NoaIzumiAnime Review: Dirty Pair OVA series
March 10th 2009 13:50
The Lovely Angels are back, in ten new adventures! They may still strike fear in the hearts of innocent civilians everywhere, but they’ll always get the bad guy, whether it’s a killer robot, a supercomputer with a Messiah complex, a crooked casino, an old nemesis of Kei and Yuri’s, or just a bunch of spoiled kids.
I admit, I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for the Dirty Pair OVA series, since it was my introduction to the Dirty Pair franchise. I immediately fell in love with these two girls, and not just because of the revealing outfits.
As mentioned, the two discs contain ten episodes, all stand-alones. All are fun, although some are better than others, of course. (The one where Kei and Yuri take on God seemed particularly corny to me.) They don’t skimp on the action, and true to the franchise, some adventures do have a fair amount of collateral damage.
Lovely Angels Kei and Yuri are at their best here, and there’s plenty of snappy dialogue between them. Some episodes contain a surprising amount of character development as well. We learn a few things about their WWWA training, and Kei discovers her maternal side in episode 8 (I know, who’da thought, huh?). Dirty Pair is all about the action, but the emotional core is this unlikely partnership, and the series stays true to that.
Regarding the dub, people have complained about Kei and Yuri’s voices, saying they sound like valley girls, which is true, at least in Yuri’s case. But the voices work for the series, and that’s really all you can ask. It’s Dirty Pair, not Shakespare.
The only serious drawback with the OVA is that it will whet your appetite for the TV series, which will have to remain unfulfilled for the foreseeable future, at least in the West, as the TV series has yet to be released in English. Until that changes, the OVA series is the closest thing to it.
Let's go to work.
Great moments: Kei and Yuri having to depend on each other like never before in episode 7, the heart-breaking end of episode 9, the space truckers episode! (C’mon, you knew it had to have one)
Geeking out: During the second episode, a man in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume can be seen in a crowd scene.
Extras: Original trailers and clean opening and closing (applies to individual disks only, the box set has no extras aside from previews)
Summary: A seriously fun ride, probably the best of the Dirty Pair offerings in the West.
Age rating: 14 and up. Fan service, language, cartoon violence, man’s head explodes off-screen in episode 3.
The Box Set
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