"On the heels of the best selling Dirty Pair Flash series, come the original Lovely Angels wreaking the galaxy wide havoc that earned them their name. This is the ORIGINAL Kei and Yuri, the gun wielding, Bloody Card throwing Dirty Pair that millions have come to know and love. Who else could destroy half the city in pursuit of a walking arsenal disguised as an android and still call it a victory? Older, sexier and able to cause every bit as much collateral damage as their younger cousins, the original Pair are back at last!"
Original story: Haruka Takachiho
Director: Katsuyoshi Yatabe
Character design: Tsukasa Dokite
Mechanical design: Yasushi Ishizu
Music: Toshiyuki Kimori / Kohei Tanaka
Copyright: Takachiho & Studio Nue / Sunrise
Language Format: English Language
Director: David Williams
Translator: Kenzo Tsubai
ADR Script: Vol. 1: Tristan MacAvery
Vol. 3: Steven Rocket
Running time: 48/48/48/50/48 mins
Certificate: 12/12/PG/12/12
Catalogue no: VHSOD/001D / VHSOD/002D / VHSOD/003D /
VHSOD/004D / VHSOD/005D
Label: ADV Films
Price: £12.99 each
Release Date: 7th Feb/15th May/10th July/11th Sept/6th Nov 2000
Our favourite Trouble Consultants are back, here to wreck devastation and destruction in 10 brand new episodes. Well, kind of. These are the "original" Kei and Yuri from the late 1980s, who not only had their own 26-episode television series but also a ten-part OVA series, the latter of which is now being released under the "Original Dirty Pair" title from ADV Films.
The first episode sees the pair being called in to quell a prison riot on an asteroid. As Marines make a frontal assault on the prison, Kei and Yuri are charged with rescuing the prison warden from the escaped convicts. However, the warden has plans of his own. This episode has some lush visuals (for instance, Kei and Yuri's surfboarding scene) and is generally fun to watch. The second episode revolves around a crashed shuttle (which was shot down by Kei in the first place) and an escaped war android. Kei and Yuri end up chasing it across the middle of the city in the middle of the Halloween celebrations, while foiling four other gangs of criminals at the same time. The visuals in this episode are particularly fantastic, especially towards the end when the robot goes into attack mode.
Out of the two episodes, I'd say the second was the better, as it has more substance to it. As the for the dub, it doesn't nearly seem to grate as much as the dub did on the later Dirty Pair Flash episodes. Yuri is no longer a whiney little princess character, and although the support cast are a bit ropey in places (especially the "British" character in episode #2), the main cast do a far better job that the Flash cast did. The only real problem with these two episodes is that they are starting to look rather dated in terms of character design. I personally prefer the Dirty Pair Flash character designs - the ones here are very 1980s and do honestly look severely dated nowadays. However, a good solid purchase for Dirty Pair fans.
Grade: A- [Daniel Fawcett]