Despite it being over 14 years since anime fans first saw the series, Trigger, the studio behind Cyberpunk: Edgerunnershas reignited the cult classic raunchy New Panty & Stocking with Gartebelt without missing a beat, comedic or otherwise. Much of the Prime Video series’ side-splitting success is owed to its sharp timing with a volley of pop culture references. Its third episode is particularly packed with references, poking fun at popular shows like The Mandalorian.
In the third episode of Panty & Stockingwhich ambitiously packs three stories into an episode, we see the anime play with mixing up its cast on misadventures. The show proper sees Panty and Stocking, two debaucherous angels trying to buy their way back into Heaven, alongside their rivals-turned-allies, Scanty and Kneesocks, two devils trying to buy their way back into Hell, team up by taking on odd jobs to cleanse Daten City of demons. Episode three sees the odd pairing of Scanty and Stocking infiltrate a samurai dojo to weed out a demon—and said dojo just so happens to be hosted by a warrior who looks an awful lot like if Pedro Pascal’s Star Wars hero ditched his armor for robes and dressed up Baby Yoda like a dog wearing diapers.
The tale goes beyond its use of the iconography from the Disney+ series, which is soon to be adapted into a theatrical film. Laden within the first of its third episode’s three stories are overt references to Star Wars, where Stocking and Scanty “force-feed” their samurai adversaries’ dirty green dog, as well as a tongue-in-cheek flip on the catchphrase, “This is the way.” For more terminally online Zoomers, their spin on This is the way also tapped into that “Ugandan Knuckles” territory for laughs, too. If you couldn’t decipher the previous sentence, it’s the same kind of meme content that spawned Michael Bay directing a Skibidi Toilet movie. If that has you even more lost, consider yourself lucky.
In addition to the anime’s extended Mandalorian reference, Panty & Stocking has made a cavalcade of references to pop culture touchstones beyond Star Wars‘ Baby Yoda. As of the time of writing, the three episodes of Panty and Stocking have referenced Attack on Titan, Godzilla, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Bodyguard, Yu-gi-oh!, Magic: The Gathering, Among Us, Super Mario 64, The Karate Kid, Pitch Perfect, Suicide Squad, Wednesday, Queen’s Gambit, America’s Got Talent, King Kong, Harley Quinn, and The Fast and Furious. The show has also taken potshots at influencer culture on Instagram and how content creators are down bad for clout.
In a behind-the-scenes animation video on Studio Trigger’s official YouTube channel, the veteran animation team behind Panty & Stocking reiterated how they wanted its younger animators to have fun taking over the reins of the show’s assortment of gags and jokes. It’s becoming increasingly evident that the show is doing just that. I was rolling at episode 2’s GPS joke about navigating the streets by turning the block at every dispensary and weed store cropping up in town. Their comedic finger is on the pulse of what anime fans on the cutoff of Millennial and Gen Z find funny, with the urgency of an action comedy anime arms race.
In io9’s premiere review for New Panty & Stocking with Garterbeltwe said the show was a raunchy, foul-mouthed riot, writing, “The premiere not only channels Panty & Stocking‘s original, sex-addled spirit but outpaces even the most parental advisory-laden moments of the 2010 series, covering twice as much narrative ground as your average anime opener. And when the chaos appears to have peaked, the anime hints toward even more raucous adventures waiting in episodes to come that’ll have both newfound and old-head fans sitting for more.” And it’s certainly having fun playing with that chaos with its return 15 years later.
New episodes of New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt air every Wednesday on Prime Video.
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