ダーティペア OVA Episode 06

SPOILER Summary: Yuri and Kei are on a luxury cruise ship heading to Sargilco Island. As Kei takes a swim, a handsome man hits on Yuri, but is turned down. Kei wonders about this since Yuri has had a lot of men trying to pick her up, though this guy apparently isn’t Kei’s type. In their room, they discuss the forthcoming mission on the island, which has to do with a counterfeit money ring and the Casteno crime family. Yuri will pose as a student who’s surveying some local ruins. Kei will get a job at a local bar and try to get information. This takes place but sadly, neither girl has learned much, though Kei gets hit on a lot at the bar.

Yuri decides to investigate a local church, but the priest refuses to let her in, saying the church is for the use of locals only. As such, Yuri decides to sneak in and discovers evidence that points to counterfeiting being done on the church grounds. However, some of Casteno’s private security arrives, not buying Yuri’s reason for being on the church grounds. She’s saved when the man she turned down on the ship shows up. He’s Carine Casteno, the 2nd son in that crime family. He escorts Yuri to her car but doesn’t get in because Yuri told him previously she didn’t aggressive men. However, because he saved her, she has him get in. The two then start a romance (which initially annoys Kei) but soon leads to their engagement and planned wedding, which is approved by Carine’s father and reluctantly so by his older brother Darine.

Yuri sends out invitations to everyone she knows, so Chief Gooley gets one as well, delivered by former Trouble Consultant Beryl. He’s stunned by the news but goes with Beryl and others to the wedding. They are greeted by Kei, who warns Gooley not to say anything dumb. Gooley and Beryl meet with Yuri just prior to the wedding, where she confirms this is real. The security folks observing them in the operations center hear and see what they need to. As the wedding starts, Kei dons a nun’s habit and knocks out the security guy manning the monitors. She heads under the church where she discovers the counterfeit printing presses. So, she plants a series of bombs.

Meanwhile, the unconscious security guard is found and security soon has Kei located below. Darine is notified as Kei fights a running battle as she flees. Darin stops the wedding with some security henchmen as Kei is chased by others. However, Doctor Q’s flower on Yuri goes off, allowing everyone to escape. Despite her age, Beryl joins the fight, using her Bloody Card to clear a path to the ship she, Gooley, and Mughi escape on. Kei hangs back to rescue the missing Yuri. Yuri is still in the church, with Darine and his father telling Carine to shoot her. When he doesn’t, Darine starts to but has his gun shot from him. Yuri tells Carine to shoot her if he believes he lied to her. He does not.

Because the bombs Kei planted are about to go off, Carine takes Yuri to an escape plane-ship followed by Kei, while his brother and father head off in another direction. Once airborne, the church is destroyed meaning the Casteno family fortune is gone as well. Yuri asks Carine to come with her, but he declines, not wanting to be at odds with his family any further. He jumps out of the plane-ship with a parachute that says in English, “I love you.” After saying goodbye, Yuri returns to the cockpit where Kei understands that Yuri was serious about Carine.

Thoughts: Adaptation choices often amuse me. Case in point, when Chief Gooley and the old lady Beryl come to see Yuri just before her wedding, she addresses them as “Gooley-san” (she does not use the normal Japanese term for “chief” here) and Madam Beryl. Now, knowing that ADV isn’t going to use the Japanese honorific but will use the French honorific, why not have the subtitles address him “Mr. Gooley” seeing as (1) Yuri is under cover, thus wouldn’t be spouting her boss’s title and (2) she’s not addressing him with the normal Japanese term (which I believe is “Shunin,” which means “person in charge”) she usually uses to address her boss? Oh well. I suppose not calling him “Chief Gooley” in the subtitles would have confused people and of course addressing him as “Gooley-san” would have cause the Earth to implode on the spot.

As to the episode, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro. I mean we have the counterfeiters, we have that being done under a church, we have a powerful family, lots of henchmen (though no iron claws and no creepy butler), we have a wedding, and we have explosions. Heck, even the name “Casteno” is similar to “Cagliostro.” I half expected Kei to emerge from behind the alter Lupin-style, but that would have been too obvious I suppose.

Whoa! The Bloody Card got used in this episode, only not by Yuri but Madam Beryl. That’s Yuri’s favorite weapon in the novels from what I’m told (she did use it a lot in the first novel’s two stories). Well, nice to see that former Trouble Consultants still have the touch, even if they are too old to work the field and are relegated to admin work.

Still, another fun episode. That’s the thing about Dirty Pair anime episodes — they aren’t much, but they should be fun.