Starting on 27 August, 2025 a series of special podcasts episodes featuring conversations between some of the team behind New PANTY & STOCKING with GARTERBELT began airing. It’s our great pleasure to provide English translations of these conversations with permission and approval from STUDIO TRIGGER and FlyingDog. We get things started below with the first half of Episode #1 of This Is New PANTY & STOCKING.

If you would like to read along to the original Japanese audio, the podcast can be heard via Spotify.

☆Taku Takahashi: This is New PANTY & STOCKING – Good afternoon to everyone, this is Taku Takahashi from m-flo. In this program we'll be looking at the long-awaited return of PANTY & STOCKING after 15 years in its new anime form, New PANTY & STOCKING. We'll be bringing on the actual staff behind the series, as well as hearing behind-the-scenes discussions from its creation, looking into the music from the series, and getting into some trivia for the series – divided into three segments jam-packed with discussion. 

Let's introduce our members for this week's episode – continuing on his role from the previous work, the director of New PANTY & STOCKING, Hiroyuki Imaishi. It's a pleasure to have you here today.

Hiroyuki Imaishi: This is Hiroyuki Imaishi, the director for the series. It's a pleasure to be here today.

☆Taku: Once again returning from his previous role, we also have New PANTY & STOCKING lead writer Hiromi Wakabayashi here today. 

Hiromi Wakabayashi: Hello! This is Wakabayashi.

☆Taku: Lastly, the music producer for New PANTY & STOCKING which is me, Taku Takahashi from m-flo.

Both this week and next week the three of us will be sharing our discussions, so I hope you all enjoy.

This time we've gathered questions from fans across social media, and we'll be going through them all and answering where we can. There's some pretty wild questions within these, so I'm excited to see just how much we'll be able to answer. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this until the end.

So this week we've just seen the release of episode 8, for me this was a really big episode. The reason being "FA FA FUCK" –

Imaishi: That sounds about right – this was actually something I really wanted to do. 

☆Taku: Is that so? 

The idea of making a musical, I've actually always wanted to make music for a musical, so I really put it all out there for it. 

Imaishi: Making a musical within an anime is one of those things where the hurdle is so high that it really is difficult. From the start if you're not doing it alongside a musician, it really isn't something that will succeed. 

☆Taku: I see...

Imaishi: There's such a rigid structure to musicals where if there isn't proper synchronization to the music, which has to be made for the provided footage, there's no chance of it coming together as a success. But this time, thanks to your presence and saying we should go ahead with it, we were able to make it happen. 

☆Taku: I've always been a fan of musicals, and occasionally in sci-fi works there'll be a musical episode – for example, in Star Trek, there was a musical episode. But there's all these works with a musical episode, so I'd always thought if we could do a musical episode we should – it really was a highlight.

Wakabayashi: If you're not that level of invested, it really isn't something that just comes together. For example, if there's no music, it doesn't work out, right? But even if you have music, and the director puts together scenes for the music, just because there is music doesn't truly make it a musical. So for us, we'd receive the song, match it to the scene, constantly back-and-forwarding between me and the director, then what we'd put together we'd then bounce back to Taku who would re-edit the song to match our creation – ultimately if you weren't making the song twice, it really wouldn't have come together. 

☆Taku: If you're not a musician, there was a certain part that just couldn't have been joined together. 

Wakabayashi: Then of course in musicals the flow of the lyrics is also extremely important – it's a bit different to the editing process for a movie, it really was something where if we didn't hand it back to you it couldn't have succeeded – it was definitely a music edit. We definitely made sure to make that request from the start. 

☆Taku: Honestly I love the editing process; I'm always saying that more than recording, I love editing. I've always been that way. Alternatively, if it was a movie you can really stretch the music out over several minutes, but for a tv series there's a limit to that, right?

Wakabayashi: That's right, yeah.

☆Taku: Getting that all matched up was definitely one of the most important parts. 

Wakabayashi: If we knew from the start that the music scenes would be limited to four minutes, that'd be great, right? But it just doesn't work like that. You match things to the music, change up the dance moves to match – for a musical, if you're not going over the details time and time again it just won't come together in motion. So we had that, but it's also not easy to bring everything together like this for an anime. If it was a movie I'd understand, but not so much for a tv anime. So it really was a miracle that these two's motivation was so high to make this happen. 

