Copyright © Takachiho & Studio Nue - SUNRISE

Many anime fans first got their feet wet in the medium with shows like DIRTY PAIR; cute young women with powerful guns, flashing cleavage and levelling cities to save what's left of the galaxy. Along with shows like MAISON IKKOKU, RANMA, and GUNDAM, this series is a classic—and it's about time it made it to this side of the Pacific in a translated format! Things are looking up for longtime anime fans, with older shows like this one, CITY HUNTER, GUNDAM, SILENT MÖBIUS TV, and URUSEI YATSURA (on DVD) all coming out lately. Now we can finally buy high quality translated copies of the shows we first fell in love with.
And who doesn't love this dangerous duo in battle bikinis? Well, their boss Gooley doesn't, but that's just because he has to clean up the collateral damage... This tape contains the first two episodes of the 10 part OVA series, which came after the TV series. There's no introduction or background setup, but these two hardly need one. You have a problem, call the WWWA to help you, and they send the Lovely Angels to fix the problem. After that you might want to call a contractor to rebuild your city, colony, or planet, but your original problem will be fixed! Just don't call them the Dirty Pair to their faces, or you'll have to use a chisel to remove the carbon burns...
These first two episodes are typical DIRTY PAIR fare; rescuing a prison warden whether he wants to be rescued or not, and stopping a runaway war machine before it completely destroys a city. In both episodes the girls show why they're an insurance agent's worst nightmare.
Now, it has to be said that the show's age is apparent in its animation quality. Dokite Tsukasa's character designs are wonderful, but some of the backgrounds and a lot of the minor characters are a bit flimsy. Many of Ishizu Yasushi's mechanical designs are cool, but they also betray the show's advanced years. The opening and ending themes are some of my favorites, and this show usually has some good tunes sprinkled throughout. And everyone loves Mughi, the dangerous but sleepy cat alien who naps in whatever vehicle Kei and Yuri happen to be jumping out of at the moment.
The English dubbing on this tape is quite good and comes across as fairly natural. I personally prefer the original voices of Tonguu Kyouko and Shimazu Saeko as Kei and Yuri, but Pamela Lauer and Jessica Clavello have beautiful voices and do a great job of making these women sound alternately sweet and terrifying. Even though I like watching anime in its original language, it's nice to see dubbing quality continue to rise.
So relive the glory of your salad days, or see some anime history and find out where those DP FLASH girls came from! DIRTY PAIR's mix of comedy and action deserves to be in every fan's video library. Volume 2 is due out in late July—and who knows, maybe in a few more years we'll get to see the television episodes translated as well...

English Language version ©1999 A.D. Vision, Inc.
Released in North America by A.D.V. Films
VHS, 60 minutes
English Dubbed VHSOD/001D $19.98
English Subtitled VHSOD/001S $29.95
Available 5/25/99
Where to buy