Dirty Pair Flash #1: Angels In Trouble (DVD)

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"Dirty Pair Flash" is the latest incarnation of the fan-favorite "Dirty Pair" series. In the past, you had a series of books, a TV series, an OVA series, and three movies before "Dirty Pair Flash", which was released in Japan in 1993 and in the United States by ADV Films in 2000, came along. Fans of previous takes on "Dirty Pair" will be in for a surprise as the two main characters have been redesigned; the overall art style has changed, too. The storyline is unrelated to those of other "Dirty Pair" productions.

"Angels in Trouble" is the six-episode DVD released by ADV that contains the first complete story arc in the new "Dirty Pair Flash" conceptualization, which was known as Mission 1 in Japan. The episode titles are "Runaway Angel", "Darkside Angel", "Frozen Angel", "Sleeping Angel", "Stray Angel", and "Lovely Angel". (I get the feeling that there is some kind of pattern to the names, but I just can´t quite seem to get it.) :-P

In the first episode, we´re introduced to Kei and Yuri, the newly-formed team working for the World Welfare Work Association (3WA). Their team´s code-name is "Lovely Angels", a name usually assigned to the most elite 3WA team and currently assigned to these two due to a bug in the system. Kei is the short-haired girl dressed in red, and Yuri is the girl with long purple hair dressed in white. As their boss comments, we soon learn that these two aren´t exactly 3WA´s greatest agents. What they lack in talent though, they more than make up in sheer violence. By the end of the episode, Kei and Yuri have managed to destroy an entire city zone--all because they were trying to deliver a card to their HQ.

Subsequent episodes have similar levels of action, explosions, and mayhem, but that´s not all there is to this show. The two main characters, besides having been drawn very well, actually have real depth to them. Kei and Yuri don´t get along well in the beginning and have to learn to trust each other. During the course of six episodes, we get to see what motivates both of them and watch them round out and mature.

The back story of the "Dirty Pair Flash" universe is slowly revealed during the six-episode arc. A galaxy-wide war ended some years ago, leaving various planets without any means of communicating with each other. That detail hints at what the main evil corporation is trying to do. The war also gives rise to other interesting details, like quirky comments made by the heroines´ boss and the fact that the moon is mostly destroyed. The attention devoted to such minutiae raises the overall quality of the show.

I especially liked how the plot was presented. While each episode consists of a single caper, the cases are all related. At first, it was hard to see where it was all going, but by the third episode, you can tell that something more sinister than a few unrelated thefts and assassinations is going on. None of the episodes were mere filler--there are major plot elements in each one.

As for comedy, there are plenty of laughs to go around. A lot of the humor stems from the fact that Kei and Yuri don´t want to be partners. Kei is sort of tomboy-ish and prefers the direct approach to any confrontation, while Yuri is, at first, more worried about making dates and getting a boyfriend than getting any work done. Both of them feel like the other just slows them down. One of my favorite episodes has Yuri spending almost all of her time hunting down Kei so that she can arrest the latter. Why would Yuri want to arrest her own partner? Because Kei´s actions caused Yuri to miss a date in the previous episode! Another sterling moment was when Yuri transformed into her uniform during the first episode in a typical "magical girl" scene (spinning in bright light, near nudity, special music--think "Sailor Moon"-esque)—capped by a group of old men sitting nearby, applauding.