is a Japanese word referring to a brief glimpse of a woman's underwear. The term carries risqué connotations, similar to the word upskirt in English. In anime and manga, panchira usually refers to a panty-shot, a visual convention used by Japanese artists and animators since the early 1960s. According to Japanese sources, the convention probably started with Machiko Hasegawa's popular comic strip Sazae-san, whose character designs for Wakame Isono incorporated an improbably brief hemline. The practice was later transferred to animation when Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy was adapted for television in 1963. Confined mainly to harmless children's series throughout the remainder of the decade, panchira took on more overtly fetishistic elements during the early seventies. From that point on, panchira became linked with sexual humor such as the kind found in many comedy-oriented shōnen manga. The word is a portmanteau of and , the Japanese sound symbolism representing a glance or glimpse. It differs from the more general term "upskirt" in that panchira specifies the presence of underpants (the absence of which would more accurately be described as ; ). The word panchira is similar to panty peek in English. Origins The development of panchira in Japanese popular culture has been analyzed by a number of American and Japanese writers. Many observers link the phenomenon to the Westernization of Japan following World War II. During the occupation, fashions, ideas, and media previously unavailable were accessed by the local population, leading to a slight relaxing of earlier taboos. Western-style clothing (including women's underwear) gained popularity in the post-war period, reinforced through numerous media outlets—magazines, newspapers, films, journals, and comics. Traditionally, Japanese women did not wear underwear. On December 16, 1932, there was a fire in the Tokyo Shirokiya department store. Legend has it that some of the female staff tried to use their kimonos to cover their privates as they climbed down ropes from the higher floors, and accidentally fell to their deaths. Japanese newspapers began agitating for women to start wearing , but seemingly had little impact at the time. In a 1934 survey by a Fukuoka newspaper, 90% of the women surveyed were still not wearing 'drawers' a year and a half after the fire. At least one Japanese source traces the beginnings of panchira to the release of The Seven Year Itch in 1955. The media coverage surrounding Marilyn Monroe's iconic scene fueled the emerging Japanese craze. According