{"id":38410,"date":"2024-12-15T14:49:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T18:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/?p=38410"},"modified":"2024-12-15T14:49:12","modified_gmt":"2024-12-15T18:49:12","slug":"a-lost-dirty-pair-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/a-lost-dirty-pair-discovered\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lost Dirty Pair Discovered"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Lovely Angels, a pair of \u201ctrouble consultants\u201d employed by the WWWA (World Welfare Works Association) are Kei & Yuri. They\u2019re experts at their job, yet accidents, collateral damage, and disaster seem to coincidentally occur wherever they take action, leading to the girls earning the dreaded nickname \u201cThe Dirty Pair.\u201d Author Haruka Takachiho seminal girls with guns series premiered as an illustrated prose story in the February 1979 issue of S-F Magazine. In March 1983 an anime feature film adaptation of Crusher Joe<\/em>, another of Takachiho\u2019s sci-fi novel series, hit Japanese movie theaters. In the \u201983 Crusher Joe<\/em> movie, the Joe team watch a drive-in movie. That movie features \u201cThe Dirty Pair,\u201d marking Kei & Yuri\u2019s first animated appearance. Two years after studio Nippon Sunrise animated Crusher Joe<\/em>, the studio launched the 26-episode (24 broadcast episodes plus 2 OVA episodes) Dirty Pair<\/em> anime television series in July 1985. The series was voted best anime production of 1985 by Animage Magazine<\/em> readers, thus winning the year\u2019s Animage Anime Grand Prix award, placing Dirty Pair<\/em> in the company of other annual Anime Grand Prix award winners including Mobile Suit Gundam<\/em>, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind<\/em>, My Neighbor Totoro<\/em>, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon<\/em>, and Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Select episodes of the TV anime were adapted into manga form by Kazunari Ikeda and published in Monthly Shonen Magazine from June through November 1985.
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The success of the \u201985 Dirty Pair<\/em> television anime rolled into the December 1985 release of the hour-long \u201cAffair of Nolandia\u201d OVA, a production more closely aligned to the tone and style of Takachiho\u2019s original novels than the comical and satirical television series. The style of the television series anime resurrected in the November 1986 Dirty Pair Movie<\/em>, widely known by its unofficial nickname \u201cDirty Pair: Project Eden.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a year hiatus, the Dirty Pair<\/em> returned in a 10-episode OVA series that released from December 1987 through April 1988. After another short break, the pair returned to anime form again in January 1990 with the hour-long Flight 005 Conspiracy<\/em> OVA.<\/p>\n

Canadian translator Toren V. Smith\u2019s translation firm Studio Proteus acquired rights to adapt The Dirty Pair<\/em>. Smith on scripting and Adam Warren on illustration duty published their first original American Dirty Pair<\/em> comic book in December 1988. The moderately successful series ultimately lasted 28 issues spread across six mini-series, an 8-page story originally published in the 1994 San Diego Comic Con Comics<\/em> issue 3, and the \u201cStart the Violence\u201d story originally serialized in Dark Horse Comics Presents<\/em> issues 132-134.<\/p>\n

Although Haruka Takachiho continued to regularly publish Dirty Pair<\/em> chapters that would be compiled into novels, the Lovely Angels in other media went dormant for four years before returning in the revamped reboot Dirty Pair Flash<\/em>. The \u201cFlash\u201d redesign was a bit controversial among fans but ultimately proved successful enough to spawn three OVA series totaling 16 episodes, a single-volume manga adaptation by Hisato Makihara, and a single-volume \u201cDirty Pair Flash DX\u201d manga story by Takemaru Ohno.
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A 26-episode weekly streaming internet radio drama titled \u201cLovely Angel: Kei & Yuri\u201d broadcast from October 1, 2006 until April 1, 2007. Reportedly the FM Osaka radio network\u2019s \u201cItokubo Party Road\u201d program included a weekly 10-minute Dirty Pair<\/em> radio drama; however, I\u2019ve been unable to pin down the year this series broadcast nor any other specific details about it.<\/p>\n

FM Osaka also broadcast the \u201cDirty Pair 91: Kunoichi<\/a>\u201d radio drama on October 15, 2007. The two-hour broadcast consisted of two six-chapter stories written by Haruka Takachiho that reimagined Kei & Yuri as 18-year-old ninja in 1791 Japan. The broadcast was re-broadcast in April 2009.
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The Dirty Pair resurrected in manga form once again in the \u201cGreat Adventure of Dirty Pair\u201d manga by Hisao Tamaki published in Monthly Comic Ryu from May 2010 through July 2011.
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The most recent official iteration of The Dirty Pair<\/em> appeared from November 29 to December 26, 2022 in the form of the Alice Gear Aegis & Dirty Pair Collaboration<\/em> \u201cGlory to the Galactic Partners (Pairs)! ~A Lovely Maiden and a Captain Are in Action!!~.\u201d 1985 television series character designer Tsukasa Dokite drew the new character designs for the smartphone game cross-over.
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