(L) Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

[Midonin]

I have seen the anime in question (Seikimatsu Occult), and understand that comedy is a highly subjective thing, though my point was more about why Gainax is doing what they're doing then the results, though those are important too. Mostly, I just wanted to give a cheesy monologue about the relationship between art and artists.

[carcanclaw]

Originally Posted by Midonin

I have seen the anime in question (Seikimatsu Occult), and understand that comedy is a highly subjective thing, though my point was more about why Gainax is doing what they're doing then the results, though those are important too. Mostly, I just wanted to give a cheesy monologue about the relationship between art and artists.

Haha! I honestly thought you were quoting a movie until I got a few lines in. It was very well done.

And yeah, I guess Gainax can be silly if they want, it's their money.

[orion]

Originally Posted by carcanclaw

Haha! I honestly thought you were quoting a movie until I got a few lines in. It was very well done.

And yeah, I guess Gainax can be silly if they want, it's their money.

True but they'll make it back when it's released there and licensed in the US.

I actually loved both episodes.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Requisite mecha-hate injection for the thread.....check!

This show actually still seems incredibly polarizing depending on where you go and what the episodes are about at any given time, although I have seen some absolutely incredible about faces from some folks who are now claiming to have always enjoyed it (ahhh the joy of blogs), but who previously shat all over it. I personally have enjoyed it since the very first episode since again I actually find it regularly funny which is a sad rarity for anime comedies these days. There's a lot to be said for the delivery style and what goes in to making the humour, something you can see is carefully considered with each segment. Calling it all toilet humour, sex and gross out jokes is frankly selling the show a bit short since it's kind of an ensemble piece of quirky writing, zany visuals, rapid fire voice acting cues, pop culture references, one-liners and an overall attempt at cross-culture appeal.

About that last bit on cross-culture appeal, as a comparison when you look at the otaku in-joke comedies like for example Lucky Star or Pani Poni Dash that are among the most common forms of anime comedy today, the jokes are typically targeted to only one demographic, the hard core Japanese otaku. The jokes just can't translate well to any other demographic and still retain their full force of referential humour (it's like expecting a conservative senior citizen to "get" The Daily Show)....however innuendo's and references to franchises like Transformers can have an appeal to both Westerner's and Japanese otaku. In fact I'm hard pressed to think of a more major international franchise that North America and Japan have an awareness of than Transformers which was pretty big in both countries during the 80's and early 90's so I can't say I was surprised to see a segment like the episode 07-1 one.

I can't see this not getting picked up for American release and possibly Adult Swim play and will be very curious to see what kind of cast they will put together for it.

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by carcanclaw

Ugggggggh.... its so stupid yet I keep tuning in each week.

While the Transformers episode was a better parody than usual, I still can't help but feel like Gainax came up with this series after watching an episode of South Park, seeing all the sex and poop jokes, and deciding to emulate it while losing all the brilliant social commentary that makes SP so great. :[

I love the art style of this show, and I've heard rumors that Gainax wanted to prove some point about the declining anime industry with this series, but I feel like making something purposely childish and dumb just to make a point is a waste of their talent and money... I do love the ending theme and "Fly Away," though.

I'm sure my username makes it fairly obvious, but I'm a huge South Park fan, too. And even I'll freely admit that their "brilliant social commentary" usually distills down to some variation of "look how stupid [subject] is" with a healthy dose of straight-up parody, usually of something completely unrelated (a year from now, after everyone has forgotten about the whole Nike LeBron James thing, if it takes even nearly that long, people are going to be very confused during certain parts of the last three-part storyline). I think the SP comparison is more apt than you might think.

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

Requisite mecha-hate injection for the thread.....check!

I took care of that a page or two ago. Some whippersnapper whose mama probably wasn't even out of elementary school when I was watching Transformers made the mistake of thinking "mecha" just means "having robots", and I was so flustered at the thought of great personalities like Starscream or Optimus being lumped together with some effete masked siscon's prissy revenge wagon or even a 300-foot penis extension (and those are two mecha series I actually liked) that I couldn't get out much more than a perfunctory denial. I've calmed down a bit since then, so maybe I'll make a proper rebuttal...

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by quigonkenny

I took care of that a page or two ago. Some whippersnapper whose mama probably wasn't even out of preschool when I was watching Transformers made the mistake of thinking "mecha" just means "having robots", and I was so flustered at the thought of great personalities like Starscream or Optimus being lumped together with some effete masked siscon's prissy revenge wagon that I couldn't get out much more than a perfunctory denial. I've calmed down a bit since then, so maybe I'll make a proper rebuttal...

That's kind of an ultra-generic interpretation of what can be done with the mecha genre?

