Dirty Pair

cinnabarhat74

cinnabarhat74

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Dirty Pair

Synopsis, Screenshots, Reviews, Recommendations ~ Add Your Own Recommendations

Discuss individual episodes and first impressions of this anime here. Full reviews should be posted here. Forum rules and post guidelines can be found here.

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I honestly would not have posted this thread if it weren't for the fact that Otaku USA did a recent article about Dirty Pair and its renewed interest in Japan and America. Plus, they are planning to liscense it and release a DVD set. This was one of my favorite animes back in the day, and who can blame me. I mean cute, kick-ass girls in skimpy battle bikinis who blow up everything in the name of justice. What else can you ask for? This is what "sexy" anime is all about and the cool thing about this series is that it's not hentai. Just sci-fi action, comedy, and sexy chicks. There are some towel scenes, lots of cleavage, maybe an ass-crack or 2 but that's it. That 80's style of anime where the girls have that "chubby" look with the really kawaii faces is just awesome! Ranma 1/2 was another one like that. I've recently begun to watch Dirty Pair again on AnimeFuel and I just bought the movie off Ebay so I add to my "Dirty Pair" collection. Might even have to buy a figurine or two.

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Absolutely awesome. The original and the best. The cornerstone of many fem-pairs was started here. Your Under Arrest/Kiddy Grade/Gunsmith Cats come to mind. i know there were more.
I can not think of many before this one however.

I can assume you may have seen Crusher joe as well?

For it's era, it was a high octane action show.
 
i did not like the re modeled tv series but the original anime were great not really a series an much as a few movies each was fairly long...
 
Bloody hell, this takes me back. If anyone was a teenager in the UK in the 90's probably saw this on the Bravo channel. Bonkers, but brilliant!
 
"Chubby?" That seems to be a skewed sense of thin. I don't see how anime girls of the 80's are "chubby."

Anyways, I am highly looking forward to RightStuf's release of the TV series. 26 episodes of two beautiful women kicking ass and causing unintended destruction as they right the wrongs of the universe.
 
CMC said:
"Chubby?" That seems to be a skewed sense of thin. I don't see how anime girls of the 80's are "chubby."

Anyways, I am highly looking forward to RightStuf's release of the TV series. 26 episodes of two beautiful women kicking ass and causing unintended destruction as they right the wrongs of the universe.
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if you have a figure, it is considered chunky.
 
I used to read the "manga" by Toren Smith and Adam Warren. The anime never got a UK release so I've never seen any of it :(
 
CMC said:
"Chubby?" That seems to be a skewed sense of thin. I don't see how anime girls of the 80's are "chubby."
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I have heard the term "chubby" applied to the female character designs that were most prevalent in the 1980's and early '90's. You could probably just say "that '80's look" if you want to be PC about it. "Chubby" wasn't meant to be a derogatory term. You could probably call modern anime design "Anorexic" when it comes to those stick-figure characters you see so much in today's anime. Just look at XXXHolic or Code Geass. The characters look like they've been starved.
 
skankfish215 said:
I used to read the "manga" by Toren Smith and Adam Warren. The anime never got a UK release so I've never seen any of it :(
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I remember that. It came out later on. It was actually not half bad for an adaption. Better looking than the not so great, Ako adaption.
 
eaper said:
I thought chubby was supposed to be slightly derogatory >.> And Code Geass and XXXHolic characters are Noodle People, not anorexic.
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lol, I like the slang to come up with a name to try to differentiate, this look. I guess I have seen it, never looked it up.

Aside from the ones mentioned, The Clamp titles, and Lupin/Bebop, a couple others could also be ; Hi Speed Jecy, and the ultimate thin duke title ---> Five Star Stories, (hell even the mecha are on a diet.

But artistic intentions aside, they are thin. And Anorexic, in quotes, I understand what he is saying. Even in that tropes it said;
" ...It's just closer to being in line with the rest of anime's skinny, skinny waifs." I don't wax poetic over humorous descriptions. I have often thought of calling it, The Hunger Strike Look. I imagine, noodle people will suffice, however.
 
Well, kind of. The men are so feminine it's sickening. Really, really skinny, though shoulders aren't often very broad. Tallness isn't as uncommon as it is supposed to be though.
 
Episodes 1-2
I was expecting a kitschy bit of sci-fi cheese saturated with 1980s style with girls, guns and explosions. Essentially Bubblegum Crisis without the slick OVA animation.

This delivered.
Like so many anime before and after it, Dirty Pair clearly spent quite a bit extra money on the first episode. The numerous moving machine parts, the various things on those screens, the moving crowds, the death-defying theatrics, the whole thing was very above par for an anime for this period (I suspect the rougher but still nicely designed second episode is more what one could expect from a typical episode of this show.)

The humour here didn't always land - a lot of it is dependent on the Pair being frivolous, which I could take or leave (though as both episodes show, their attitude doesn't undercut their ability to get the job done, and Kei resents Grave's paternalistic assumptions to that effect.) Kei asking Brian which one was better probably best sums up that dynamic - it's a classic sci-fi conceit, ask a computer an impossible question and it'll tie itself in knots so it can be destroyed - half the episodes of the first Star Trek end this way - but Kei also frames it as a question that's all about them.

And of course they resent their reputation for being casually destructive. It doesn't matter how well they do their job if they blow a lot of stuff up in the process. One of the bits that actually made me laugh is when two guys panicked by their reputation are destroyed by the computer's drones, so I hope this kind of casual destructiveness remains a thing.

Generally the first episode had some stronger material, from the meta humour (we don't know who you are you're not on TV!) to the confusion about their identity (wrestlers?), I guess the whole spacesuit battle and crashing the spaceship were the things I liked the most about the second episode.
Jamie said:
"Chubby?" That seems to be a skewed sense of thin. I don't see how anime girls of the 80's are "chubby."
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I know this is a hella old conversation, but yeah, god that is a bizarre position to take about 1980s designs, particularly these two women, who are very thin and people who say otherwise have utterly crazy ideas about the human body.

Rather like these designs. Yuri makes me think a bit of Lynn Minmay, actually.
 
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Episodes 1-2:

Hahaha! I cannot believe that, for the first time ever in an anime, a guy had to get approval from girls by flashing his chest. Massive grin on my face. ^_^

Apart from that, indeed, the humour is only half working for me. I do appreciate this lighthearted, frivolous approach, which means this thing will never sink into the Valley of Pretentious Drivel. But neither can I reasonably expect anything momentous to come out of the script. It will be a nostalgic trip into the way they used to make shows. And that in itself is rewarding for me.

Continuing the Bubblegum Crisis comparison, I have come to think that the two titles are misnomers accidentally swapped through someone dropping their relative portfolios. Dirty Pair is really all about bubblegum, with the pink and blue hairs, the cheerie faces, the light colour scheme and funny animals/robots. Bubblegum Crisis on the other hand screams dirty, with its grungy look, the grim backgrounds and Terminator-style cyborgs. Someone missed a trick here.

I'll end on saying that my single favourite aspect of this is Kei's character design. I'm digging that pink J-fro with the white headband so hard. I love both their outifts, but goddamn Kei makes me want to look like her. I also wish the universe to note that Yuri is a pisces like me, her birthday being only two days before mine.
 
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