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Dirty Pair: Affair on Nolandia

       
                 
                 
 

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Title Info

  • seen: 1 of 1
  • type: OAV
  • grade: flawed
  • made: 1985
  • Review created: Recently, but I didn't record the date.
  • mod: none

supposedly this was an `extra' to mark the impending conclusion to a successful TV series. Given that I can't find the TV series it is going to have to stand on its own, which may not be very kind. The story is set in a sci-fi world, with our minimally dressed heroines Kei and Yuri as tough trouble shooters for some form of inter-planetary agency. They specialise in solving problems and collateral damage with a minor in looking cute. Along for the ride is a large intelligent animal (mughi) who has only a minor role. In this case they are looking for a psychic girl who needs their assistance, but they find quite a lot more than they bargained for.

As far as I know a lot of people love the Dirty Pair series of anime's, but i've gotta say, this is pretty fragile stuff. The writing is simply not particularly convincing, with some quite silly occurances and events throughout the movie. It also has very distinct `phases'. Between exploring a strange area of the planet, and the needed action finale, there is one scene where, more or less, the story is both introduced and concluded. I suspect this anime assumes you know who these character's are, because there isn't much character work. And given the weak story and dialog you're probably not going to be too impressed with what you see here. It is also hampered by the attempt to merge some elements of comedy with the tragic element in the core plot. This is largely unsuccessful and removes much of the energy from this anime. It's pleasant to watch, but pretty lightweight for a sci-fi anime.

And given that it is a cute girls with gun's causing destruction series (what a genre heh?) a lot depends on the animation. And sadly, this is both dated and limited. It has some dodgy design, repeated sequences and some frighteningly low frame counts. Some of the combat scenes, especially the amusing physical evasions of Kei as she fights it out with a suprisingly detailed cyborg, are quite good but not always logical. In general the technical design is fairly limited. Several scenes, including the conclusion, have a high fatality count but this is shrugged off by all involved. In no way is this animation sufficient to carry the title by itself, making this OAV probably only suitable for dirty pair fans.

Actually not even the fans like it, at least the Anime Critic has nothing nice to say about it in this review.

       
                 
                 
       

Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:17 WST 2009