Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt - Episode 4

With that sweet tooth and constant chocolate eating, it's a bit surprising that the Stocking of this show's title isn't the size of a house by now.  Oh, wait a second...

Perhaps inevitably, the first half of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt's fourth episode turns to the subject of dieting, with Stocking's obsession with all things sweet seemingly catching up with her at last as she starts to gain weight.  Cue a montage sequence as she works hard to work off those extra pounds in all of the usual fashions, only to find that things are only getting worse, until she does literally end up the size of a house.  It's at this point that we learn about the latest Ghost in town, a nipplerific monster who is creating cakes designed to cause women's weight to balloon - cakes which Stocking has not so much indulged in but gorged herself on to commiserate over her failed diet attempts.  So, it's up to our two "heroines" to defeat the ghost and save the day - not that Stocking it much help on account of her size even though she tries her best, going as far as to run us through a less spritely than usual transformation sequence.

The second half of this week's episode sees Panty and Stocking spending a boring night fine-tuning their weapons, although naturally this doesn't last for long as Panty has hers eyes on attending a "Lingerie Run" event - no need to guess why she's interested in that of course, and similarly Garterbelt's presence as the event organiser probably requires little explanation to anyone who watched last week's episode.  An event that involves everyone running around in their underwear has also attracted a Ghost to the vicinity, this time an individual who enjoys stealing and devouring said underwear.  You can probably guess the rest - nudity, penis jokes and underwear references aplenty end in said Ghost being defeated.

As seems to have become par for the course with Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt by now, each episode manages to pull out a few laugh out loud moments in a sea of relative mediocrity.  To be fair, the first half of this particular episode was one of the best yet in terms of well built-up comedy, leading up to some hilarious fat Stocking moments that were worth the wait while also coming the closest we've seen yet to a "family friendly" instalment of the series.  Sadly, the second half of this episode returned to its old habits of relying on smutty jokes and underwear over anything more entertaining, and as a result it simply didn't work as well - kudos though to Crunchyroll for managing to work the phrase "mass naked student events" into its subtitles; doubtless a homage to a certain infamous bit of fansubbing from yesteryear.  Still, it says it all when one knowing bit of subtitling is the funniest part of an episode...