Panty and Stocking: First Impressions

Last Week, I should've had a review out. Also, my brother got married and a lot of responsibilities came up. Now that the week is winding down, I feel like it's time to talk about something I watched between all my running around last weekend and that includes my initial impressions of the new Gainax anime, Panty and Stocking.

What is Panty and Stocking, exactly? Well, from this initial episode, it seems to be Gainax's attempt to make something akin to the Powerpuff Girls.... except instead of sugar, spice, and everything nice, we get immoral angels who are obsessed with sex and sweets. …On second thought, I guess that matches up perfectly. With the initial episode, our heroes, aptly named Panty and Stocking are introduced and their little obsessions displayed, with the two being tasked with defeating evil spirits that are causing havoc for the citizens of Townsville Daten City. Why, exactly? Not that it makes them feel good, no. Because the evil spirits drop heaven coins so they can get back into heaven.

Oh yea, one makes a sword from her stocking and the other a gun from her panties... So... yea.

Needless to say, this series seems to be very episodic in nature, with no major plot to follow and frankly, I like that. Call me nostalgic, but like mentioned earlier, this heavily reminds me of the days where I'd come home on Friday, huddle up to the television and watch several hours of Cartoon Network's “Cartoon Cartoon” line up, including Dexter's Lab, Powerpuff Girls, and so on, but now it's grown up with me so the jokes, while being more crude and not meant for kids, retains the silliness that made me enjoy those old cartoons.

This is majorly due to the chosen art style. Compared to other animes in terms of detail, Panty and Stocking doesn't look too good and sometimes the animation really cuts corners when the action is slow. One of the first scenes the viewer sees are some trees that aren't even connected at the branch. In this regard, Panty and Stocking is visually bad, but then the action picks up and while retaining the character style and look of the show, the show begins to look awesome as our heroes do battle against these evil spirits. This is really evident in the second half of the first episode, where the entire episode is more or less a giant race to catch up with a speed demon uh... demon and save for a few moments, the animation is just great and it's a thrill to watch all the way through. If I had to compare to watching anything else, I'd have to say the animation when it's good is like watching a Gorillaz music video, and I love those things.

I got to say though, that there's one long transformation sequence that is really flashy and pretty much improves the detail aspect of the show by quite a bit. The only thing is that it's a relatively pointless transformation scene and they pretty much change back to their old outfits almost immediately. Eh, maybe it'll be more relevant later on. Maybe not.

Musically, it's a ambient techno-y sort of music that's ramps up when the action gets going and smooth, using very indie techno sort of music that's reminiscent of Jet Set Radio, but it has it's appropriate moments of silence.

Overall, I think why I enjoyed this episode so much wasn't that it was the beginning of a new epic like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, or that it gave me a idea that the show would delve into the psyche of a young individual, looking at his fears and desires among other things. No, what I liked about this anime so far, is it's energy that becomes very apparent during it's action sequence. Is it going to be the next TTGL? Nah. Is it going to be fun? So far, it looks that way. Expect a full review when the series completes.