Anime World Order Show # 98 – Dirty Pair DON’T Do Dishes

Between the Steam Summer Sale, magazine deadlines, grad school, and con prep we forgot to record podcasts for 2 months. Gerald reviews the Dirty Pair TV series here. Listen to find out how to win a copy!

Introduction (0:00 – 26:21)
We say emails in your head, we council you, we understand, we talk to you some more as we answer some follow-up questions regarding our previous manga reviews of Ressentiment and Yotsuba&!, both of which complement each other nicely. Also, Gerald reveals his true feelings for Gundam and why we haven’t reviewed Arion yet like we said we would back when we reviewed Crusher Joe and The Venus Wars.

Review – Dirty Pair TV (26:21 – 56:19)
It was forever ago that Gerald reviewed Dirty Pair: Project E.D.E.N. but now that the TV series is all available in the US courtesy of Right Stuf (who will also be re-issuing the movies and OAVs in better editions than ADV’s) and there’s a whole new manga series, the misadventures of the 3WA’s “best” Trouble Consultants are due for a revisit. How well does this once beloved, now mostly forgotten old 80s cartoon hold up anyway?

Want to win a copy of Dirty Pair TV? If you live in the United States (sorry, but international shipping is just way too costly), we’re running a contest for you! All you folks who admitted that you didn’t leave us a review on iTunes, now’s your chance to redeem yourselves by leaving a review and then emailing us with “Dirty Pair Contest” in the subject line with a screenshot of your review along with your name and address. The winner will be picked next month! YES, WE’RE BUYING VOTES. THAT’S HOW WE OPERATE DEMOCRACY [regardless of whether you like/dislike Marilyn Monroe or Humphrey Bogart].

Closing (56:19 – 59:06)
Otakon is in a few days! Daryl has three panels: Remembering Satoshi Kon, Anime 101 (scheduled opposite the premiere of Makoto Shinkai’s new movie, so go see that instead since if you’re reading this then you don’t need to be there), and Anime’s Craziest Deaths. Then the weekend afterwards is Anime Festival Orlando where Clarissa will be running a panel dedicated to gambling anime, Gerald will be hosting a panel on sci-fi anime as well as mecha model kit building, and we’ll all be doing a panel on JRPGs as well as Anime You Should Watch. Plus, Daryl has a panel on awesome fights in Asian cinema and another Panel OF DOOM!

Daryl also just made another guest appearance on the Greatest Movie EVER! podcast talking about Hobo with a Shotgun. Over on Crunchyroll News, Daryl also has an introductory article to Anime’s Craziest Deaths. Plus the latest issue of Otaku USA is out now with feature articles on Tiger and Bunny as well as a review of YOUR FAVORITE…Lady Death: The Motion Picture! Oh, and also things like Blue Exorcist, Redline, Mardock Scramble, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica that perhaps you might have heard of. Expect some web supplemental articles…once they’re actually written like they were supposed to be about 2 or three weeks ago…

31 Replies to “Anime World Order Show # 98 – Dirty Pair DON’T Do Dishes”

  1. I know this may seem a little unfair on you guys’ part, but can you guys at least have links or explanations about the panels that you guys do over in the various conventions for us people who are not in the U.S.A. or even Britain?

    I do know that most of the listeners for this podcast come mostly from the U.S.A., but there is a percentage of us guys in Asia and other continents, listening to this as well.

    Suffice to say, these gaps in between episodes are killing me (what’s worse, is that the bloggers from my country are praising moe, fanservice and Negima like the bloody Bible.) Besides, having to wash my brain after an episode of Idolmaster with either Painkiller(the game from People Can Fly, not the drug) or 20 minutes of Hobo with a Shotgun, and no existing anime equivalent that I know of so far, is downright depressing.

    tl;dr = I need more A.W.O., and it’s just like the anime scene: More shits out there, and less/same amount of good stuff.

    (If you think my reply is just plain ranting, just delete it, and say some advice, in place of this.)

  2. Good episode AWO, but I have one quick question. Do women like the Dirty Pair? I’ve never met any woman who likes the show (most don’t even know what it is). Is it that I’m just with the wrong crowd or is this just a guy’s show? [Guys are the primary fanbase, though they were not an uncommon cosplay choice for ladies in the earlier days of US anime fandom. How much they liked the series/characters versus how much they liked how much attention wearing those outfits brings is not something I am in a position to answer. –Daryl]

    1. While this isn’t a OVERWHELMING statement of support, I know that Anna Exeter, the well known translator, and Helen McCarthy, the British Anime personality are very big Dirty Pair fans.