Imaishi: On both the staff and animator side, there were people who said they were fans of musical anime, so it was like, if there's people on the animation side, and a musician who is excited to do it, we've got to make this happen. It really did all come together. 

☆Taku: When the first demo track was wrapped, the script had already been completed, and I believe the contents too..?

Imaishi: I think the contents were still in their rough stages.

☆Taku: There's all sorts of musicals, and I spent a lot of time thinking about which were truly good – I ended up landing on High School Musical, focusing on that. It's not a genre that I had tackled before, so I was thinking about how it would be received. It was also basically my first time writing lyrics --

Imaishi: Oh, the lyrics too?

☆Taku: Right.

Imaishi: Because this is PANTY & STOCKING, I really wanted them to be singing just the filthiest words, so we worked on the groundwork for the translation and began thinking about that too. The things we wanted them to say, then we'd send that over to you and have you rewrite around that. 

☆Taku: Right – there were definitely all sorts of phrases that we really shouldn't be repeating on a podcast.

Imaishi: Yeah, right – It really was something beautiful. Of course, the actual song itself is incredible, but it's not something you're just going to share with others. 

☆Taku: I really don't want my parents to hear them, and I really don't want to show them. Those lyrics – 

Wakabayashi: That melody line is so beautiful – but what are those lyrics? 

☆Taku: All during the horn section at that.

Wakabayashi: And there's obviously someone that's actually having to sing that.

☆Taku: What was honestly the hardest part was when I had to ask the performer to sing this, I had to bow my head and ask if it was okay for them – It was a bit of a coincidence, but the person doing the dub for the show, I happened to be connected to them on X, and we were talking a bit so I asked them if it was okay to use these words to which they replied “Absolutely!! This sounds like a blast!”

Imaishi: Incredible – What we were aiming to create was a Western-style musical after all.

☆Taku: The chorus itself was actually made up of a bunch of people from one of my junior's chorus clubs. We had AYUNJE, who sings for Panty's parts, give directions for the group, and she'd often give advice on how to really bring out the musical feeling from the performers. Things like swaying your body while singing, giving musical vibes, or bringing in gospel elements to the chorus – it was a learning experience for me too.

There's not too many cases lately where I'm actually recording with real instruments, but we pulled together this gorgeous ensemble – all for them to say those words. 

Wakabayashi: After everything was wrapped up, I was speaking with Sasaki from Flying Dog, and he was like “If we really think about it, can we actually put these lyrics on the soundtrack?” – You asked about that quite a lot too Taku.

☆Taku: For me it was like, my threshold, my stopper – I did everything full-throttle, so everything else I figured I could just leave to the adults.

Wakabayashi: After all that, the song was properly included in the soundtrack anyway. 

Imaishi: Incredible work on that.

☆Taku: It's definitely in there – which, by the way, both songs are just completely full of filthy words. I was looking forward to that non-stop swearing, but at the same time, there was an element of self-love to it as well. That idea of becoming more free. 

Wakabayashi: That's honestly what the whole discussion is about – this isn't an excuse or anything, but it's not like those words are being thrown at anybody. It's like looking into the sky – she wanted that feeling of freedom, to say them because she could. It really isn't directed towards anyone. I think that's important, she's not scolding anyone. 

☆Taku: That's so right; I really felt that rhythm from it. So with the lyrics, I wanted to honor that she really is an independent woman. In the story too, there was that feeling of breaking free, but at the end maybe that was all a little fast for humanity.

Imaishi: That freedom was too sudden for humanity.

☆Taku: The moment you start to think about how nice this all is, everyone starts getting down with each other – it's like “Ahh, this is how it's going to go.” But seeing my music used like this, it really was a lot of fun for me. 

Imaishi: You really did pull off something incredible. 

☆Taku: On that note, I wanted to ask – have the two of you been keeping up with many reactions from fans?

Wakabayashi: More than anything, social media really is much more commonplace than it was 15 years ago. As soon as an episode has finished airing or streaming, you're instantly seeing the thoughts and voices of fans – it really does leave a different impression to how things were 15 years ago. 

