Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Complete Series Blu-ray Review
Is it possible to wash your ears out with soap?
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, January 5, 2013
Even those who don't consider themselves excessively prudish can sometimes say "enough is enough" with regard to
so-called blue language. Case in point: more and more standup comedians, especially younger ones, seem to think
the only way to guarantee a laugh is to insert as many "f-bombs" as possible into any given setup and eventual
punchline. It's lazy joke writing at best, substituting shock value for actual humor. Yes, people will laugh, but not
always for the right reasons. A group of somewhat older comedians here in Portland where I live were sick of going to
clubs and hearing nothing but overtly sexual and crass material in every single routine, and they simply banded
together to create a PG-13 comedy troupe which has gone on to become incredibly successful (in the shameless
promotion department, my own wife is a member of the group). No one would accuse me, or in fact anyone I know, of
being "holier than thou" or for not occasionally (or maybe not so occasionally) letting a four letter word or two escape
from
my lips. (I
did try to moderate my language when my sons were young, and they still talk about one day when
they were strapped in their car seats in the back of our minivan when some insane lady came barreling through a
parking lot going about 60 mph and barely missed hitting us. Without even thinking, I emitted a loud "Holy f---!",
suddenly seeing two
very wide sets of toddler eyes and open mouths in my rear view mirror.) So with that
prelude, I go on record as stating that my personal and never very humble opinion is that
Panty & Stocking With
Garterbelt would have been a
lot more amusing if its dialogue weren't so relentlessly peppered with some
of the foulest language this side of—well, I can't even come up with a decent example. Suffice it to say
Panty &
Stocking With Garterbelt is
so foul that I doubt it could even air in regular prime time on something like Adult
Swim without a
lot of bleeping or other aural editing. The unintentionally funny thing about all of this is if you
put on the English subtitles which are supposedly translating the original Japanese track, while there
are
occasional swear words dotting the soundtrack, they're
much more tame and sporadic than what has made it
through to the English dub version. And so someone somewhere along the line (dare I say a twenty something without
adequate comedy writing skills?) decided that the easiest way to "humor" was an onslaught of incredibly crude
language. Is anyone laughing yet?
When my boys were about the same age as they were in the infamous "parking lot incident", they were huge (if short-
lived) fans of
The Powerpuff Girls, and wonderful father that I am (no, really), I often watched the show with
them.
There seems to be little doubt that
Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt was highly influenced by the look of
Powerpuff Girls' creator Craig McCracken's rather anarchic style. The basic premise of the series is that two
fallen
angels, the titular Panty and Stocking, are in a kind of Purgatory wedged between Heaven and Hell, a city called Daten
(a
play on the Japanese word for "fallen angel") where various ghouls and goblins need taking care of, much like Blossom,
Bubbles and Buttercup used to dispatch various evil entities attempting to wreak havoc in and around Townsville, USA.
Also like
Powerpuff Girls,
Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt is absolutely rife with pop cultural references,
and virtually every episode includes some sort of satirical or parody element aimed at various well known films and the
like.
To paraphrase a certain infamous advertisement, Panty and Stocking have fallen, but they
don't want to get up,
at least not necessarily, since each of them is more or less addicted to various vices. Panty is a bed hopping woman of
loose morals (as the old saying goes) with a voracious (to say the least) sexual appetite, while Stocking has a perhaps
more mundane fixation, junk food and sweets. Those twin diversions often keep Panty and Stocking from their
appointed rounds of beast wrangling, leading their "keeper", an immense black reverend (or something like that)
named Garterbelt, usually on the very edge of an apoplectic rage. There's a deal on the table, as it were, for if Panty
and Stocking can collect enough Heaven Coins (by dispatching enough bad guys), they can return to Paradise. But why
return to Paradise when Daten City is so much fun?
If you can get past some of this potentially objectionable material,
Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt is
frequently amusing, if not laugh out loud hilarious. But getting past objections can be a bit of a challenge, with such
issues as the opening episode's emphasis on feces and vomit when a "poop monster" starts sucking people into toilets.
The show is actually much, much better when it concentrates on skewering the various obsessions of Western culture,
including famous movies and items like Barbie dolls. Even here, though, the English language version is just awash in
beyond ribald language, to the point where virtually no line goes without an expletive (or several).
This is probably the first time this has ever happened in my long anime reviewing career, but watching
Panty & Stocking With
Garterbelt is a completely different experience in the two different languages. The Japanese language track, while occasionally profane,
is nowhere near as over the top as the English language dub, but it also tends to miss some of the Western-centric barbs (and/or Barbies)
that the English version exploits. That said, for anyone who can't handle some of the raciest dialogue ever to "grace" an animated feature
may want to check out the series with the Japanese language track and English subtitles. The series is a visual riot (though the image
quality here is not the best—see below), and a lot of the parodies are quite clever.
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Complete Series Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
I repeat: I am
not a prude. But even I, who have been accused by more than one relatively objective person of having a really politically
incorrect sense of humor which has been known to be dotted with profanity, was amazed at the nonstop barrage of profanity that the English
dub on this series offers. It's especially odd when one takes the time to peruse the English subtitles, which are nowhere near as laced with
such unbelievably filthy language. My hunch is younger viewers won't give one whit about this perceived "issue", and may in fact actually like
Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt all the
more because of it (I will attempt to refrain from any caustic comments about the
dumbing down of our society—whoops, too late). For those who prefer a relatively "kinder, gentler" take on this frequently amusing material,
there's the much less scabrous Japanese language track. So here's a first in my reviewing history: for those who, like me, simply say "enough is
enough" after listening to nonstop profanity, the series in its original language version comes
Recommended. Others will need to
decide how they feel about the English language track. All of this said, the video quality here is spotty at best, but the audio is fantastic and the
supplementary material is exemplary.
