When I was 12 years old, I saw an animation on Flipnote Hatena that featured a song I thought was really cool. The person who made the Flipnote didn’t name the song in the description because it was “too inappropriate for Hatena”, yet they left a YouTube link to the song anyway. I painstakingly typed the link into the search bar because I didn’t know what copy-and-paste was, and I learned the song was “Fly Away” from Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. 

There was some art of the titular characters in the YouTube upload, and I remember being confused over what the girls were doing. One was pulling off her sock-looking things, and the other was pulling something down her legs. I also didn’t know what a “panty” or “garterbelt” was, though I knew what stockings were because of Christmas. I looked up the name of the show on Wikipedia and decided to read the plot synopsis. The second I saw the word “sex”, I closed the tab and walked away. I knew this wasn’t something a good Christian boy should read through. 

…Then I came back a week or so later, and let my curiosity get the best of me. Reading past the icky “sex” word, what I was reading seemed pretty cool. I learned that Panty was able to turn her underwear into a gun, which I read as a cool SpongeBob-tier bit instead of something sexual. I also learned that she can use men’s underwear too, but the power of the weapon depends on the size of the wearer’s pe-….and then I closed the tab again. Then I kept coming back, looking through the plot synopsis, carefully scouring the Fandom Wiki page for character designs, and checking out more of the soundtrack. Something about this show fascinated me, but my own fear of what I considered sin prevented me from truly diving into what this show really was.

It wasn’t until I was around 17 or 18 that YouTube recommended a full episode of PSG. The thumbnail showed the girls wearing Playboy bunny outfits, and since I knew what “sex” was by this point in my life, I thought to myself, “Eh, why not? I’m already going through enough in my life anyway”. 

That episode didn’t start with them wearing bunny suits. The episode started with a Transformers parody titled “Trans-homers”, with characters like “Cocktimus Prime” and “Mingeatron”. Needless to say, something horrifically vulgar to 12-year-old me was an instance of evil genius to 17-year-old me. 

It was also the episode that featured this clip: 

This clip made me who I am today. The camera movements, the frantic energy, the fact that they looked like a wheel, everything about this clip stood out to me as something special. Before this point, I had never seen anything like this before in my life, and I started searching for more stuff like this ever since. I finally watched PSG in full, then I went on to watch Gurren Lagann, then Kill La Kill, then FLCL, and so on. As much as I try to deny it, Panty and Stocking has been an important touchstone in my life, and has shaped my tastes in art and music for years to come. When Season 2 was announced two years ago, over a decade after the Season 1 cliffhanger, I was ecstatic, happy even. I was finally getting closure for something I loved after so long. 

…Oh right, I almost forgot to write about Season 2!

New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is everything I ever wanted and more. In pure PSG fashion, the cliffhanger ending of Season 1 was resolved in the first episode of NPSG to reset to the status quo. It was no slouch of a first episode, either; it was incredible. The action was equal parts slapstick and badass. The humor wasn’t just raunchy for the sake of being raunchy, but the jokes were actually GREAT. I’ve never screamed “SHUT THE F**K UP” so many times in a row during this episode, let alone with such love in my heart. 

Past the first episode, NPSG became the crackhead equivalent of the Japan Animator’s Expo, showing off the talents of multiple talented artists through shorts that don’t even last 15 minutes. Every episode is a display of creativity that shows off what the Trigger team is fully capable of. The series has spoofs for Fast & the Furious, Jack Kirby-style comic books, B-Horror movies, and even Conan the Barbarian, and all of these raunchy parodies are executed beautifully with stunning animation and hilarious comedic timing. It’s clear Imaishi and his team have a strong respect for Western pop culture, poking fun at these tropes out of love instead of disdain. I always loved how Trigger’s staff is equal parts talented and nerdy, and it's that energy that reminded me why I even started watching anime in the first place. 

I never thought I would say this, but the series has matured in this second season. Not entirely, obviously, there are still multiple episode titles where the word “bitch” is shoehorned in. I’m specifically referring to two things when I mean maturity. 

The first sign of maturity is the reduction in pure gross-out humor. Season 1’s humor was dirtiness for the sake of dirtiness, and I clearly remember there being at least four episodes based on bodily excrement (poop, semen, boogers, and vomit, in that order). Season 2 is still raunchy, but it works alongside the humor of the series, where the punchline is less “gross thing” and more “funny thing + gross thing”. It’s more raunch dressing than the whole raunch meal. 

The second sign of maturity is the development of character and interactions. Panty and Stocking are still (as the show calls them) bitches, but this season shows them gaining respect for the people around them, learning to love even the demon sisters, Scanty and Kneesocks (in their own way). One of my favorite episodes is "Six Hundred Sixty Six Candles", which not only expanded on Scanty and Kneesocks’ sisterly bond, but also revealed Panty's supportive side by helping Kneesocks get ready for prom while Scanty was away. It was adorable to see those two slow dance with each other on the dance floor. There is a clear love for these characters that goes beyond their role as comedic devices, something that works wonders near the season finale.

You know what’s the craziest part about all this? NPSG ends on another cliffhanger, and it doesn’t suck this time. Season 1 ended with clear intentions of a sequel, adding more loose ends rather than tying up old ones. This resulted in an excruciating 15 years due to Imaishi and company moving to Studio Trigger, losing the rights to PSG to Gainax. I don’t want to spoil the ending of NPSG (obviously), but the epilogue manages to work as a proper ending to the season while encouraging future adventures. It made me so happy that I would be glad whether or not the series continues past this point (I still don’t trust the “to be continued” sign at the end). 

So, what are the underlying themes of New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt that made me want to write over a thousand words to gush about it? Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't believe art needs a concrete reason to exist. Art just needs to be created. That's why I love this season so much. It's just artists taking whatever wacky idea they came up with that day, and developing the heck out of it into a proper five-to-eleven-minute short. It's creation for the joy of creation's sake.

As raunchy as NPSG is, it is a testament to artistic vision when it's unshackled by convention. It doesn't just wear its influences on its sleeve, but wears them like a cape, then streaks through the hallways naked. It is shameless, yet it is free.