This piece is on the original 2010 season by Studio Gainax, not the second season by Studio Trigger

Spoilers for Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

I think I'm getting old.

I think if I had seen Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt when it aired back in 2010 when I was thirteen, it would have been my favorite show ever. Despite the fact that the show is explicitly explicit and an "adult" animation, I feel like the primary demographic for this show is nerdy adolescents who find great amusement from rampant vulgarity and sexual references. It's juvenile sense of humor that comes form the escapades of a nymphomaniac and her glutton sister turning their lingerie into cool weapons to fight poopie and spermazoa monsters while making pop cultural references is the kind of thing that would have really been up my alley during that time period when I was consuming edgelord Newgrounds animations and angry video game reviews. I kinda feel like I missed out, because it's not 2010 anymore and I'm not thirteen.

Watching the original season of Panty and Stocking in 2025 at the retirement age of twenty-seven, the show's omnipresent immaturity is something that I find...neutral. The constant crudeness and borderline pornographic material did not make me laugh, but it doesn't really offend my sensibilities either. If anything I was mildly disappointed that it didn't offend me; the reputation that preceded it made me feel like it was going to challenge me a bit more. Perhaps spending a lifetime in less-than-savory online circles has dulled my senses somewhat. I think now that I've become jaded, cynical, and wrinkly, Panty and Stocking's irreverent attitude just doesn't tickle me the way it might have once would.

As an aside, I will mention that I watched the sub of Panty and Stocking, but I did see a couple of the dubbed verisons of those episodes. The dub is really loosey goosey with the script and a lot more prolific with its use of swears and curses; it feels like they're really trying to jam as many expletives in each line as they can. Its possible that the show doesn't feel as raunchy to me because I wasn't experiencing it the way it would have been viewed by more mainstream western audiences. The dub matches the tone they're going for with flying colors, that's for sure.

I don't mean to say that I'm above these kinds of shows; a good joke is a good joke. I even have a little admiration for the amines dedication in going above and beyond to be crass, and it did keep my morbid curiosity engaged to see what ridiculous thing they'd come up with next episode. On the whole though, I think that the main draw of Panty and Stocking didn't really do anything for me one way or the other. Instead, I found myself appreciating more technical aspects of the show.

Panty and Stocking is a Studio Gainax joint (R.I.P), and that becomes pretty apparent pretty quickly. A little while back when I reviewed FLCL, I went a little overboard calling the Gainax team major dorks, but man if that is not even more present in Panty and Stocking. There are constant references to films, anime, video games, TV shows, and music seemingly simply for the reason that the people working on the project just like those things. These often extend well beyond simple cameos and into full episode plotlines (i.e. The Night of the Living Dead and Transformers Episodes). I'm also a dork, so I rather like that the anime shows its inspirations and interests on its sleeve, as is proud enough of itself to just dump them all in there. It does also make me want to shove them in a locker though.

As also stated in the _FLCL _review, Gainax also very clearly love animation as an art form, so the show stretches itself a lot. While the standard style of Panty and Stocking is a colorful and simplistic. and almost cheap-looking form resembling a mix of Dexter's Lab and Fairly OddParents, the show often experiments and changing its animation style entirely on the spot for the sake of a gag. I decided to check the show out after seeing some clips of the currently airing revival season where it imitates a Hanna-Barbera esque Spiderman sequence, and I was glad that it was neither a one-off bit or exclusive to the second season.

I know I said previously that Panty and Stocking didn't really make me laugh, but in my experience its hard to get me to laugh in general, so I tend to give comedies the benefit of the doubt pretty frequently; if it make me smile that's good enough. The comedy that I appreciated the most form the anime was not Panty's sexual encounter, the ubiquitous sailor mouths (though hearing Japanese VA's trying to pronounce BITCH is pretty amusing), or the fecal fun. I found myself more enjoying the back and forth retorts between Panty and Stocking, the expressiveness and visual gags of the animation, and the cleverness in which the show sometimes plays into its own absurdity. The bit of blowing up a clay-figure of the villains is pretty classic. I actually do enjoy the main cast and their character dynamics, but I guess what I would say is that I like Panty more for her personality as an irresponsible ne'er-do-well character and how that can lead to funny situations rather than the sex and gross-out humor its channeled through.

