First Impressions / Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

Part 1

「トランスホーム」 (Toransuhōmu)
“Transwhoremers”

What is this I don’t even..

You know, I think it’s safe to say that we all know what Transformers are. Even if you didn’t want to, you couldn’t have ignored the recent Michael Bay remakes, teaching you at least the gist of the franchise. Transformers is a damn old series, harking back to the mid 1980’s, when I wasn’t even an idea yet. I’ve never seen any of the TV series, and one might think that this parody continues the PSG tradition of imitating/mocking western culture, as one would believe Transformers is purely an American bred idea. Really? You think gaijins could come up with the ingenious idea of oversized robots fighting each other? Pfffft. (well apparently they did, so shit.)

At first, I only looked at the TV series, as they were written and recorded in America, but animated in Japan by the (in)famous studio, Toei. So I figured, alright, but what about the real origins of Transformers? After a couple clicks, it tells me, “Transformers is a line of toys produced by the American toy company Hasbro.” Hasbro were bros. But then I kept reading. “The Transformers toyline was originally created and produced by Japanese company Takara Tomy.” Yeah, my face when all those older American generations that look back on Transformers with fond memories was pretty much loving something originating from Japan, and technically, was watching “anime.” I wonder how many of those people are the same ones that blindly hate on anime or Japan itself with a passion now… (yeah I don’t know where I’m going with this)

So, because this was practically home turf, Gainax imitated the retro color palette, thick lines, and even animation movement of the old Transformers cartoons pretty well. “But Kiiragi, you’ve never seen the series, how could you know?” The wonders of Youtube, my dear reader. Plus I’ve seen other 80’s cartoons on reruns as a kid, so I remember the general style most of them had. Incidentally, the title and end effects seemed more like it was parodying the live action Bay movies, if just by the familiar sound effects and movement. But hot damn, the fx was cool. I had shivers seeing that END sign click itself into place.

While I may not have enjoyed this as much as had I been born a decade earlier, I can appreciate the detail given to the original source material. I think even “Hot Rod” from the original series made an appearance, being the guy who used his screwdriver to “screw” Panty’s ..”bolt”, making probably the most blatantly suggestive sex scene in this series yet. I’m sure there’s an assload of references I am not sad to admit that I missed, but the folks at 2ch will probably come up with some extensive picture comparison. I give this part 7 condoms out of 10……:D

holy shit stocking transformers would sell like hotcakes and look at this QUALITY and DAT FACE

 

Part 2

「現金に裸体を張れ」 (Gennama ni Ratai o Hare)
“The Stripping”

I didn’t think the demon sisters would make an appearance so soon, but it’s nice for them to have some presence along the way till the inevitable finale showdown. They didn’t pose much of a physical threat this time around, but did manage to undress the angels almost till their bare bottoms, though it’s not like they ever needed help in that asspect. Oh man, more bad puns.

Probably one of the more gratuitous episodes in terms of fanservice, you’ll have to thank Garterbelt for provoking them into finding jobs, which led to a multitude of costumes and a kickass montage song. Well, they have a better time actually getting the jobs than me, but given their “professionalism,” it’s no surprise they end up earning nothing, so how’s one supposed to earn big bucks in little time? The brilliant scheme some dude cooked up after seeing how humans are weak against risk with big rewards that we call the casino! I’m rather jealous that the angels can rock the luck probabilities of gambling (reminding me of anti-probability missiles from a certain other Gainax show). Coupled with their supposedly ridiculously good looks, I guess that’s just what angels are, superbly perfect in every way. Question is, where’s the male angels? Audience: “Males? Tch. Of course the perfect form has to be female. wwwwwww” (sorry, more otaku humor) Though in seriousness, I wouldn’t be surprised if one shows up later.

It’s funny, I’ve spent almost an hour thinking about what kind of impression I have on this part of the episode. Besides the commentary above, I’ve got absolutely nothing. Feel free to do better in the comments so I can hang my head in shame. For some reason there’s just nothing I could really talk about two promiscuous angels gambling until the edge of dignity, and yet because they have none, they can’t break the addiction as onlookers soon become fuel to the fire. A vicious circle is born, as the angels sell their clothes and receive compensation, yet it works as an economy would, with demand evolving from simply wanting their clothes to having the chance to see them stark naked. With a twist of fate, the angels only get out of this debacle by winning, ironically, with pure chance. Yeah, definitely nothing exciting to talk about, but hey, I liked the fanservice! And uh.. don’t gamble unless you’re an angel? And don’t be greedy with money! Till next week~

 

49 Comments

  6. Hahahaha

    Uh, no.

