny name to a work they are satirizing, yet there's no parody for said work! Por ejemplo, there's an episode called "High School Nudsical". Your first thought is, "Okay, there's gonna be some making fun of High School Musical's music numbers, probably made more adult due to the show's setting." But nope! There's nothing like that. They get the high school and the nude part right, but the musical part is nonexistent. The parody is lost.

The only episode that even comes close to being an actual parody is Transwhormers (GAH!) and that's only because of certain scenes with the Non Autobots and Faux Decepticons. Also, this is the type of show that thinks swearing constitutes a joke. Just shouting "MOTHAFUCKAH!" or constantly talk about fucking guys isn't funny, it's a chore to watch. The show's ADHD also makes half the jokes hard to register (especially since the dub hasn't been released yet, meaning those of us who don't speak Japanese have to read subtitles that fly by a mile a minute). It makes the show a complete mess.

Some people have the audacity to say Panty and Stocking is the Japanese equivalent to South Park. Are you fucking kidding me?! Despite what you think of South Park, it may be crude and bogged down with toilet humor, but at least it's still grounded enough to offer some surrealistic humor and satire on current events. P&S just tries way too hard to be offensive, and ends up only offending your intelligence. It's like someone went through all the low points of Adam Sander's filmography, removed any legitimately funny bits that might have found their way in there, then made an anime around whatever foul-smelling chunks of filth were left.

In conclusion, I understand what Panty and Stocking set out to do. It wants to be a no-holds-barred, laugh-a-second show that tries to push the envelope and break the mold in a stagnating medium. But it utterly fails in every regard. The fact that so many people flocked to this series like a bunch of sheep shows how jaded the fans of Gainax are. They have viciously trolled their audience with this show, as you can see from the final episode and the Sanitary Box OVA. Yet they get rewarded for it. They brazenly lift up a middle finger and receives thunderous applause in return. It's sickening and one reason why I'm not a person who watches much anime. Because when the show hits stateside (and it will eventually since FUNimation picked up the license awhile back), it will undoubtedly get bigger than it already is. The American anime fandom will turn this into the next Haruhi or Naruto or whatever is popular these days. This type of shit will be the new standard for anime. And if the future of anime is poorly-animated Flash garbage, then this may very well be the dawn of a new dark age for the medium.

If you enjoy Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt unironically, I honestly pity you. Watch the show all you want, but let it be known that Gainax is fucking with you. Even a baka gajin anime illiterate nerd like me can see that.

Screaming Soulcatcher - 12/30/11