“Dirty Pair” 40th Anniversary Exhibition in Japan

Good grief. Nothing says “You’re getting old” like seeing a series you knew from back in the day celebrating a multi-decade milestone. In this case, today is the 40th anniversary of when the Dirty Pair anime adaptation of the light novels by TAKACHIO Haruka aired in Japan. When I lived in Japan, Dirty Pair: Flight 005 Conspiracy came out (1990).

For those who don’t know, Dirty Pair stars Kei (red hair) and Yuri (blue hair), a couple of young women who work for the World Welfare Works Association, or WWWA (pronounced 3WA). They traverse the galaxy on contract missions where the solve cases like a pseudo police force, or resolve disputes. Officially, the girls have the code name “Lovely Angels”, but due to the destructive nature by which many of their missions end, they have the nickname “Dirty Pair”, which they hate.

Come October 10 and running through November 3, the 40th anniversary celebration exhibit will run at Kita-Senju Marui in Tokyo. According to Comic Natalie, the exhibit will show off rare items from the production, including art, planning documents, and even the Nebula Award and other prizes the novel series won back in the day. And of course, they’ll be selling merch.

You know, Dirty Pair is ripe for a “Back to the Vaults” set of pieces. It has been ages since I watched the anime.

Anyway, here’s a piece of official art for the 40th anniversary.