Dirty Pair Flash

Publisher
ADV
Director
Tsukasa Sunaga
Production
Bandai, Sunrise, VAP
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
30 min x 6 vol
Year
1994

Dirty Pair Flash: Angels in Trouble

By John Huxley
28th Apr 04

For better or for worse, cyberpunk has long been out of favour. The shiny metals and flourescent colours of Cyber City Oedo or Megazone 23 would be considered 'passe' by modern standards - sci-fi anime now look elsewhere for their stylistic influences. Which regrettably means that all those of us who enjoyed the heyday of cyberpunk must look to older titles for our fix of pink mohawks and swish hover bikes. Which is where Dirty Pair Flash comes in.

In true cyberpunk fashion the world of Dirty Pair Flash is one of towering neon skyscrapers where the suit is king, juxtaposed by the dirtiest of slums where cutthroat gangs rule. And who would want to bring harm to this venerable dystopia for reasons unimportant? Why, a maniacal overlord of course! And who will stop him? How about two sixteen year old girls?

The first of our unlikely heroines is Yuri, an indolent young girl who would rather be dating boys than saving the galaxy. Deft with her light sword, she's a slender figure with long purple hair. Kei, the second of the duo, is brash, reckless and an expert marksman with her trusty laser gun. Employees of the W3A (World, Welfare & Works Agency) Kei and Yuri operate under the codename 'Lovely Angels' to rid the universe of evil and corruption...if only Kei wasn't on probation and Yuri wasn't too busy dating boys again.

Around the same time cyberpunk was a popular theme in anime, the buddy/cop movie was all the rage in Hollywood. A cyberpunk buddy/cop anime with two cute girls in skimpy costumes - Dirty Pair was destined for success.

Cliched though it may be, this formula makes for compulsive viewing simply because it is so easy to watch; turn your brain off and let the plot-by-numbers take you on the enjoyable, if a little predictable, ride.

Much of the enjoyment is garnered from the buddy/cop partnership of Kei and Yuri, the Dirty Pair of the title. As with all the best buddy/cop films it's a love/hate relationship where neither partner can live with nor without the other, tragically unaware of their symbiotic bond until the most critical moment. Not nearly as overblown as my description suggests, this pairing is actually well executed with only the slightest whiff of cheese. The subplots, involving an ex-W3A employee and a replacement for Kei who's even lazier than Yuri add interest, giving the central characters something worry about other than their comically mismatched partner.

With such solid goodguys you'd expect an eminently hateable badguy to fill up the numbers. Scheming he may be, this badguy never really gives us anything to jeer until the unsurprisingly cliched finale. He doesn't even have the ubiquitous evil laugh or unusual facial hair that regularly feature on such nefarious wrongdoers. With little cause to hate him (his reasons for trying to blow everything to kingdom come are left unexplained until the very end, and even then it's a pretty lame excuse) it's even harder to support the goodguys. If they insist on using such timeworn plot devices they could at least dot the I's and cross the T's. I lament the missed opportunity.

One area in which Dirty Pair Flash does please is the frantic, varied and often comic action. In the mix of light swords, gun fights, transforming mechs and space battles there should be something to please everyone. Although they occasionally appear tacked-on, these action sequences are ingenious at their best. They also represent the best Dirty Pair Flash has to offer in comedy - even if it won't make you laugh out loud, you'll at least enjoy the comical atmosphere.

As a straight comedy, Dirty Pair Flash would not succeed. With the frantic action, solid characters and great cyberpunk style there's a lot to enjoy here. For those of you who care it is worth remembering that this is an older title with the grainy animation, outdated artwork and electronic j-pop that comes with it. For the rest of us, the only effect of time is the sad fact that Dirty Pair Flash has since been bettered by the likes of Burn Up Excess. But for those of you who enjoyed a more innocent age where the Jiggle counter was merely a pipe-dream, this is for you.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: English and Japanese Audio, English subtitles, production portfolio, character biographies, original trailers, opening animation, ADV previews

Release information: UK release date: 18th August 2003, ADV

Notes: The biggest selling point of this package is the six episodes on one disc, equalling a lengthy running time of 160 minutes - good value for money by anyone's standards. The rest of the features are nothing extraordinary. The production portfolio is a compilation of production sketches (character designs, backgrounds - that sort of thing) and the character biographies are single-pages of text with background info (please don't read these before you've watched all the episodes unless you really do love spoilers). As expected with an older title such as this, image quality is poor; only marginally better than VHS. Regardless, this remains a good value for money purchase.

-- John Huxley 28th Apr 04

Dirty Pair Flash Images