Dirty Pair Flash

Original Title: ダーティペアFLASH
Romanized: Daatii Pea FLASH
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

Kei and Yuri are a newly formed pair of WWWA Trouble Consultants, the famed galactic investigators who keep the peace across the galaxy by blowing a whole lot of stuff up. Neither of the two is too happy about the pairing--Yuri is busy trying to make it to a date and her new trigger-happy partner isn't helping a whole lot. When a man on the run from some unfriendly looking military types hands Kei a data card with some very important information on it, they're eventually going to have half the unsavory folks in the galaxy after them, and it's going to take a lot of luck, a lot of skill, and a lot of guns just to keep them alive, let alone solve the case.

Review

Rating: 2.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2005-07-11

Dirty Pair Flash more or less lives up to the reputation of its predecessor. On the more side, this Dirty Pair re-envisioning has lots of action, plenty of guns, a smattering of high-tech gadgets, the half-clothed Lovely Angels, and a healthy helping of collateral damage. On the less side, the new Pair isn't anywhere near as dirty as the old one, nor as much fun--the sleazy B-movie charm and cheerful mayhem of the original are what set it apart. The result is a moderately well-made and entirely unmemorable action series.

Looked at entirely on its own, Dirty Pair Flash is a decent '90s action series. There's a healthy amount of action, the characters are interesting enough and have some slightly unusual chemistry (they really seem to hate each other), and the stories, while unoriginal, don't seem hurried, even though the episodes aren't very long. Actually, it's a bit impressive that Dirty Pair Flash manages to comfortably fit so much action (and even a bit of story and character development) into such short sections--it feels longer than it is.

That said, Dirty Pair Flash is really nothing more memorable than any of a dozen other action OAV series, while the original has managed to remain relatively popular for over 20 years and spawn a series of original comics in addition to the half dozen movies, OAVs and TV series. You'll almost certainly enjoy Flash the most if you watch it as its own series, but since it invokes the Dirty Pair name it demands to be compared, and it's interesting to me how badly it fails to live up to its namesake.

Admittedly, Dirty Pair Flash has a modern polish that most of the classic movies and OAVs lack (particularly the earliest movies), but the makeover goes too far in my opinion--if it weren't for the title, you probably wouldn't even know that this is supposed to have anything to do with the original, so why even bother? The new Kei and Yuri aren't supposed to be the same Pair, but they're barely even recognizable as the descendants (or cousins or something) they're supposed to be--they're a much more generic anime duo now and their relationship is more outright war than antagonism.

Aside from the new and "improved" Lovely Angels, there are some other things that seem to be missing, most notably the fun. In place of silly, unoriginal plots are equally silly and unoriginal ones that are far less fun--instead of almost-parodies of classic B-movie plots, Flash takes a classic anime plot (several, really) and tries to take itself relatively seriously. At least it's not all bad; fans of the Adam Warren comics (I'm thinking of Sim Hell specifically) will probably enjoy that the fourth episode takes place inside a fantasy sim.

Similarly, the action, although fast and furious, just isn't as much fun. There is, to Flash's credit, a fine madcap chase through town in the first episode, but most of the action is lacking that really over the top flair that defines the original at its best. The gadgets are also there, but are generally less creative than in the old days (no card of death at the very least). And finally, though there is enough collateral damage to go around, there is nowhere near the utterly catastrophic, planet-scale destruction that gave the old Dirty Pair their name.

Basically, Flash seems to be an attempt to make the Dirty Pair more modern and less sleazy, and it succeeds. Unfortunately. As a result, it's just another OAV series with one or more heroic but destructive women, even if it is a reasonably well done one, and just doesn't distinguish itself from the pack.

Visually, Dirty Pair Flash is well done, and stands above the average action OAV series in the crowd. The art is attractive, as are the character designs. Likewise, the animation is smooth, and the action fast, clean, and has plenty of punch. Also of note are the settings; there are a couple of imaginative settings for fights (most noteworthy being an icy cruse ship) and fairly nice background art to go with them.

I've only seen the dub, but the acting there is pretty good, although not worth particular note. Most memorable is some impressive yelling by the actress who plays Kei and a few decent performances in minor roles. The music is also above average, with a catchy song or two on the soundtrack.

To sum up, if you're a fan of the original Dirty Pair, you may well be disappointed at this cleaner, less-sleazy, less-fun re-envisioning, but Dirty Pair Flash does manage to hold its own as a solid if generic light action series.

Related Recommendations

Iria is similar in spirit, and much better. Also very similar to Burn Up W and just about every other women with guns action series. As was made abundantly clear in the review, though the basic theme is the same as the original Dirty Pair movies, OAVs, and TV series, it's less sleazy and fun.

US DVD Review

The DVD compiles the entire series onto one hybrid disc, tossing in some art, character bios, and trailers by way of bonuses.

Content Guide

Though not even close to the sleaze level of the original Pair, this series has enough violence and skimpy outfits to warrant a 13-up.

Violence: 3 - Plenty of people getting shot.

Nudity: 1 - Kei never has anything that's not reasonably skimpy on.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - A drop of romance.

Language: 1 - A few mild expletives (ADV showed remarkable restraint).

Notes and Trivia

For those who don't know, Dirty Pair Flash is (loosely) based on an old anime series which was in turn based on a series of Japanese-language novels; this Kei and Yuri are supposed to be descendants of the original Lovely Angels. More recently, Dark Horse Comics has been producing a string of comic book miniseries with Adam Warren's take on the Lovely Angels (based much more closely on the original); these comics are wholly US productions but are loads of fun, and filled with more collateral damage than you can shake an inaccurate rocket launcher at.

Availability

Available in the US from ADV on one bilingual DVD. Was originally available on three subtitled or dubbed VHS volumes, all out of print now.

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