Imaishi: That's true, you really can't help but look. 

☆Taku: So you do tend to check social media? 

Imaishi: I've been known to take a look from time to time. Seeing the reactions from fans has a very fresh feeling to it; and when we're working on the show, it's easy to forget what it's like to actually watch the show. It really is funny, that we just forget. But looking at the fan's comments, there's a sense of relief to it all. There's a lot of that. 

☆Taku: Well to move onto questions, I've collected several from both my own X and Instagram accounts. For the first question, this is directed at all three of us. It's been 15 years, and we're finally seeing PANTY & STOCKING in this new form, and it's obviously connected to the original series, but now that it's complete and out into the world – do you remember what your feelings were when this series first started? 

Imaishi: Hmm, but when it was decided that we were going to do this, at least to me, it all felt like it started quite smoothly. That's how I felt at least. On the flip side, the time spent not doing this felt like forever, a whole 15 years, so there was always a feeling of “It'd be nice to do this eventually.” So when it first came up it was this natural decision of if we're going to do this now, this is how we're doing it. 

☆Taku: I think when you're comparing it to other animated series, PANTY & STOCKING has always had such a different color to it – the way you tackle everything. Do you think there was anything different this time to how you tackled the creation?

Imaishi: If you ask if it's different, it probably was different... It was different in the sense that we really couldn't make it by the books – how to put this – You're supposed to do it the right way, but at the same time, you're also not allowed to do it right. That was a real constraint, having to think about how not to do it by the books. 

Wakabayashi: I think the biggest thing was over the last 15 years we've created real careers and created all sorts of works, so compared to the PANTY & STOCKING of 15 years ago, it was this idea of can we capture that feeling we had back then – when we first started working on this project, that was probably the most important thing on my mind. Of course our actual techniques have improved, and if we started to think about things, we'd never stop thinking so we had to not rely on that. Back then it was this feeling of just creating what we thought was entertaining, so while calling on that we shifted into gear and began creating. 

☆Taku: I see – so back then it was easier to just push through on impulse is what you're saying, but compared to when you made the original series, is there anything that's changed about your approach? Or would you say you managed to use a similar approach this time around too? 

Imaishi: The biggest change would be that this time there was an original that we're building from, which in itself was a constraint. But we wanted to use that constraint this time around, which is why we kept the original character designs, the setting, and even the cast the same. Keeping that all from the original, we focused exclusively on the story that proceeds, the drama – can you call this drama? – and the jokes. Basically not changing the setting of everything is the constraint, and our approach was to find what we can do within that, which I felt was the challenge for this series. We were starting from scratch before, which naturally meant we could reset when we wanted to. Of course, we can't do that anymore, to do so we'd need some new kind of wit, but all this is what makes this project interesting enough to want to do.

☆Taku: When I first heard from both Wakabayashi and Shigeto Koyama that we were doing this again, I was extremely excited. But, with all the work you'd done since the original series and the skills you had gained, did it feel like things went smoother? Or was it difficult to get into the mindset?

Wakabayashi: I think with the character settings from the original series, and the continuation of the story, not being able to change the designs – how to put this... while it's easier than starting from scratch, there's definitely places where we were dragging our feet in the past, foundations that we had laid down that we have to follow, and it felt like a battle with our past selves as we were making this new season.

☆Taku: I think in regards to the story from the original PANTY & STOCKING, several years back you sold a comic at Comiket that was supposed to be a continuation of the story, right? But with New PANTY & STOCKING it's a little different to how that comic went. With the cliffhanger at the end of the original series, that ending – were there many different ideas for how to bring the series back?

Imaishi: I wonder... If I'm being honest, I can't really remember. I don't think there really were discussions that really decided how we were going to do so.

Wakabayashi: Right after the original series concluded, within the team there were discussions about what we wanted to do if the series returned after a year or two. But to us, that cliffhanger felt like a beautiful finish. 

☆Taku: So it wasn't intended to be a cliffhanger? 

