Panty and Stocking (with Garterbelt) - Japan's Answer to The Adult Swim

Panty and Stocking (with Garterbelt) is a comedic endeavour brought to us by Gainax, the monsters who gave us Neon Genesis Evangelion who then completely redeemed themselves by giving us Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. This time Gainax gets away from the super robot franchise and try their hand at something new; something completely new.

The premise of Panty and Stocking is that two angels (Panty and Stocking) have been kicked out of heaven for their bad behavior. They have been sent to earth to fight ghosts in order to redeem themselves, and they are equipped with holy garments (panties and stockings) that transform into their weapons. Panty is the elder of the two sisters, she is obsessed with sex and her panties transform into a gun of white holy light. Stocking is the younger angel, she is obsessed with sweets, and her stockings transform into swords of white holy light. They get their instructions from Garterbelt, a black priest sprouting a huge afro that functions as Bosley did for Charlie’s Angels, which is an apt comparison I believe. The concept is radical and it works, more on that in a moment.

An art style likely inspired by The Power Puff Girls.

A friend of my described Panty and Stocking as “The Power Puff Girls grown up” and given the art style of simplistic/basic details on all things and the excessive sexual content I would have to agree. The art style of Panty and Stocking is most likely inspired by The Power Puff girls, and the subject matter is far too mature for any ordinary kids cartoon. I use the term “mature” to describe the subject matter in the most liberal way possible, because topics like sex, violence, and more sex are things we typically associate with adults, however the excess use/abuse of bodily functions as plot points and villains, and the overzealous nature of everything sleazy and nasty about the show leads us away from anything “mature.” This is not a criticism, Panty and Stocking is a comedy, so it is allowed to be as obnoxious as it wants, but it is important to indentify the correct use of the word “mature” when talking about this show.

While the Power Puff girl analogy works very well, I feel the need to describe Panty and Stocking as “Japan has made their own adult swim cartoon” and the more and more I think about it Panty and Stocking does feel an awful lot like what would happen if Aqua Teen Hunger Force was combined with The Power Puff Girls. Here is the thing, when creating Panty and Stocking Gainax had the goal of making a show they thought Americans would like, which I believe explains a lot. There is a very strong American influence on Panty and Stocking, the obvious influences from the Adult Swim line up and Power Puff Girls aside, there are countless references made in the show that Americans are sure to get; there are references to Ghost Busters, Transformers, and South Park just to name a few. Tom Cruise is written into one of the story lines. The black machismo of Garterbelt is something American viewing audiences have loved for years and Japan is only beginning to appreciate. The whole show feels American, so much so, I thought after watching the first few episodes in English dub that this must have been made by Americans with a Japan influence on the art style and not the other way around, but sure enough this is the work of the Japanese. Needless to say when they dubbed Panty and Stocking it localized itself well.

Panty "transforms" into a Optimus Prime/Rodimus Prime parody.
Stocking "transforms" into a Megatron parody.  Sure why not?

The really impressive thing about Panty and Stocking is the humour. Yes... a lot of the gags in Panty and Stocking are about boogers, poop, jizz, and other childish shit, but not all of it. There is an episode where Panty and Stocking spend the entire ten minutes sitting on a coach talking about sex and sweets and how hungry they are waiting for Garterbelt to prepare dinner that is very reminiscent of the episode of Seinfeld where they spent the entire episode waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant. Not only is subtly referencing Seinfeld an awesome thing to do just in principal, but it speaks volumes about how Japan has grown in regards to their sense of humour.

This young girl is clumsy
so we get to see her panties a lot.
That's the joke.

I have always been very critical of Japan’s sense of humour. My kid brother once described the Japanese sense of humour as “robots trying to recreate comedy,” it is like they know humour exists and what is expected but they don’t understand it at all. I have sat through one too many shows where the joke, set up and punch line is just “sex exists.”

Here is the thing, making a reference to something without context or reason is not funny! Sex is real, we know, being reminded of its existence is not a joke nor is it some kind of get out of jail free card in comedy.

But to be fair I have enjoyed many comedic moments given to us from Japan. The eccentric antics of Vash the Stampede from Trigun and Kamina from Gurren Lagann always made me laugh. The quiet smart ass moments Spike and Jet shared in Cowboy Bebop were priceless. In Code Geass I laughed my ass off when Diethard, while discussing Zero, proclaimed “I want to see your ego shallow the world!” Because you thought it might.

So yes, Japan can be funny, but you’ll notice a singular commonality with all my examples of good comedy, they were all character based humour. We laugh are characters like Vash and Kamina because we are quickly familiarized with their over the top personalities and we enjoy seeing how they react to certain awkward, unfamiliar, or even ordinary situations. The same goes with Cowboy Bebop’s cast there is a great deal of depth in the characters and because they don’t see eye to eye all that often and because they are actually at ends with each other sometimes there is wit sprouted out from all directions from all parties involved and here is the really important thing, we like these characters and we are made aware of their strengths and flaws so when they butt heads, even politely, we get it and as a result there is a set up (established personalities) and a pay off (appropriate infighting) and a joke is born.

Several years ago I used to live with my big brother Sean.  At that time I used to cook a lot of bell peppers and beef on rice, because it was cheap.  We also watched a lot of Cowboy Bebop back then.  These two things were mutually exclusive, however Sean being a primary meat eater used to always say we need more beef, less bell pepper.  He would talk like Spike I would talk like Jet and we would have a good laugh.  It is almost like Spike and Jet are human beings we can relate too so their troubles feel like our troubles.  Their comedic moments are our comedic moments.