    Transformers was an american directed and designed series. It was not originally created in Japan. What actually happened was that a bunch of transforming toys with no story from a bunch of different lines (this is noticable in the original 80’s lineup) were purchased by Hasbro and their bros TakaraTomy. The entire creative process of colours, names, voices and designs were the sole job of Americans, and then lineart and cels by Japan and other Asian companies. Most of the original show designs were simplified from toys by a guy named Floro Dery, who is a nutjob.

    The cartoon Japan got was the american one dubbed, until Transformers in the US finished and they had to make their own extra cartoons, Masterforce, Victory and Headmasters. Then Transformers sat vacant until Mainframe Entertainment, a western CGI company brought it back with Hasbro as Beast Wars. Which also got a shitty Japanese dub and two extra anime to fill in the gap.

    There were four other Transformers anime produced, Car Robots, Micron Legend, Superlink, and Galaxy Force. In the US, they were known as RID, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron. Then we got the movie, which led to Transformers Animated, a western production, that is right now having it’s Japanese dub aired.

    Transformers’ intellectual work has always been western, with toy design and lineart generally split between Hasbro and TakaraTomy. Generally, Japanese TF shows have been pretty shit.

    And now you know!

    Nyoway
    Reply

    2. transformers animated was animated by the Japanese studio “Studio 4C”…. (I sound redundant…haha) but yeah, according to sources, so more Japanese influenced than American… but anyway, nice info.

      kenshin
      Reply

  8. I’ll say something that may appear in your posts. I didn’t particularly like the second part because Skanty and Kneesocks just let themselves get defeated. Weren’t they, like, on par with the angels in battle just an episode ago?! For ****’s sake, pull out a gun or something!

    The first one had me laughing non-stop though! 😀 😀 ArtShift should be the usual for this series now.

    starss
    Reply

  11. If P&S worked as Traders at a bank to gamble for money, then the episode would have been superb. S&K’s plan for “The greatest economic crisis ever will plummet the human world into mass hysteria.” may even make sense. Then again, spewing dollars does that too…

    anon
    Reply

  13. LOL at the transforming panties logo – Pantybots vs Stockingcons.

    Gainax even went so far as to get the original seiyuus for Optimus Prime (Genda Tessho) and Megatron (Kato Seizo) to reprise their respective parodied roles in this episode. lol

    Now it’ll be even more amusing if the US localization team could get Peter Cullen and Frank Welker to voice them for the English dub.

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

  14. As someone who was born a decade earlier and an old style transformers fan, the new stuff is lame, I have to say the first half episode was the funniest one to date. I was laughing ten minutes nonstop. The second half was completely overshadowed.

    bearzerger
    Reply

  17. the transformer logo really made me want to watch Michael Bay’s movies again (for better or worse), especially the yet to be released “Dark of the moon”…
    the stripping part… why don’t we have that luck? and there won’t be male angel, at least not in PSG, because either Panty or Master G will milk it to no end… 😀

    jrj
    Reply

  20. The sexy bot that “screwed” Panty was more of a reference to Japanese-produced Transformers series such as Victory and Masterforce (which were the forefathers of mecha anime such as the Brave series, GaoGaiGar included). Panty herself is actually a design mixture of Hot Rod and Optimus Prime (mostly Hot Rod, with Prime’s mouthplate)

    reV
    Reply

  23. This episode is going to cause a massive stir in the female TF fanbase. There’s been so much debate about how giant robots get it on, that this should be interesting >3

    Love this episode.

    Skins T
    Reply

  24. Definitely not one of those who loved the Transformers animated series and bash “anime-lovers”, considering that when it was aired here I was also watching Daimos, Voltes V, BT-X and Dragonball in other channels. XD

    entropy
    Reply

  28. Just correct some info. Back then Takara Tomy was just called Takara. A couple of years ago Takara merged with Tomy another toy company.

    Oh the one who designed the Battle Convoy toy that became Optimus Prime is non other than Shoji Kawamori himself.

    ReddyRedWolf
    Reply

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