I don't really think Panty and Stocking is a show that is demanding thematic or intellectual interpretation, but let's indulge anyway. One of the reasons this show feels like it's made for teenagers to me is that it kind of engages in a vague kind of anti-authoritarianism that's more focused on being able to express individuality and breaking from societal traditions rather than say, anti-government activism (though I suppose the end villain is the mayor). You know, that kind of "fuck the man" and "parents just don't understand" energy you'd see in skateboard movies. Despite being angels, Panty and Stocking represent ideas of sin and anarchy, the latter literally being their last name. This is contrasted with the Demon Sisters, effectively clones of the pair that are also sinful, but put on a a veneer or refinement and adherence to "rules". The failure of the angels to live up to heavenly standards is readily apparent and much remarked upon, but they are still the "heroes" because while they are sinners, their hedonistic actions are without shame; they live for their desires unconstrained by societal expectations of decency, which is something of a meta-statement on the anime and Studio Gainax itself. Panty and Stocking and by extension Gainax, is incredibly horny, prone to geeking out, excessively crude, vulgar and stupid and they will not be shamed for it. They are proud and righteous for pursuing their interests and being who they are regardless of the world around them. It's really dumb, but the climax (haha) of the anime comes (hehe) with Panty saving the city by regaining her powers through sexual intercourse after she was rejected by heaven for her promiscuousness, and what a more classic and high authority to rebel against than God himself?

As established, some of the humor in Panty and Stocking fell flat for me and some of it really worked, but the only parts of the show I genuinely felt iffy about were some of the scenes with Brief and Garterbelt. Brief is the butt of a lot of jokes, which is fine; a well meaning kid who is always punished for trying to do good deeds is a tried and true setup for comedy. Because he's a kid though, he's also the source of some of the show's pedophilic undertones. Garterbelt's design is kind of interesting and harkens back to blacksploitation media, but he and other black characters have those big lips resembling racist caricatures. Normally I would chalk this up to the show trying to push yet another boundary and taboo but because of Japan's questionable history with race representation and underage sex in anime, it's hard to know how much of this is really a joke, and it mostly comes off as awkward for me.

I could mention some interesting tid-bits like the out-of-pocket Chuck episode that ends with a music video for a song that sounds weirdly AI-generated for something made before that was possible to the origin story of the anime being devised as a joke after the production of Gurren Lagen, or the absolutely banging but tonally inconsistent ED for the show, but I think ultimately, you'll be able to tell if you're going to like Panty and Stocking from episode one. If you're into these kinds of shows and willing to go along with the irreverence, proud coarseness, and borderline pornographic nature of the series, you're gonna be in for a really great time. If not, there's still some great animation and fun gags that supersede that attitude, but it might be a bit much. Proceed forward if you think you have the stomach for it.

Speaking of which, I guess I'll conclude here by talking about my favorite episode from the series, "Vomiting Point". Its kind of emblematic of my generally positive but mixed feelings on Panty and Stocking. The animation in this episode is a radical departure from the norm; instead of the simplistic and cartoony style of the series writ large its detailed, the colors are drab, and the characters are intentionally disgusting to look at. It follows Terao, a completely unrelated character from the rest of the series, a old salary man who can't seem to do anything right at work. You really come to feel bad for the guy as he's berated by his boss and co-workers when he's just a poor old man trying to do his best for his family. That abuse eventually manifests in a ghost/monster of vomit, ostensibly the result of him drinking a beer tower but metaphorically representing the repressed pain he's feeling pouring out. Panty and Stocking save the day (in a completely different animation style) and think very little of it, if anything being kind of annoyed by the whole thing. Terao's daughter is a fan and wants to meet the girls, but expectedly they blow off Terao's request. The ending is bittersweet, with Terao managing to get an autograph for his daughter, a truly unexpectedly cute moment for this series, but still ending up being berated by his boss. I also really liked the bottle episode where the gang all just hangs out in one room for the whole episode. It was kind of nice to cut away from the action for a bit and just have some fun character back and forths there.

I did enjoy my time with Panty and Stocking, but I am left wondering what it says about me and my relation to it that my favorite parts were the things that deviated from the anime's status quo. I don't know. I think I'm getting old. I might just not be the target demographic for this anymore. I'll be sure to check out the revival season when it finishes airing though.