Episode 4 – New PANTY & STOCKING with GARTERBELT

Halfway through this week’s episode of New Panty & Stocking, I was reflecting on my complete inability to call my shots with this show. This turned out to be another entry with three segments instead of the previously established two, meaning my theory that they only did that last week to even things out was wrong. Plus the promise of Trigger using the series as a platform to expand their horizons in terms of talent and concepts had yielded the first two segments in this episode helmed by crews from Yostar Pictures to…uneven results. I’ll talk about them in a bit. My point is that I was wavering on this episode, if not the entire grand New Panty & Stocking experiment, when one name crossed my screen:

Kai Ikarashi.

I first became really aware of Ikarashi after his standout episode on SSSS.Gridman, and he followed that up with another stunner on successor series SSSS.Dynazenon. He blew minds again with the sixth episode of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and he’s contributed key animation everywhere from Mob Psycho 100 to this season’s concurrently running Takopi’s Original Sin. He’s got a signature style that fully kicks in when he’s in the driver’s seat via directing and/or storyboarding, and he’s been cemented as “one to watch” for me through all that he’s crafted. So suffice to say, I might’ve sat up just a bit when the third segment of this week’s New Panty & Stocking, entitled “Shoot For Yesterday” listed him on writing, storyboarding, animation, and direction duties.

What followed was probably the first part of New Panty & Stocking since its giant-sized premiere to really feel like it made this riotous return as worth it as humanly possible. The base gimmick is as low a high concept as PSG has ever done: a new kind of Ghost shows up, this one transforming everyone into old-school-style cartoon and comic characters. Fun enough, and in line with PSG‘s globally artistic sensibilities. It probably would’ve been fun just seeing the characters drawn like they were from Hanna-Barbera‘s Herculoids for a laugh. But Ikarashi, being Ikarashi, cannot quit.

Ikarashi’s hand elevates this whole affair through phases of tributes to western comic and cartoon culture. Chiefly, he’s paying his respects to the output of legendary artist Jack Kirby—appropriately enough for the week that new Fantastic Four movie is out. The transformations inflicted on the characters are done so via a dotted beam styled after the creator’s signature Kirby Krackle effect. And events reach a cosmic scale that all but directly invokes the Fourth World. What’s astonishing is the way Ikarashi shapes these eccentric events to be equally funny and stunning even as the art he’s invoking lends itself to more limited animation. The Hanna-Barbera riffs are hysterically spot-on, with aspect ratios even shifting in real time depending on what classic-style characters are the focus of a given scene. But then as the plot is pushed to quantum, apocalyptic levels, the layouts stretch past the screen and into the fourth dimension in a wowing way that I know only Panty & Stocking could cram into fifteen minutes. It ends up going mixed media, and every frame is a painting.

I could crow about the crossover success of the stylization of this segment, but Ikarashi’s achievements ultimately speak for themselves. It’s something brand-new for Panty & Stocking as well as for Ikarashi himself, who never worked on the original version of the series. It’s only appropriate that its ultimate plot point is about sending Panty into the future so she can aggressively recontextualize the past by shooting it—it blew me away.

With that kind of spectacular showcase, does it matter that the preceding two Yostar shorts are a bit more lackluster? Not really—they still mostly feel like classic Panty & Stocking, and get the job done. The first entry floats the threat of Panty & Stocking getting explicitly political with a plot about picking a president. In practice though, the most askew part is the very opening, with the subtitles oddly claiming that Panty was arrested for rape. The English dub differently changes this to “having sex without a permit” which frankly makes a lot more sense in terms of a new law installed by Daten City’s first Ghost president. There are some interesting animation indulgences in the scenes where Brief contemplates his campaign options, but mostly this is a brisk affair of an episode based around the pretty obvious reveal of the President as a business man. You can never trust a career politician.

That and the following segment make apparent that accelerating the pacing of these entries might not work in PSG‘s favor as well as one might expect from a series that prides itself on rapid-fire comic delivery. That’s in spite of this being a more sentimental affair, as Panty attempts a version of Homer’s lobster plan with an adorable Ghost kitty, with predictable pet-owner results. A lot of this does feel like something of a flash-forward reiteration of Stocking’s Ghost boyfriend incident from the ninth episode of the original Panty & Stocking, with indeed not a lot of time to really settle on the emotional toll of it all. It’s sweet enough in its moments, and I appreciate getting to see the development of a kinder side of Panty—and I’m certain plenty of viewers will be delighted that this episode lets them catch a glimpse of Panty’s Pantitties. Viva Amazon, once again.

Again, these are fine episodes, but they might’ve merited a more mediocre grade had they not been mere gravy for that kickass Kai Ikarashi cavalcade that is the main event. That’s the kind of piece that elevates not just this week’s entry, but the whole series thus far. It makes it the opposite of the mixed bag that was last week’s episode: this genuinely delivers on the promise of turning loose talent that hadn’t touched Panty & Stocking before, on top of doing so with a tribute to the illustrated art form itself as well as one of the greats behind it.

Rating:

New PANTY & STOCKING with GARTERBELT is currently streaming on
Prime Video.

Chris has to slay a bunch of anime reviews to earn his own Heaven and Hell coins, and he hopes his editors won’t deduct too much for occasional potty mouth here, given the context. He’s probably reskeeting fanart of Panty and/or Stocking on his BlueSky right now, and you can also check out his own back catalog over on his blog.

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.