Sasshi106   25 October 2012

How to start. Panty & stocking, is a very niche and select taste of anime and very few people will enjoy it but that being said if you enjoy a darker comedy that tries something new with animation PSG (Panty & stocking with Garterbelt) might be for you!

Now lets get straight into Visuals as this is a massive issue for people. It a lot of the time has a very flat animation that many would associate with the likes of powerpuff girls. That being said because it's such a flat style one gets the choreography with over the top action that is comparable to the likes of Dead Leaves. But when doing certain parts of the story such as transforming and other great sections the budget gets increased many times over and the quality difference is phenomenal and really grows on one as a breath of fresh air to the usual run of the mill animation used in anime.

Next is soundtrack. This is a huge feature for the anime as the soundtrack is very memorable and unique to PSG. It's very much a dance anthem soundtrack to it, close to what would be heard in a club scene. Only about 15 songs used in the series but that being said they are mixed and used very well creating memorable scenes similar to those of FLCL that used its soundtrack in a very similar taste.

Characters are always important, nothing is worse than a stagnating or uninteresting roster of anime characters. Within the PSG universe there are a few main characters, main focus being Panty and Stocking themselves with about 3 others. They don't grow a huge amount in terms of characters developement but are rather written as very interesting characters to keep the adventures highly amusing and gripping.

Panty being one of the amazing duo is the filthy mouthed guy stealing blonde. Providing that big party wild girl aspect to the story is an interesting character who in the Japanese dub mixes in a lot of Japanese and English profanities making it quite a spectical.

Stocking is the other half, the long haired goth candy eating stuffed toy loving guy hating misandrist who has quite a pet hate for Stocking and all she stands for. Adds a very sarcastic and mellow humour to contrast her very energetic partners energizer bunny vibe.

And to complete the duo now trio triffling threesome is Garterbelt. As a crazy black child loving priest he is sort of the Charlie in Charlie's Angels in terms of the scolds the Angels for not being all that holy or being lazy and also giving them their missions to complete to return to heaven. The role played is just kind of the inbetweener character who developes later with much more appreciation.

Plot and story developement is next on the roster. The plot starts off very straight forward power ranger plot for grown ups to put it quite frankly. Angels kicked out of heaven must make the world a more clean holier place for humans by defeating evil spirits and cleansing them and work their way into heaven. But about half way through the story suddenly developes into something a lot more gritty and rivalry based as the plot thickens with introduction of a new evil and takes a pleasent twist towards the last half of the series. Even character developement comes in as Chuck the pet becomes more important and appreciated, along with Garter Belt and a couple other characters.

Finally is dub vs sub. Strictly speaking from a professional aspect I find the sub to be superior for the reason of mixing a lot of English with Japanese as opposed to the dub which is only English giving a very monochrome feel in comparison, the dub though was a nice surprise as it mixed in a lot of almost slang terms and "not proper English" sayings and terms but the actors of the sub felt more into the role while a real sense of realism to the characters in terms of believability.

Animation = B
Soundtrack = A
Plot = C +
Characters = A
Dub/Sub = A +

Now for the personal notes.

As a big positive the voice acting from the Japanese side and the animation being so different were certainly a big plus for me. Just something very refreshing.

My only negative point was that the story was going very fast and almost had an accident because of the sudden stop of the series.

So overall 8/10 due to the fact that there is no second series planned. If there was 10/10