Anime: "Panty and Stockings with Garterbelt"

I seem to be attracted to animes of total randomness more so than those with actual 'meaning'. "Panty and Stockings with Garterbelt" is truly a strange, disturbing, interesting and weird anime all at once, just as its title suggests. It took me a bit of courage to begin watching this. It's also incredibly vulgar and full of sexual references. I wondered how they managed to air this in Japan, especially with the anime ban just around the corner.

The first thing that catches the eye, other than the title, is the art. It's art style has the same heavy cell-shading/chibi theme as popular Cartoon Network cartoons such as Dexter and Powerpuff Girls, although from time to time, they switched to conventional anime style. Or even put in real life pictures. Somehow before everyone dies, the show will suddenly switch to a real life small model of the creature/person and it will subsequently get blown up:



The setting seems normal enough though. Basically angels known as the Anarchy Sisters, aptly named Panty and Stockings, were banished from heaven to Daton City on the surface due to their screwed up behaviors. To return, they have to kill 'Ghosts', and collect Heaven Coins to return. Wtf Heaven Coins. It's so stupid that I loved the concept.

That's not all though. If you have watched the very disturbing trailer (which I will embed below), you'll come to know that both angels have the ability to transform certain parts of their clothing into weapons that can be used to defeat Ghosts. Panty can transform panties into guns and Stockings can transform stockings into katanas...

They were sent to Reverend Garterbelt, some cool black dude with a huge afro that is somehow also supposedly a homosexual. Yeah, he's not normal either. Not by a long shot. But despite his madness and antics, along the episodes we know that he will ultimately the good guy in the series.

So here's a brief description about the main characters. Heheh, Brief.



Panty - Seems like some stereotypical celebrity blondie that just wants to make out with guys. She's actually pretty f'ed up. She's incredibly rude, vulgar and doesn't seem to take her Ghost killing duties seriously. She also hates sweets.


Stockings - Stereotypical goth loli. Loves to eat sweet stuff. She seemed to have a BDSM fetish with her at the receiving end.



Garterbelt - Godly holy black man with the most overpowering afro. He is indestructible. Or at least, he always reconstructs somehow. He always gives advice to defeating a Ghost. Also, he is gay for Brief.



Kneesocks and Scanty - Devil counterparts to Panty and Stockings. Like most random villains, they get overly ecstatic before ultimately getting defeated.

Brief - Some geek who loves Panty. Although his role is usually insignificant, it changed in the last episode. Also it is hinted that he might be the main character for the next season.

Chuck - Strange zipper dog thing. He also throws up (literally) Panty and Stocking's mission for certain episodes.

Despite the obscenity, it is a fairly good watch (provided you are of the right age). The episodes usually don't make much heck of a sense and sometimes the randomness can be overwhelming. There are also tons of parodies. For example there's an episode that's a direct parody of Transformers as shown by the pic below:


Also, the last episode parodies the old Leonardo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet. Sorry I just have to say it lol. I don't think many people watched that movie. Anyways below is the trailer: