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I’ve been one of those Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt sickos for years, and I make no apologies for that. The first season is one of the shows that got me back into anime after I had lapsed briefly years ago, so you could say that I’ve got the job I do now at least partially because of it. The show also had one of the all-time greatest English dubs of any anime, so it might surprise you when I say that I’m so glad they completely swapped out the cast. Not because they were bad, but because of Christopher Sabat.

Because of the overt sexual themes and vulgar language as well as the rapid-fire delivery of the dialogue, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt always benefited from being localized into English. The original Japanese is a bit less colorful with its profanity, which gives the series an almost inexhaustible number of swears to throw at the viewer. It can be argued that the show is better in English because of this; it is certainly closer in tone to shows like Drawn Together that inspired it.

There is also the fact that the actors in the English dub of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is, across the board, incredibly talented and accomplished voice actors. Where Yu Yu Hakusho was Funimation showing how great an English dub could be, this is Funimation at the height of their powers, using the stable of talent they had built up over the years to make one of the all-time great casts in anime history. Jamie Marchi and Monica Rial kill it as the Anarchy Sisters, while Chris Ayers gives one of his most fun performances in his career.

The lone issue is Christopher Sabat, who voices Garterbelt in the original dub of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. Not because he is bad in the role – he is incredibly fun and exactly as over-the-top as everyone else. The problem is that Christopher Sabat is a very white man, and Garterbelt is very Black. This is one of those 'it wasn’t okay then and it isn’t okay now' type castings that would be a big deal if it happened today, but not much was said about it at the time.

When the second season finally came out in 2025, everyone was wondering what the new English cast would look like. Obviously, they had to make some changes; Chris Ayers unfortunately died back in 2021, so Corset would need to be recast. Meanwhile, I was genuinely wondering how they would handle Garterbelt being played by a Black man. Surely there was no way they would make that mistake today, right? After all, the anime dubbing community is much larger and far more diverse than it was a decade ago.

Turns out, the problem was deftly avoided when Amazon’s Prime Video picked up the distribution rights to New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. With a different studio doing the dubbing, they were able to start from scratch with the English localization. That means that we’re getting a total recast, with every role changing actors. Thankfully, this means that a Black man, Daniel Walton, is playing Garterbelt in the second season of the show.

This is no shade against Sabat, mind you. I’m a huge fan of his work on Dragon Ball, One Piece, and My Hero Academia. However, times have changed and casting him as Garterbelt, even as a legacy role, would have been an unnecessary and uncomfortable distraction for the show. There is enough in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt that is meant to be offensive; no need to add something that is unintentionally so.

Do I miss the original cast? A little. They elevated what could have been an incredibly silly show into one of the most oddly enduring anime of its time and created one of the most iconic English dubs of all time. However, the new cast is good. Different, certainly, and it took me most of the first episode to get used to the sudden change, but they deliver the same energy and vulgarity that the first season thrived on.

Will season two of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt be as enduring as the first? It has already delivered one of the all-time great (and unexpected) homages to Jack Kirby that we’ve ever had, so I’m at least having fun with the show, which is the most important thing. Sure, I would have loved to have gotten Marchi and Rial back in their roles after all this time, but if the cost of avoiding bringing Christopher Sabat back as Garterbelt is a total recast of the show, then it is worth it.

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