ダーティペア (TV Anime)
Dirty Pair TV Series DVD Collection 1

–> Purchase from Amazon.com (Litebox set)

Note: Amazon only has the Lite DVD set, not the original boxed set imaged below.

Dirty Pair is a franchise that I was introduced to when I lived in Japan.  As such, it has long held a soft spot with me to remind me of my youth.  For whatever reason, every other Dirty Pair OVA series, movie, and remake (the awful Dirty Pair Flash) were licensed by ADV but the TV series was not.  Fortunately, RightStuf, via Nozomi Entertainment, has finally rectified this problem years later.  Ironically, now that the TV series has been licensed, all of the other titles are no longer available.

For regular readers of my blog, you already know that I’ve blogged the TV series.  If you haven’t read those episode reviews, the Dirty Pair series revolves around two “Trouble Consultants” named Yuri and Kei, who have the code name “Lovely Angels.”  They work for a private, interstellar law enforcement organization called Worlds Welfare Works Association — WWWA (spoken as 3-W-A).  However, Yuri and Kei’s solution to problems usually involves a lot of destruction, thus they have a huge reputation and the nickname “Dirty Pair.”  The episodes are mostly episodic and have Yuri and Kei on various cases dealing with issues their own special way.

One of the things that I always liked about Dirty Pair is that the characters of Kei and Yuri feel real to me.  They are clearly friends and along with that comes the usual things like teasing each other and even getting into fights.  However, when push comes to shove, Yuri and Kei have each others’ back.  The results are episodes which are often just fun adventures of the two doing what they do best.  If you want to know more about my thoughts about Dirty Pair, you can read some of the other stuff I’ve written in the blog.

As to the RightStuf/Nozomi release, this is a subtitle-only license, which considering the age of Dirty Pair and the fact that it is only a cult classic series, this is not surprising.  Also not surprising is the stripping of Japanese honorifics from the subtitles, but as usual, this means that sometimes they get translated and sometimes ignored.  Each episode contains the preview for the following episode (yay) and after the Japanese credits roll over the ED, a new segment is added to have the credits spelled out in English.  That only lasts a few seconds though. The release is pretty bare-boned with the only true extras being the clean OP/ED.

Packaging is pretty good.  There are three thin-case DVD’s packed into a small, box with Kei on one side and Yuri on the other, forming a complete picture (I believe the art initially came from an LD release but that doesn’t really matter).  Unlike so many other thin sets, this box is the actual hard, thick one which means it is sturdy.  That’s a big plus to me.

How did this look?  Well, it wasn’t as clean as I’d hoped for.  That said, on my 46-inch HDTV, it didn’t look too shabby, certainly no worse for wear than any of my other anime titles.

So, while this certainly isn’t a perfect release, my love for the original Dirty Pair series is such that I had to own this. Those looking for classic anime should give this a try as it is a mostly fun, action-adventure series.