Over a decade after its initial run, Trigger is picking up the Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt anime for a sequel. But what separates this series from other anime? Two words: Unapologetic crudeness.
This series is streaming on Crunchyroll
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
Content warning: This column is rude, crude, lewd, and probably NSFW
Nick
Chris, I’d like to welcome you to the TWIA team. And as it’s somehow become a tradition for us to jump in new members with something horny that is tangentially related to their interests, I figure what better place to start than a show that gave us Fucky Transformers?
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.
Yep, somehow against all odds, the Half-Life 3 of anime sequels was announce a Trigger’s big Anime Expo panel. Which gave us a nice excuse to revisit that crew’s last big hurrah before they left Gainax from way back at the turn of the last decade.
And if any of our readers have never heard of this one, do not let the Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi aesthetic trick you. This column’s probably gonna need age gating for a very good reason.
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.
Seriously though, do not read this on your work’s wi-fi. Even the visualized sound effects are enough to get you called into HR.
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.
Yeah, so if you’re new to Hiroyuki Imaishi, or only know his work through (relatively) more restrained recent stuff like Promare, just know this show is essentially a distilled, concentrated shotgun blast of what defined his reputation among anime fans for a good long while. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is less a traditional television show and more an excuse for the rowdy house of Gainax to see how angry they could make TV censors. And the answer was Very.
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.
What followed was essentially the biggest remaining names at Gainax playing The Penis Game with their boss’ money. And while it’s not exactly aged perfectly, it’s undeniably a unique creation that could only come from these creators at that particular point in their careers.
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?
If I remembered anything about Invader Zim I would make a joke here, but the only part of that series still in my brain is just Gir saying “duty”. So here’s a giant turd instead of a punchline.
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.
I think by around episode five I’d started mentally calling it Nightcore South Park. It harkens to the early seasons of that show where they’d build entire episodes around “this is a talking piece of poop who speaks like a children’s mascot” and just riff on that, but PSG does that in half the time at twice the speed. Like literally the first half-episode it about the main characters fighting a poop ghost…