My first taste of Hiroyuki Imaishi was through the movie Dead Leaves. I think it was for a lot of us. I immediately fell in love with this movie’s animation style. It was creative, expressive, vibrant, imaginative; it was simply to die for. It was also quite a generally transgressive movie. This was an anime, except there were none of the visuals that were typically found in most other anime. I don’t even consider it anime, but an honest-to-God cartoon. I think that’s why I loved it even more, it broke tradition. I saw this movie way back in early middle school, I believe in seventh grade.

About a decade later, I watched his series Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. I fell in love again with the character designs and animation style. This was also another transgressive work because it refused to kowtow to what was considered appropriate within anime. The main characters are two proud, strong, and independent bitches who’re not afraid to wear the label proudly. If there’s one thing I will always thank this show for, it’s helping me accept that I was queer, too. Although I am sex-repulsed asexual, this show taught me that there is nothing wrong with my desires for pleasure. It proudly gave the middle finger to the status quo. It was quintessentially iconoclastic.

So, to hear on the internet that many otaku outright despised this show was disheartening. If they weren’t interested, whatever, but is it really necessary to call the show wasted talent? Just because it didn’t offer a stereotypical hero’s journey? Last time I checked, cartoonists had the right to something called freedom of expression. We’re allowed to explore topics, ideas, and concepts that are not one-hundred percent politically correct. We’re allowed to explore and deconstruct taboos. I’m not talking about the promotion of bigoted ideas before anyone puts words in my mouth. Last time I checked, a cartoonist was allowed to make whatever their heart desired. Last time I checked, feces, urine, semen, and vomit were all God-given bodily fluids. Why now are we choosing to be afraid of them? It’s honestly hard for me to believe that the idea of being devoured by a toilet and spat back out covered in yesterday’s lunch would offend people so extremely. I think it’s innocuous, but in today’s world, that’s more than enough to warrant a death threat.

I don’t think that the case with Panty and Stocking, but it definitely was with Genndy Tartakovsky’s recent adult animated movie Fixed. Uli Meyer, who worked on this movie, recently posted an image of the main dog character holding a gun to his head in response to all the hate the film received. Have we truly lost the right to freedom of expression? I’m starting to believe so. I feel that many critics need to step their game up. If they are going to tear something down, they need to work in the effort to rebuild it in accordance to the values it was founded on.

Lately, I have become more comfortable with criticizing the things that I enjoy because I know that they deserve to be at their best. Case in point, New Panty and Stocking. I am incredibly disappointed with this show after fifteen years of praying. I dropped it after the first six episodes. Truthfully, it was three episodes including A and B. This is one of those cases where wanting is better than having. New Panty and Stocking has almost none of the bark or bite of the OG season one. It feels now that a second season was never needed.

As a hardcore feminist, if there was another thing that attracted me the most to the show, it was the aforementioned utter shamelessness of the characters. They cussed, they wanted sex more than anything else, they were free. Apparently, like I said before, that wasn’t appreciated. At any rate, the two strongest words I can use to describe New Panty and Stocking are neutered and robotic. It feels like, in lieu of sticking to its niche, it tried to appeal to as many people as possible when it wasn’t supposed to in the first place. I would be definitely horrified if I found out that Imaishi actually listened to his critics. This guy is supposed to be a maverick, right? What happened?

I mean, looking back on how the previous season climaxed, no pun intended, I think it got little too dramatic. I thought it went against the show’s batshit nature. From Panty + Brief upward, sorry for the spoilers, Panty did not deserve to be put through hell like that. It’s especially aggravating for me when strong and fearless women are suddenly served humble pie like that just for having desires. There truly is nothing wrong with being bitch unless you’re JK Rowling of course.

I may be digressing, but the characters in this new second season feel like they’ve been robbed of their bluntness. It’s not just because of the new English dub. Jamie Marchi, Monica Rial, and Christopher Sabat rocked it in the original. The new actors are completely unrecognizable as are the characters they now voice. When Vic Mignogna was revealed to be sex pest, the anime world turned on Marchi and Rial. I don’t think I am wrong when I suggest that these guys were replaced to avoid that so-called controversy. I find to be a defining example of political correctness when we’re not allowed to talk about our abusers. Don’t even get me started on the hysteria that Garterbelt is apparently a racist caricature, either.

The characters have gone soft. They have become sensitive, and I believe out of appealing to “teh feels,” a real pet peeve of mine. Stocking was just now whining about how hard it is to be Panty’s younger sister. Panty was suddenly crying about damn cat. Brief is coming off as someone who wants to feminize Panty. By the time Polyester and Polyurethane appeared, my interest was dead. Panty and Kneesocks suddenly have a yuri moment that has no context to it as much I support yuri. Yes, I am pro-fic, deal with it.

These are not Panty and Stocking anymore! These characters do not need to be deep. This show does not need to be serious barring serious fun. Panty and Stocking both deserve to strong BAMFs or Badass Motherfuckers. These characters do not need to change. Character development is wholly out of place for this show, I believe. I know it’s a double standard when men are allowed to be BAMFs, but women are not. I think that’s a problem with Hiroyuki Imaishi’s writing. I think Imaishi now has a problem with not nurturing his creations properly. I think he now has a nasty habit of performing 180 degree turns just to screw with viewers. It’s honestly a dick move. Lest we forget how season one ended and how we had to wait fifteen years for resolution. It was unbearable.

And the new season ended horribly, too, with a schmaltzy and distasteful moral about “found family.” It ends with Panty befalling the same fate as Bayonetta. I thought this was supposed to be a celebration of deviance? What happened to anarchy? It’s infuriating when the the two most shining examples of sexual liberty for women are chained down to marriage and motherhood. You would think people would be aware of certain attitudes regarding marriage and parenting by now.

Another thing that bothers me is constant reliance on parody. I’m done with parodies in general. I think the writers are really selling themselves short by not engaging in something more original. A parody of Yu-Gi-Oh? Wow, never heard that one before. Panty and Stocking deserves to be going balls out like Dead Leaves before it did.

Anyway, to wrap all this up, I’m a hardcore fan of Panty and Stocking. I believe I have just as much of a right to criticize the show because it deserves to be great. There’s nothing sadder or more frustrating than to see something you loved lose its edge in the same of appeal. I know Imaishi is so much better than this, and he deserves to. This is not what I purchased five official Panty and Stocking books for.