Wakabayashi: Right. If I'm able to say it now, at that time 15 years ago I was a big fan of Western dramas. And within Western dramas, there were a lot of cases where in the next episode it seemed like there was going to be a continuation, but the popularity had declined, so they canceled the show – there were a lot of cases like that, right? I wanted to replicate that feeling. I was idolizing the feeling those dramas left you with. With just one season, with all the thoughts of the staff involved, that work was created, but there wasn't enough popularity to continue it – that was the sort of anime I wanted to create. 

☆Taku: Usually people dread cancellation, but you went into it aiming for that?

Wakabayashi: Right, we didn't even know if the show would be cancelled.

Imaishi: There was a lot of idolizing anime that had been cancelled. 

☆Taku: Right, shows like Gundam --

Imaishi: Yeah, like how Gundam was cancelled. 

Wakabayashi: It was almost made to be a homage to cancellation, or even a parody of it. 

☆Taku: [laughs] So you'd go as far as calling it a homage? In that case, you guys really didn't think about what would happen after that scene? 

Wakabayashi: That's correct. [laughs]

Imaishi: Right, for that ending we went to the character designer Atsushi Nishigori and asked him what would be the ending that upset him the most. That was ultimately how we decided what we wanted to use. 

[all laugh]

Imaishi: He was like “But there's no way that would happen, right?” then we went ahead and did it.  

☆Taku: So you really went all out on creating a cliffhanger that would get the show cancelled, but was it difficult thinking of how to continue after all that?

Imaishi: Honestly, because it is the world of PANTY & STOCKING – even in the original we had everyone turn into zombies and die, only for the following week's episode to have everyone back to normal. If we really wanted to, this is the kind of work where we have the option where we could just forget everything and set it back to how it was. So we kind of knew that it'd work out somehow. 

☆Taku: The first episode of New PANTY & STOCKING came along like nothing had ever happened, right? 

Imaishi: Right.

☆Taku: What was it that made you want to connect the original finale and the new series’ first episode?

Imaishi: We felt like doing it that way would be the most ridiculous. We wanted people to question why we were doing that properly.

Wakabayashi: If it wasn't for the fact that it had been 15 years since that ending, we probably would have just ignored it. It was a matter of how we could betray the fans while making them happy – we spent a lot of time thinking about that. A lot of people probably thought that because it's PANTY & STOCKING we'd just ignore it, we'd act like it never happened. I'd say it was probably the expectation of over half the viewers. 

☆Taku: I honestly thought that's what you'd do --

Wakabayashi: So what we figured would be the most unexpected thing, what would please people the most, would be to do the start properly, and properly revive PANTY & STOCKING. So for all the people that thought we'd never do something properly, we thought doing just that would be the most entertaining. 

☆Taku: With the existence of that cliffhanger, everyone including myself definitely felt a sense of shock. Online fans were quick to spread theories, for example about how Panty and Stocking became angels, or how the story was going to continue. Have you ever seen any of these theories online?

Wakabayashi: I have. It's a pretty common occurrence over these past 15 years, asking how Stocking became an angel – there's a lot of different theories online, but Panty and Stocking are, according to the story setting, part of a world where angels are born as angels. They're born as angels, are children as angels, go to elementary and middle school as angels, go to high school in the heavens, and become adults. This is how we built out this world, so there's not any cases where humans become angels. So those theories surrounding how she became an angel were outside of our expectations.  

☆Taku: That people would have theories like that was unexpected? They also have a mother don't they? 

Wakabayashi: Right, in the original you see her legs pop out from above the clouds. So I didn't really think there would be any misunderstandings surrounding that, but on the flip-side, I thought it was interesting that there was. 

☆Taku: There was another popular theory too that went around, did you happen to see that one too?

Wakabayashi: Ahh, that Stocking was a human from hell? There were definitely all sorts of theories. I did see a lot of them, but at the time I really wasn't thinking about what to do with them all, though I did think that if there ever was a “next time” that I'd think about them then. 

Imaishi: At the time we already had something to look forward to, because we wanted to do the funniest thing possible at that time. We wanted to make the most of the show at that time.

Due to the length of each episode, we'll be splitting them up into 2 parts to make things a bit easier to follow. Click here to continue on to Episode 1, Part 2!