Set in the future Kei and Yuri are Trouble Consultants for The 3WA. Code Named "Lovely Angels", but, they are known throughout the galaxy as The Dirty Pair. They always solve their case, but, not without causing collateral damage and mayhem.
They call themselfs kei and Yuri or ´Lovely angels´, criminals call them´Dirty Pair `One of the best and funniest ova´s from the 80´s, a time that gave the birth of OVA´S. Seeing it for the 1st time back in 1998 i had nice time watching this on vhs, and those 2 ladies.... big guns and EVERYTHING ends with destruction, no matter how easy an job it is and the department they work for just keeping the bills pilled up at the desk. one of my favorite episode´s was episode 2, the Halloween robbery wich had some good parody´s with some popculture from its...time and earlier. Artwise it is alright to watch, some bad animation but it was a diffrent time so deal with it, but good detailed background animation and not such a stiff movements at the least.The soundtracks ( opening ,ending) really gave a feel that it would be an entertaining anime serie, 1987 , cant go wrong there even during an episode its enjoyable! as for the charachters, because it was the late 80´s u still can see lots of stereotyping throughout the serie´s that can be excpected, even for the main charachters i was sometime´s fed up with some personalitys and stuff you know, the japanese SCHOOLGIRLTYPE screaming .... ugh too much there man... overall i had quite some fun watching it and the music made me finish the whole thing, and the some over the top comedy- action monents
Overall/Enjoyment: Not bad. Not great. Pretty average. Your enjoyment may vary depending on your age, when you see/seen this, and your tolerance for older anime. This OVA has absolutely no continuity, so you can literally watch the episodes in any order and it won't matter. You may or may not like this aspect; I personally prefer a strong central plot.
Story: There was nothing inherently wrong with the stories told here. After each one I would want to see another, not because they were particularly good, but I think more so because each one left me feeling perpetually unfulfilled. The stories are just little adventures that never really...add up to anything. So they're mildly entertaining in of themselves, but always left me wanting. Also, most of the fights are cartoon army style where thousands of shots fly by, or the enemies can be shooting at almost point blank, and everything but the target gets hit.
Characters: Same as the story, or maybe because of it, nothing really develops here either. The characters are neither particularly annoying, nor particularly memorable. Everyone but the main two characters are practically cameos. Even then you still only get a vague idea of the main characters personalities.
Art: The art was fine, I suppose. Nothing that stood out but pretty standard for the period, I believe.
Sound: I listened to about an episode and a half of the dubbing, and that was enough for me to conclude that this was some of the least enthusiastic voice acting I've heard. Neither the themes nor background music stood out to me.
I’ve only got to watch Dirty Pair quite recently (so no nostalgia factor) and having now watched both the original show from 1985 and this entry that is basically a "season 2" made two years later, I thought it was fair to share some of my thoughts comparing the two.
As you know, Dirty Pair is a old-school sci fi comedy about 2 female agents that are hired to solve all types of world issues, small or big. They always get the job done although also always breaking a lot of stuff in the process. Add to that a bit of sexiness to the formula and...you have Dirty Pair. Once again, the episodes are all stand alone, with no continuity between them.
Now, is this one worth watching? Well, compared to the first original "season", I would say: No.
- The art level got a downgrade and the animation also got worse; - Yuri and Key’s individual personalities are less pronounced; - The surrounding world and characters are less developed, making them all feel quite generic; - Despite its setting, the show also lost a bit of its sci fi elements; - The writing is really inconsistent. Some episodes are borderline childish and goofy while others (like ep.9) are quite violent and without anything comedic; - The whole "sexiness" of the original show is also lost in favor of just some tired old man jokes - that often feel out of place - and some even more revealing outfits; - The overall product felt a bit "less adult" than its predecessor for most of the time.
As I see it, most these issues boil down to bad writing, and you can notice that even further in the amount of predictable clichés and lack of emotional attachment throughout the show. There are even some continuity issues: where did that bazooka come from? why did the car color and model change out of nowhere? since when is Yuri good at neuroengineering?
This altogether ended up leaving me disappointed. I know that this is a show that is not supposed to be taken seriously, but the original one actually got some laughs out of me and made me at least care. It managed to find a way to mix in the comedy and absurdity of the shows' premise with some degree of seriousness and interesting elements. This one though, felt just kind of dumb, unfun and all over the place. You can see that the original foundation is there, but the execution is really lacking.
To be fair, I wouldn't say that either this or the original are a "must watch" since both of them I thought about dropping at some point. The difference, though, was that the original one kept me going, while this current entry I only finished "to get it done with".