Original Dirty Pair: Girls with Guns (vol.1)

Reviewed By: Carla Land

ADV Films DVD

Review based on first disc (episodes 1-5)

Rating 15+

What it’s (basically) all about:  Kei and Yuri are employees of the 3WA- and they are the best. Their mission? Whatever the boss tells them to do. Fight crime, solve murders, bring children to justice- the Lovely Angels (better known as the Dirty Pair) are your girls. Too bad they usually cause more havoc than those they are after. With their myriad of guns and impossible outfits, Kei and Yuri are gonnna wrap each mission up as quickly as possible, and with as much wit as possible, too.

Nitty Gritty: Well, the title just about says it all, doesn’t it? Kei and Yuri are both kick-butt characters, but unfortunately their uniforms do little to cover that part of their anatomy.  This series is very heavy on the fan service. Imagine bikini models toting around ammo, and you’ll have the idea.

The violence isn’t too gory; it’s more your Saturday morning cartoon fare, “Oops, we blew up another building!” On occasion, though, there is some blood splatter or someone’s neck being snapped, and that gets the violence meter going up.

Language is typical of what you’d see in a buddy-cop movie. Sh*t, damn, bite me, b*tchin’, bastard and a$$hole all make it into the dubbed version, though the subbed (subtitled) version seems less dependant on words of the four letter variety. 

Kei and Yuri are strong female characters, but they have a tendency to be man crazy and worry about their looks. At one point, in the middle of a mission, one of them is washing her hair (still dressed in her uniform), and they are often making comments about how things are going to affect their skin.

After the last episode of the show you get dumped right into the previews, which are for: Orange Road (an animated 90210 like thing); Arc the Lad; Gasaraki (mecha and war seems to be the order of the day here); Gunsmith Cats (lots of police violence); Dirty Pair: Flash (more fan service); and Getter Robo.

Other special features include Dirty Pair trailers showing Kei and Yuri in all their gun happy and scantily clad glory, clean opening animation, and a link to the previews so you can watch them without going through the whole last episode.

Survey says: This get a 15+ rating for a reason. Put this one in adult collections.

Personal Ad: Hmm. Well, while I like the strong female lead idea, the animation on this is old (1987) even if it was recently released (2001) so it’s not as clean as the newer anime we are getting. That made it hard to watch. Also, I got tired of listening to Yuri and Kei complain about their complexions. If they really cared that much about their skin, they’d cover more of it up. Not on my list of faves.