Once upon a time, about 20 years ago, I visited a science fiction convention at the old Thruway Inn on Washington Avenue Extension. Yes, there actually used to be a hotel and banquet house on Washington Avenue Extension. There also used to be a widescreen movie theater, but I’ll save that for another blog post.
So while I’m perusing the various purchasable goodies at the convention, I happened to notice another conventioneer – a thin blonde, mid-20’s, with the looks that sci-fi fans dream about. She was checking out several hand-labeled videocassette tapes. I walked over to see what had caught her interest.
“What are you looking for?” I politely asked.
“I’m checking to see if they have a Dirty Pair here.”
“A dirty pair of what?” I replied.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had just tipped my hand in that although I had a decent knowledge of Japanese cartoons that made their way over to American audiences – Star Blazers, Battle of the Planets, Voltron – I was ignorant of some cartoons that, although they never made it over from Japan, were still loyally followed by anime fans in America.
And one of those was a show called Dirty Pair. Which the young girl was kind enough to show me – she pulled out a black-cased videotape with the words “Dirty Pair Eps 1-4” on it. She purchased the tape, and walked away from me, as she sported a gaze of “he has no clue what I’m into.”
That’s true – at that moment I may not have known what she was talking about.
But I purchased a copy of the tape as well. And I learned VERY quickly.
Yes, I know you’re looking at me like, “Chuck, I clicked on this blog headline and thought that you meant some other Dirty Pair – maybe involving some bow-chicka-wow-wow music.”
No, dear readers, I meant THIS Dirty Pair.
What, you thought I was joshing?
Now the two girls you see in this video clip – the redhead (“Kei”) and the brunette (“Yuri”) are called “Trouble Consultants,” and in this sci-fi show they work for an organization called the World Welfare Works Association (3WA). They are properly known by their code name, “The Lovely Angels,” and are experts in several different weapons and martial arts disciplines.
However, in the course of every episode, they completely destroy buildings – cities – sometimes even planets – in an effort to either capture the bad guys, or correct a mistake they made in capturing the wrong bad guy. They get their man, for sure – even if there’s plenty of destruction along the way. Thus, they’ve earned the (to them) less desirable sobriquet of “The Dirty Pair.”
Which, if you call them that to their faces, will most likely earn you a kick in the teeth, courtesy of their thigh-high bootheels.
Here’s another example of the Dirty Pair in action – this is a trailer compilation of some of their early episodes. Yes, it’s in Japanese. No, I’m not going to translate it for you. There’s an English-language dub of this cartoon if you look hard enough, but if you can’t figure out the action by watching the clip…
Eventually I did develop an appreciation for Dirty Pair – although, truth be told, there were other Japanese anime shows like Bubblegum Crisis and Ranma 1/2 and The Big O that I found more entertaining. Trust me – if it were a battle between the Knight Sabres from Bubblegum Crisis, the Megadeus from Big O and Kei and Yuri, I’m not sure the Dirty Pair would survive.
However, I suspect there would be a lot of broken robot parts all over Tokyo because of it.
Chuck The Writer 