Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie 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 Movie, Video Quality 

Sometimes there's really no logic to standard definition and high definition. One might assume that a series as relatively recent as Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt would have been animated in native HD, but that doesn't seem to be the case, at least judging by the results of this pretty shodding looking AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The really sad part about all of this is that the series is incredibly engaging (and one must admit, pretty manic) from a purely visual standpoint. While colors make it through the upconversion gauntlet fairly well, the rest of this high definition presentation is questionable at best. Rampant "jaggies" are evident in the line detail, the overall image is depressingly soft and ill defined, and there's just kind of a "squishy" ambience (for want of a better term) that keeps this series from ever really popping the way it should. The live action elements also don't blend especially well with the animation in several key sequences.

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt features an English dub delivered via a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix, as well as the original Japanese language track in Dolby TrueHD 2.0. There is quite evident difference in the mixes beyond the obvious surround activity and voice work, with the English dub mixed significantly louder and more aggressively. That said, my hunch is the decision as to which track to listen to is going to hinge on the individual listener's tolerance for filthy language. The English language track offers some astoundingly busy sound effects, with discrete channelization the norm rather than the exception, and a glut of foley effects that regularly populate the surrounds. The mix is really noisy most of the time, to the point where some of the dialogue can be just slightly buried beneath the nonstop effects. The Japanese track is relatively more subdued in virtually every regard, but that means it's also much less forceful. Fidelity is excellent in both tracks, with the obvious edge going to the English dub. Dynamic range is perhaps a bit wider than might initially be expected, since the series is so hyperbolically manic so much of the time.

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt Revealed: Unrated Cut (1080p; 22:54) features interviews with Colleen Clinkenbeard, Monica Rial, Jamie Marchi and Christopher Sabat.


• Sit Down with Panty and Stocking (1080p; 11:56) is more of the same, including interviews with the same four voice actors listed above. Hard to say why this was made into a separate featurette.


• Panty and Stocking in Sanitary Box (1080p; 8:45) is a lovely titled OVA.


• Ghost Explosion Collection (1080i; 21:41) features the climactic blow ups from each episode.


• Ghost Explosion Collection Documentary (1080i; 40:06) is actually a rather interesting in depth look at some of the special effects for these moments, showing the Japanese crew filming live action sequences which were incorporated into the various episodes. It would have been fun to have seen more of the final versions.


• TV Promotional Video (1080; 1:29)


• Official Home Page Commercial Collection (1080i; 1:59)


• Pre-Airing Commercial Collection (1080i; 1:11)


• Now Airing Commercial Collection (1080i; 1:21)


• Post-Airing Commercial Collection 2 (1080i; 2:47)


• DVD Commercial Collection 1 (1080i; 00:33)


• DVD Commercial Collection 2 (1080i; 4:19)


• Talk Live Animated at Loft/Plus One (1080i; 23:51) is a panel discussion and Q&A with the Japanese voice cast.


• Making of Lingerie Scene (1080i; 10:59) offers everything you've ever wanted to know about the climactic showdown in the final episode of the series.


• Outtakes (1080p; 16:02) is a gag reel.


• U.S. Trailer (1080; 1:01)


• Textless Opening Song "Theme for Panty & Stocking" (1080p; 00:33)


• Textless Closing Song "Fallen Angel" (1080p; 1:01)


• Trailers for other FUNimation Entertainment Releases

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, 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.