We as an audience don’t care about random sex objects or zero dimensional characters so seeing them react to the same situations is not funny, or as it tends to be the case seeing non-characters react to preposterous situation is also not funny, because if you are going to have absurd situations take place you need an absurd premise otherwise the suspension of disbelief removes the audience from the situation and therefore removes them from the joke. So many anime are often guilty of failing to accomplish either and as a consequence they fail twice over to be funny.

"Because the future. Shut up."

One of the charms of a show like Aqua Teen Hunger Force is that it accomplishes both. The show about a giant walking talking meal from a fast food restaurant may on the surface appear to be a trashy idiotic show, and maybe it is, however it does have rich personalities from all of its four primary characters, and once you become familiar with those characters the show begins to really grow on you. Furthermore Aqua Teen Hunger Force has an absurd premise so when absurd situations arrive you don’t question them. Another example of a preset premise which allows an extreme suspension of disbelief from the viewers is Futurama, when impossible things happen in Futurama you don’t question it because it’s the future. Likewise when ridiculous things happen in Aqua Teen Hunger Force you don’t question it because they live in a world of talking food items and various other mythical and magical beings.

Unlike the overwhelming majority of sexualized characters in anime Panty and Stocking somehow manage to be characters, actual characters. Even something as simple as, one loves sex, the other loves sweets, gives us personality traits we can hook onto, but there is much more than that. Both are irresponsible selfish young women (women not girls) but they are very different from one another.

Panty is an attention seeking egoist. She is bold, brave, outspoken, stubborn and proudly obnoxious. Panty is a believable badass because she has the powers and the personality to back it up. Also she is a woman, not some little girl, unlike almost every other anime “slut” this slutty girl actually qualifies as a slut, as in, Panty actually has sex with men during the course of the series and does not feint or become weak when in the presence of a man. Even though she is clearly an intended walking joke she still comes off like ten times the woman of most female characters in anime. Panty is a likable character and we cannot help but root for this bitchy angel.

When Panty temporarily loses her powers, Garterbelt tells her
"You are no longer a bitchy angel.  Now you are just a bitch!"
This is a actual joke.  I laughed.  Good work.

Stocking has to be a fan favourite. She is the younger “sweeter” sister to the slutty Panty. She also has the bigger bust, is into bondage and is a bit of a goth girl, all those things, nerds loves all those things, and we all know nerds love anime too, so following the math I strongly suspect nerds love Stocking. In the classic red nose and white face theory of comedy, Stocking is allowed to serve as the serious white face to Panty’s red nose which allows us to identify her as the smarter and more innocent sister since Panty is always getting into excessive trouble, this also allows Stocking to be the more cynical (and negative and therefore goth) of the two. Stocking is also a likable character and since we like both her and her sister we can enjoy the banter and anger they exude upon one another regardless of who comes out on top.

Yeah, the Internet is going to love you.

Remember, Panty and Stocking are bad angels, that’s why they are on earth fighting ghost. They behave badly because they are bad angels and crazy things keep happening because they are angels who fight ghosts. Assuming you can accept this premise the entire series is coherent. There are no absurd moments as far as the plot is concerned because the premise absorbs all the absurdity for us. The stage is set now any tangent joke can be adopted into the series.

So without even bothering to introduce and explain the supporting cast we have personalities in place and flexible set of rules for outlandish world building, now half the work is done for the set up for any joke. When the ghost die, they turn into obvious models and then blow up, the whole notion that they would preset it this was is hilarious, but it works because the premise allows it; also for me, it sets up the show’s funniest moment:

One last thing, my other blog is a music blog: http://colinkellymusicinreview.blogspot.ca/ so yeah, I am sort of a music guy, and knowing that it should come as no surprise my single favorite moment in the series was in the eleventh episode, a very experimental episode to say the least, where the last five minutes is taken up by a music video:

I naturally enjoy the playful references to Elvis, Kiss, The Beatles, Madonna, Queen, Tatu, Sex Pistols, Jimi Hendrix, Gorillaz, Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, Nirvana, and King Crimson, plus a few more I am not confident in identifying from memory. Teddyloid – D Rock City, holds up as a pretty good song and its lyrics do a service to the series. As a nice little added bonus we get from the series is a seemingly legit music video. Very experimental and very cool.

I should not be this impressed Panty and Stocking, but I am. I am impressed that Japan produced something like Panty and Stocking, not only is it a rare success at comedy from a country that otherwise appears populated by robots, but it is unique brand of humour we have never seen Japan attempt before or if they have they failed so miserably no one could correctly identify it. Panty and Stocking is a reasonably funny, very enjoyable, decent anime. However, it is also a one of kind production. Japan has never animated something that looks like Panty and Stocking and there has never been a show from Japan to be funny the way Panty and Stocking is. Where we usual get the ultra conservative, bewilderingly ignorant expression of awkward sexual acknowledgement we get instead a full on vulgar sex show of unrealistic characters behaving in a realistic way. For what Panty and Stocking was trying to be the show succeeds perfectly and for that reason I am very impressed. It is almost as if Japan has grown up and is no longer afraid of girl’s panties... or stockings too I suppose. When has anyone’s nose started bleeding because they saw a girl’s undergarments? That’s just stupid.

I give Panty and Stocking an 8 out 10 for the overall product but a 10 out 10 for originality and style. Good work Japan, way to man up and have a vulgar cartoon about horny angels.

P.S.

Even though I make fun of Japan a lot I actually love Japan.  There are few cultures that have imaginations as unbridled as Japan.  It is the same wild creativity that gives us both gems and shit, and I can live with the shit because we get so many gems out of it.