ダーティペア OVA Episode 01

SPOILER Summary: On the remote asteroid Karosu Prison, the prisoners manage to stage a breakout and take the warden hostage. At the 3WA HQ, Kei is frustrated by all the “paperwork” she’s having to do (on the computer) while Yuri is down in the lab with Doctor Q and his assistant, trying out a new gadget. It is a ring that looks like normal jewelry, but can shoot a laser blast that will go through 2-meters of metal. Yuri takes the ring and is summoned away. She meets Kei and the two take off on the Lovely Angel to meet with a marine force. They learn of the prison situation and the marines’ task is to take control of the facility while Kei and Yuri rescue the warden.

The marines gear up in full armored body suits and deploy in a drop ship, where they jump out of and descend down the one safe route through the atmosphere (which is covered by three prison gun emplacements). Kei and Yuri are in a drop capsule and descend to a lower altitude before emerging and riding the convection currents of the atmosphere on special surf boards. Once inside, they make their way to the cell where the warden is being held, taking out some prisoners along the way. However, once freed, the warden wants revenge since his perfect career was ruined by this prison revolt just before he retired. Thus Kei and Yuri are forced to track down the warden (using Yuri’s ring in the process) and get him into their custody while staying alive from the attacking prisoners. Even while escaping, the warden talks of revenge but is knocked out by a beam, making the girls’ job easier. On their way out, the leader of the marines promises to treat them to dinner, leading Kei to let him know not to forget the champagne.

Thoughts: I’ll still be blogging the original TV series as I can score episodes. However, considering the OVA was where my friend Robert Rainey introduced me to the Dirty Pair franchise, I felt the need to re-watch it and blog about it.

When I saw this back in Japan, I had no subtitles or anything so naturally, I had not clue what the gibberish being spoken happened to be. However, when Kei and Yuri were scurrying around the prison corridors in their skimpy attire, I immediately called “BS!” After all, why were the marines fighting in full armored body suits and the girls weren’t? Robert explained it as the girls were really wearing transparent armor. That had to be the weakest excuse I’d heard in my then roughly 20-years of life. I thought he was just making it up until I recently read the first Dirty Pair novel and discovered this was something the author came up with.

Watching it all these years later, it is amazing how it didn’t seem like that long ago that I watched this and thought, “How can anyone watch anime in Japanese and enjoy it when they don’t speak Japanese and don’t have subtitles?” Well, at least this time, I have a translation.

Story-wise, I noticed that at least for this first OVA episode, there’s more of a purpose to what Kei and Yuri are doing whereas in the first nine episodes of the TV series, it felt more like the purpose was just something on the side to see the girls in action. Otherwise, it was a standard Dirty Pair outing — nothing special, but somehow fun just the same.