I’m currently catching up on various anime shows, including the hilarious Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Gainax’s ribald new anime which can essentially be described as Dirty Pair meets the Power Puff Girls with ecchi jokes. In each episode, angels Panty and Stocking have various adventures as they do battle with “ghosts,” parodying everything from Transformers to High School Musical to South Park along the way, and as a fan of Gainax since the Daicon IV opening animation, I’m having a blast. It’s funny to deconstruct the many ways anime influences the West and vice-versa. Fist of the North Star is basically Sylvester Stallone wearing Mel Gibson’s clothing from The Road Warrior, and the Magical Girl genre owes its birth to the local popularity of Okusama wa Majo, “The Lady of the House is a Witch” a.k.a. Bewitched, and I’ve definitely heard Hannah-Barbara feet-running sound effects in Totoro, who incidentally gets his name from the troll in the story Billy Goats Gruff. Even the large, expressive eyes anime is famous for were based on Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop. Nothing is ever totally original, and I’d love to see some future Western animation that’s influenced by Panty & Stocking.
Panty & Stocking is a hilarious show from Gainax.
