You will remember to call them "Lovely Angels", won't you?
It's not our fault!
Humanity has abandoned Earth and spread across the galaxy, but that doesn't mean there aren't any problems any more. In fact, there are quite a lot of them, and some of them are worse than people could have dreamed of before going into space. An agency of the galactic government called the Worlds Welfare Work Association ("3WA") has its own special way of dealing with these problems — it dispatches teams of highly-trained, well-equipped troubleshooters, called "Trouble Consultants", to find the trouble and, well, shoot it.
One of the most successful teams of Trouble Consultants is the "Lovely Angels", two teenaged girls who have a near-perfect success record. However, they also have a reputation of blowing up everything they touch (which isn't fair — only about a third of their missions end with something being destroyed, and it's
never their fault), which has led to their unofficial and hated nickname of the "Dirty Pair".
Haruka Takachiho created the Pair in a set of stories published as
Light Novels (which continue to be published). The production studio
Sunrise adapted the stories into a successful action/comedy TV series in 1985, which continued into several movies and
OVAs. In 1994, the franchise was rebooted as
Dirty Pair Flash. Meanwhile, Adam Warren (future author of
Empowered) and
Toren Smith obtained the rights to create English-original
manga-styled Dirty Pair comic miniseries exist, technically based on the original novels instead of the anime.
The
Dirty Pair anime was originally translated in the US by
Streamline Pictures in
the 90s, with the release of some of the movies. The North American rights to all
Dirty Pair anime are currently owned by
ADV Films, who have released
Flash, the
OAVs, and the movies. They had plans to release the original TV series, which fell through due to poor sales.
Dark Horse Comics is currently publishing collections of the Adam Warren comics, as well as translations of the first two light novels.
More information about the Dirty Pair, in all of their incarnations, is available at the website
Tea Time in Elenore City.
(Original entry text written by Rob Kelk for
The Anime Primer, and used with permission of the author.)
This show provides examples of:
- Action Survivor (Cory Emerson, the Intrepid Reporter from the "Plague of Angels" miniseries, becomes one of these when she's drawn into one of the Angels' cases.)
- Adaptation Decay (In the original light novels, Mughi is a highly intelligent, tentacled panther-like alien who often aided the Pair in fights. When he appeared in the anime he had transformed into a fat bear-cat...thing with no combat role - and his tentacles vanished after one episode, with no explanation. When Flash rolled around he transformed again, this time into a winged kitten with one function: to be cute. )
- To be fair, Mughi was shown to be capable of flying a ship in one of the OAVs, so his combat role was probably simply downplayed.
- Allergic To Love (In both the TV series and Flash; both sufferers were rich, and Hilarity did Ensue.)
- Alternate Continuity (Dirty Pair Flash, Adam Warren's Amerimanga, the classic anime, and the original Light Novels.)
- Banned From Argo (Usually happens in the aftermath of their cases, assuming there's an Argo left to ban anything...)
- Bath Kick (Yuri kicks Carson for falling into her Bubble Bath)
- Battle Butler (Bruno from the Movie)
- Berserk Button (Do not call them the "Dirty Pair" to their faces.)
- Bolivian Army Ending (One Flash episode ends with the pair charging who knows how many robots. Then subverted when they are shown after the credits wearing twin slasher smiles.)
- Boy Of The Week
- Brain Uploading
- Breast Plate (Hand Waved in the novels with a "transparent polymer sheath" worn over the bikinis for protection. The author had based the design of the uniforms on female Pro Wrestling outfits.)
- Bruce Lee Clone (One of these shows up in an episode of the classic anime OVAs.)
- Body Surf (Carvalho from A Plague of Angels, an AI terrorist who hijacks his victims' bodies using computer interfaces on their bodies.)
- Bond One Liner (Warren's version took a course in this — "Combat Quips".)
- Canon Foreigner (Several in each of the several adaptations:)
- Classy Cat Burglar (Carson D. Carson from Project EDEN)
- Close Call Haircut (Lady Flare from Flash; doubles as an Important Haircut for her Heel Face Turn.)
