ダーティペア Episode 09
Dirty Pair 09

SPOILER Summary:

The Lovely Angel is approaching Planet Praston when they are engaged by fighters from the surface. Yuri and Kei are calm during the attack, Mughi freaks out, causing them to crash. Turns out, they were going to stage a crash as part of their current mission to apparently infiltrate the two major syndicates on the planet which produce the mineral fuel known as New Stone, who’s production has seen a serious decline. Mughi’s actions means their ship is in need of repair, which the duo put Mughi and Namo to work on as they head into town, disguised in western attire. Yuri, dressed like Clint Eastwood, is not happy with this, but they have no choice. Kei has Yuri stop the car at a yakisoba stand where she gets a plate full of the food until everyone starts closing down as the Montal Private Police show up.

The thugs from the Montal Syndicate kick the thugs from the Dokecchi Syndicate out of the bar, leading Kei to give the Montal guys some grief. Realizing Kei is a girl, the Montal thugs have a different attitude until she starts kicking their butt. Their fight is interrupted when “Oyuri” begins firing, accusing “Okei” of killing her brother. Thus Kei ends up getting an in with the Dokecchi Syndicate and Yuri with the Montal Syndicate. Both get hired as bodyguards for their respective syndicates with both groups planning things — Montal is smuggling beam weapons (which could cause a chain reaction with the New Stone and destroy the planet) and Dokecchi planning to stop Montal.

After Brocco from the Dokecchi discovers Kei communicating with Yuri, his group discovers that 3WA sent Dirty Pair to the planet, thus she may be one of them. When they rescue the son of the head of Montal (who’d tried to make a move on Yuri and gotten a beating for it), the two groups decide to come together to flush out the Dirty Pair. When Yuri is notified by one of the head thugs, she desperately tells Mughi to have the ship repairs done by 08:00 the following morning. The following day, the two groups send Yuri and Kei in to fight each other. Realizing the jig is up and that they can only wait for a rescue, Yuri and Kei begin a “bitch fight” where they slap the crap out of each other and tussle around on the ground. Both syndicates are stunned by this as Lovely Angel arrives on scene, its beam canon trained on the New Stone quarry. Having escaped, Kei slaps Namo in happiness, who in turn accidentally fires the canon, destroying the planet.

Thoughts/Review:

You know, this episode is a rather interesting parody of the old samurai-yakuza titles, merged with the American western in a futuristic sci-fi environment. I got a kick out of that.

As is typical with a Dirty Pair title, there are a lot of events that happen but not a lot else. So production of this New Stone mineral fuel is down due to the fighting. What did 3WA hope to accomplish by sending in Yuri and Kei? On the surface, one would think it would be to restore production levels, but nothing in the story indicated this. Oh well. As I almost always say with a Dirty Pair title (and likely will say again), one doesn’t watch these for any deep story or meaning. If I was entertained by Yuri and Kei’s actions, then the productions staff have done their job.

One final note, I did get a laugh at the “bitch fight” between Yuri and Kei at the end. I honestly didn’t expect it, and unexpected things like this are things I find enjoyable.