What happens when a group of anime producers go on a field trip and get drunk (likely after seeing an episode of The Powerpuff Girls)? Why the creation of Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt of course.

Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt is a 2010 Seinen anime series, it is produced by Gainax, and licensed by Funimation. It is currently available on DVD & Blu-Ray.

Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt is the end result of a drunken road trip, a viewing of a few American cartoons, and an anime production team all rolled into one big ball. The first time you see Panty & Stocking the first that that instantly comes to mind is Cartoon Network’s classic series The Powerpuff Girls. This imagery alone is enough to get new anime fans that were previously viewers of such cartoons at least some moderate interest in the series.

Panty and Stocking in their regular forms.

THE GOOD: Despite it’s cute look an Americanish style, Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt isn’t an anime series for kids. The TV-MA rating and innuendo has seen to that. The action isn’t exactly the greatest, but it was never really intended to be, comedy is where Panty & Stocking shines. As someone who’s not really fond of comedic anime, I have to say that I found the series to be quite hilarious throughout.

Panty & Stocking during their transformation sequence.

THE BAD: There’s not much wrong with Panty & Stocking, it does what it’s meant to do, pay homage to American animation and bring laughs while doing it, but one thing I have to comment on is the fact that Gainax is gonna Gainax. The ending was by far the most “WTF!?” anime experience I’ve ever dealt with, and with it Gainax proved just how cruel trolling can be which is something they have quite the history of. It’s still unknown if this was merely Gainax deepening their troll, but it’s possible that a second season of Panty and Stocking was at least planned, as promotional art work revealing possible plot lines and more was shown. So either season two never got green lit past pre-development (which would be unfortunate), it’s still in the developmental stages (which is rather possible given recent cases of animation development, The Boondocks comes to mind). Or it’s Gainax furthering their troll, which would be quite cruel.

Brief, Panty, Stocking, and Chuck.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt is a great homage to American adult cartoons and some not so adult classics. The nice 2D animation and adult humor is fun, and it does what it’s supposed to be doing. Still the last few episodes and the ending are the only real bummer, especially the ending which may be Gainax trolling fans again, or it could be that season two was genuinely planned but never got past pre-development. Otaku Dome gives Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt The Complete Series an 84 out of 100.