- Combining Mecha (The Lovely Angel can separate into two ships in Dirty Pair Flash)
- Completely Different Title ("Dan et Danny" in France; "Kate & Julie" in Italy — because Kei sounds like "Che(What)" in Italian.)
- Cool Ship (The Lovely Angel)
- Corrupt Corporate Executive
- Cyber Punk (Adam Warren's version, drifting towards full-scale Transhumanism as time passed. Both the classic anime version and Flash also flirted with this.)
- Da Chief (Chief Gooley is like James Bond's M, only more ill-tempered. Also Garner and Poporo from Flash.)
- Dark Skinned Redhead (Kei is the Ur Example of this trope.)
- Death Dealer (Yuri and the Bloody Card.)
- Destructive Saviour: Not all the time, but enough.
- Die Hard (The Flash episode "The Grey Avenger".)
- Earth Shattering Kaboom (But it's never their fault.)
- Evil Counterpart (Lady Flare from Dirty Pair Flash; Shasti from Adam Warren's comics.)
- Evilutionary Biologist (Professor Wattsman from Project EDEN.)
- Extraordinarily Empowered Girl
- Fanservice (They don't call'em "battle bikinis" for nothing, you know.)
- Finagles Law
- Furo Scene
- Gateway Series (In the early '90s, it was one of the first anime to be extensively fansubbed in English (on VHS tapes), and the first to have fanfic written about it on the Internet.)
- Gattaca Babies (The Adam Warren versions are both genetically enhanced, as are many others in their universe.)
- Gender Blender Name (Both Kei and Yuri.)
- Genius Ditz (Both of the Angels tend to act like some variety of the Brainless Beauty until it's time to get dangerous. And sometimes, even then...)
- Hair Colors
- Hate Plague (In "Fatal, But Not Serious", a group of terrorists engineer one of these to turn a convention of fans of the Lovely Angels into Laser Guided Tykebombs aimed straight at them.)
- Heroes R Us (The 3WA)
- Hero Insurance (
possiblyDefinitely parodied by the Angels' record.)
- Heterosexual Life Partners (extrapolated by fans to Girls Love)
- Homage Shot
- Humongous Mecha
- Ice And Fire (Yuri would represent Ice, while Kei represents Fire.)
- Implausible Fencing Powers (Flash!Yuri is very good with a beam sword.)
- Impossibly Cool Clothes (Those "battle bikinis" again)
- Kawaiiko (Flash!Yuri)
- Kill All Humans (BRIAN, the Master Computer controlling the arcology where the Angels live in the first episode of the TV anime.)
- Landing in Someones Bathtub (In Yuri's tub and Kei's tub)
- Laser Blade (Flash!Yuri's beam sword. Kei also gets to use one in Project EDEN.)
- Leaning On The Fourth Wall: In the dub of Flash, the girls are giving advice to a lovelorn hacker. Yuri sugests taking her to a nice foreign film.. Kei interjects "Nah, movies with subtitles are boring!"
- Light Novels
- Locked In A Freezer (Kei gets trapped in a refrigerator in the final TV episode, in an incident involving the last piece of cheesecake and a fire extinguisher. All it does is give her a cold)
- Logic Bomb (Kei manages to pull this on the supercomputer BRIAN by double-dog-daring it to calculate whether she or Yuri is more attractive - distracting it long enough to arrange a Tele Frag.)
- Lotus Eater Machine (Most of the plot of "Sim Hell"; Yuri has to free a scientist from one of these in Flash.)
- Lovely Angels (The Trope Namer)
- Mad Scientist (Professor Wattsman)
- Master Computer (The 3WA Central Computer, which assigns the Pair's cases and clears them of guilt.)
- Mega Neko (Mughi — except for Dirty Pair Flash.)
- Mike Nelson Destroyer Of Worlds (Buildings, worlds, and even entire solar systems destroyed. Remember: It's never their fault.)
