ダーティペア (TV Anime)
Dirty Pair TV Series DVD Collection 2

–> Purchase from Amazon.com (Original box set)
–> Purchase from Amazon.com (Litebox set)

As I’ve said before, 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 days in Japan when life was full of possibilities. ^_^  Now that I’m older, I’m glad that Nozomi/RightStuf licensed this anime so I can have it in my collection to watch whenever I feel like it.

For those who don’t know, Dirty Pair features Yuri and Kei, two older teen “trouble consultants” working for the Worlds Welfare Works Association — WWWA (spoken as 3-W-A).  WWWA gets hired to solve problems, often ones that the local law enforcement can’t handle for whatever reasons, and then cases are assigned out by computer based on which team is likely to have the greatest chance of success.  Yuri and Kei’s team, code named “Lovely Angel” has the unofficial nickname that they hate — “Dirty Pair.” That’s because their solutions to cases often result with a massive amount of destruction of things.  However, because they are so good at what they do, they are assigned many cases.

Kei and Yuri are best friends and roommates in addition to being partners for WWWA though like all good friendships, they have their spats at times.  Joining them on their missions are their giant “bear cat” Mughi and their small, AI robot Nanmo.  They have a starship, named Lovely Angel, with which they travel from location to location for their various missions.

For this DVD set, episodes 14 through 26 are included. While episodes 25 and 26 were actually released as a 2-episode OVA series called Dirty Pair: With Love from the Lovely Angels (English translation), RightStuf makes no mention of this and simply treats them as they were originally meant to be treated — like the final two episodes of the TV series. For the sake of history, I would have preferred that mention have been made somewhere to the fact that they weren’t originally shown on TV but oh well.

While the first DVD set was really bare on the extras, RightStuf has some extras this time beyond commercials for more of their stuff. Disc one contains line art for Kei, Mughi, and Nanmo.  It also has the clean ED theme (meaning no text on screen), an ad for the first DVD set, and other commercials. Disc two has Yuri’s line art, other character’s line art, and commercials. Disc three has Kei and Yuri line art, background line art, ship line art, and commercials.

Also included with this DVD set is a 20-page, color booklet featuring a 1993 interview, from the Japanese Laserdisc release, with TAKACHIHO Haruka-sensei, the author of the Dirty Pair light novels.  It isn’t an interview in the standard sense where the questions are shown with the answers, but it is a fascinating read. The booklet also features a 2010 interview with Takachiho-sensei in which fans were able to send him questions and he answered. Very interesting stuff there as well.

I’m a bit puzzled by the DVD box cover art choices made. Yuri and Kei are shown in their OVA costumes, not their TV series outfits (though one could argue that Kei wore silver in all of the Dirty Pair titles). Its not really a problem, but it would have been better for Yuri to have been in her yellow outfit, not silver.

My review of the first DVD set is here. If you’d like to read my episode reviews, this link will take you to all of the “Dirty Pair TV” items I’ve tagged, including these DVD reviews.

For me, the two Dirty Pair TV series DVD sets are well worth having as the series is fun, even if episodic in nature. I’m glad that the other Dirty Pair stuff has been license-rescued by Nozomi/RightStuf and I’m hoping to be able to score the remaining OVA titles as well as the movies.  I won’t touch Dirty Pair Flash with a 10-foot cattle prod though. ^_^;