Thought to be fair if that's how you think of mecha I tend to think of Transformers G1 as being a rather messy show about gathering an extraterrestrial resource where everything is shoddily animated and like 3 characters actually stand out....one of whom has a whole bunch of clones since again the animation was cheap as balls. This coming from someone who watched the show as a kid for a bit and could just never get into it even then cause I couldn't follow any of what the hell was going on and sometimes neither could the screenplay writers since characters would sometimes teleport all over the damn place between scenes. It didn't get any easier with time either when I decided to borrow a buddies series collection.

That said I loved the 1986 movie....probably cause it actually had a budget, plot, character development and that awesome rocking 80's soundtrack with Stan Bush and Vince DiCola songs. I also kind of liked the Canadian produced Beast Wars cartoons which again benefited from a budget, character development (I ask anybody who saw that show if they don't remember Dinobot's arc as a standout) and stuff actually happening that resulted in real consequences carrying over from week to week with each episode. Though again nobody ever seemed to just stay dead.....

[Midonin]

Generalizing in both directions only makes both sides look the fool.

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by Midonin

Generalizing in both directions only makes both sides look the fool.

Who's more the fool? The fool, or the fool who follies him? ^_^

[Soconfused]

I actually didn't really like the first episode. Not that it was bad, I was just never big into transformers, and it was just so damn random, more random than normal for this show. 2nd episode was great though.

Also, I don't know if it's been said, but did anyone else notice one of the sweets shown in the beggining of the 2nd episode (12:12) looked like a Behelit from berserk. Was pretty random.

[juventas]

Cutest part was when they forgot their lines during the transformation and started screaming:

[URL=http://img580.imageshack.us/i/pantystocking.png/][/URL

[KROMEangel]

Lots of foolishly foolish foolishness going on here.

Anyway, I may have never followed the Transformers all too much, but somehow, I could tell that it was very well tailored to it's fans. There's a whole lot of little touches that make it feel like a retro throwback, specifically those hilariously cheesy laser guns. PEW PEW!!
Also, have this:




but enough of that, how 'bout that 2nd part?
One thing I know about Gainax is their affinity with Giant Robots, but if there is one other thing I associate them with, that would be fanservice.

Most other shows with blatant fanservice resort to "neko meidos" or accidental gropings to please their audience.
But not Gainax; they don't do any of that. They make their fanservice into an artform. Besides the montage of countless outfits (fanartists are gonna go crazy with this) causing mass pileups and elderly stripshows, the final stripping scene delivered plenty of cheesecake without breaking the moment, like a lot of fanservicey moments do. It was absurd, but felt like a natural progression of sorts; at least in the context of these girls anyway.

Final word: Kneesocks is adorable in a moustache, and Brief getting Panty's panties, assuming he won that auction, will become a plot device later on. Calling it here.

[OkamiNoKaze]

Both parts of Episode 7 were great, part 1 was the best though, with it's massive Transformers references, I had wondered while watching, if those were the original japanese voices for Optimus and Megatraon, looks like I was right. Anyone else feel the need to find a Megatron Bobblehead, and mod it into Stockingtron?

Part 2 was also great, lots anime up scenes in this episode, saddly not one of the girls in their Bunny Suits. I guess I understood the last scene wrong, I thought Briefs, was selling the panties

[Nayim]

Transformers + PSWG + TTGL + fanservice = GAINAX >_>LOL

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by Funkatron

G1 theme, Panty and Stocking style

Haha

Brilliant.

[CWW]

Yah. I'm a bit surprised a large group of people liked the second episode more than the first one, although in a sense I'm not really surprised. Goes to show how sexualized media in general has become in the last decade.

There wasn't a single joke in the second part that made me laugh. Panty and Stocking make a mess of their jobs. How funny. Now they're stripping for cash. Hilarious. No, no it's not hilarious. They're naked. We get it. Please stop.

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by CWW

Yah. I'm a bit surprised a large group of people liked the second episode more than the first one

I don't know what forum you're reading, though most of the people here only commented on the first Transformers half. That tells me they preferred that one. I know i did.

[totoum]

Originally Posted by CWW

Yah. I'm a bit surprised a large group of people liked the second episode more than the first one, although in a sense I'm not really surprised. Goes to show how sexualized media in general has become in the last decade.

Or that some people didn't watch transformers when they were younger so they couldn't get any of the references that were in the first part?

edit:though I too would say the majority of people preffered part 1

[Nerroth]

The thing I see more here (and on other non-TF-themed sites) is that even among those who did like the first part, there are still a lot who don't seem to have have been watching (or reading, in the case of the various comic series) anything TF-related in a while; those who might have watched the G1 cartoon in the 80s, or perhaps Beast Wars in the 90s, but none of the more recent stuff. I might be reading things wrong, though.

In any case, it's not like there aren't divisions within the current fandom over which series or medium they do or do not like; and how many of them like any kind of anime, let alone a series as loaded as this one.


Oh, did anyone catch the seiyuu for the suicide-bot?

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by juventas

Cutest part was when they forgot their lines during the transformation and started screaming:

[URL=http://img580.imageshack.us/i/pantystocking.png/][/URL

That was easily my favourite part of the episode.