- The Minnesota Fats (Shasti from the American comics; Lady Flare from Flash.)
- Mythology Gag (Several in various versions:)
- Adam Warren's version used the novels' version of the 3WA Battle Bikini in flashbacks, while also using their fiercer version of Mughi. Run From The Future also introduced the shapechanging uniforms from Dirty Pair Flash.
- Dirty Pair Flash's Iris, part of a Generation Xerox of Kei and Yuri, used the same uniform that the Pair wore in the classic anime version, and was clearly an Expy of that version of Kei. Her history as an agent turned mercenary might also be a nod to Shasti from the Adam Warren version.
- Later in the same series, Yuri wears her classic counterpart's uniform as part of a series of cosplay outfits for a White Prince - long story.
- Nanomachines (Adam Warren's version is set after the Earth was destroyed in a "grey goo" disaster known as the Nanoclysm; nanomachines are strictly regulated afterwards — in theory, anyway.)
- Nebulous Evil Organisation ("Lucifer")
- Noodle Incident (The Kuraretta trinary star incident, among others.)
- Nonhuman Sidekick (Mughi)
- No Transhumanism Allowed (Averted in the Warren comics; Run From The Future plays with this, having the pair infiltrate a space colony established for those too transhuman for normal society — while using more transhumanist toys than ever before.)
- Odd Couple
- Pale Skinned Brunette (Yuri)
- Panty Fighter (Are there, perhaps, too many versions of the Battle Bikini? As a topic name, anyway - you can never have too many versions of a Battle Bikini...)
- Panty Shot (One episode of the anime series has Kei running around in a bra and panties.)
- Pre Explosion Glow
- Prophetic Names (You just know Lily in Flash is there to teach Yuri a lesson. Since her name is a translation of Yuri's)
- Psychic Powers (Kei and Yuri have Wonder Twin Clairvoyance in the Light Novels. Adam Warren's version Does In The Wizard by explaining it as a prank.)
- Red Oni Blue Oni \ Tomboy And Girly Girl (Kei and Yuri practically define this trope for Lovely Angels teams.)
- Restraining Bolt (Subverted in the TV series; BRIAN decides to Kill All Humans because one was installed in him.)
- Robot Buddy (Nammo)
- Science Fiction
- Secret Public Identity (Throughout the series the girls do nothing to hide their identities. On the other hand virtually no one realizes just who they are until they check computer records. It's not like they look like anyone else (well there is one TV episode where they do..sorta))
- The Seven Mysteries (Flash squeezes this in to a High School Day At The Bizarro.)
- Show Some Leg (Kei actually flashes some guards as a distraction in one episode of the TV series.)
- Skunk Stripe (The Flash incarnation of Kei.)
- Small Girl Big Gun
- Space Elevator (In Flash, complete with an orbital ring at the top for all of them to connect to)
- Spanner In The Works (They solve more cases this way...)
- Split Personality (Shasti, from the Adam Warren comics, was an Artificial Human Super Soldier designed with four personalities to handle varying situations effectively.)
- Streamlined - Some of the movies in the early 90s were Streamlined to make it better for Americans to watch it.
- Tele Frag (The Angels destroy a rogue AI in the first episode of the TV series by having a spaceship warp into its core.)
- Title Confusion (The Movie was originally called Dirty Pair The Movie, but virtually everyone — including ADV Films — calls it Project EDEN, after the Mad Scientist villain's master plan.)
- Team Pet (Mughi)
- Vitriolic Best Buds (Most versions display this trope to one degree or another. Warren wrote a short story showing Kei and Yuri constantly resuming old arguments through most of their history together.)
- Walking Disaster Area
- Xanatos Roulette (In the second Adam Warren miniseries, Shasti pulls a multi-layer roulette to pull off The Caper. The Angels only get on her trail when Kei sees her in a crowd at random and goes on a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge.)
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair
- Zee Rust In the original novels reference such amazing inventions as energy weapons, flying cars, and Micro Fiche (Headdesk).