    2. As a woman who regularly chuckles at violence, I don’t care if it’s delivered by scantily clad women or scantily clad men. As a women who cherishes the chance to get sniffy about the politics of cartoons (if you can call them politics and not, say, excuses for recreational outrage), I get far more irritated by female characters who are set up by to be intelligent and capable but act like morons.

      Which is to say DP is good, clean fun. I think you have to go a little old school to find women who are into it, just given the overall age of the series. I think the key part of your statement is most don’t know what it is.

      In terms of the girl cosplayers of old, while the outfits are attention-getting, there were plenty of other scantily clad characters to dress as. Lum reveals as least as much skin.

  3. Hey AWO, just want to say thanks for finally getting an episode out. I enjoyed the Dirty Pair analysis, but one thing that caught my ear prior to the review was Gerald mentioning a dislike for Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. Why exactly didn’t the story work for him? Personally, the ending is pretty damn tear-jerking, so I’m surprised to hear someone actually have problems with it. Thanks again, and by the way, loved the Mamo reference in the show notes.

  4. Wow you must have recorded this a while ago… There isn’t going to be a Lupin TV series it’s just a TV special but they announced it all cryptic-like so people jumped the gun.

    It would be funny if it wasn’t so infuriating.

  5. As for the international shipping thing for the contest, what about Canada? We’re just the next country over. [Don’t post before you listen to the show, especially not to ask questions that are answered within the show. –Daryl]

    OK, just listened to it and you decided basically on a whim to not include Canada. Gee, thanks for rewarding all the time I spent listening.

    1. Oh yeah? Well, thanks for rewarding all the time you spent listening by not leaving us a review for years, you Canuckistanian!

      See, the deal is this: it costs approximately $30 (probably more) to ship 2 DVD box sets internationally. That is roughly three times the cost of domestic shipping. It doesn’t matter if you’re still in North America; to the US Post Office, there is “in the US” and “outside of the US” as far as the flat rate shipping options go. The “varies by country and weight” shipping methods are even more expensive than that. So using the least expensive option, it costs the same to ship to Ontario as it would to Beijing.

      Furthermore, you cannot ship international packages via automated kiosk; you must go to a teller with the customs forms, meaning you must go during regular post office hours. Post office hours coincide with office hours, meaning that shipping packages internationally requires a substantially greater amount of time, money, and overall effort than domestic shipping.

      This wasn’t decided “on a whim.” We learned our lesson when we did the T-shirt/hoodie run and told people what the costs of international shipping would be based on the prices listed at the time that went substantially up between the time we did the orders and the time we had to ship them out.

      1. Try about six months–in which I crammed in every episode you released. Yeah, should still leave a review, but still.

        The impression I got about this being a whim was just the tiny bit of time you spent talking about it on the ‘cast (“Include Canada?” “Naw, fuggit.”). Maybe if you’d take a few seconds to explain that next time you run one of these contests, it would help. I also suggest taking those BS U.S. Mail policies up with them. I’d do it myself, except that they wouldn’t listen to me because I’m not one of their customers.

      2. I guess I’m just completely unsure how precisely that was the impression you got, because what follows is a transcript of what you just listened to:

        Gerald: “I have to put ONE limitation on this, that we should have put on the last one: this kind of has to remain for people in the United States…”

        Daryl: “…in the United States because international shipping is very, very, very expensive for us, which we found out the hard way…”

        Gerald: “…yes. Because it will cost us $40 or something to ship this a reasonable way to you if you live overseas and we just can’t afford that.”

        Sounds like we did in fact “take a few seconds to explain.” The reason I asked “what about Canada?” is to clarify Gerald’s accidental use of the single word “overseas” in lieu of the phrase “outside of the US.”

        These podcasts are edited. The one part that got edited out–the part between the asking and the “no” conclusion–is the part where we went and checked if the shipping rates were cheaper to Canada since it’s not “overseas” and therefore may have potentially cost less. If what you’re advocating is that we should have kept even a portion of that in, I will point out that nobody particularly wants to listen to lengthy pauses during which everybody stops talking to browse the Internet.

        There is no point in me discussing this further because all I will do is repeat myself again.

      3. No, Daryl. You’re wrong. You should spend more money to send people stuff for free. That’s what providing years of free content at great personal expense of time, effort, and money by publishing a podcast means. ;D

  6. I had no idea that female pro-wrestling was the origin of Dirty Pair. This phenomenon should also be responsible for Wanna-Be’s and Maris the Chojo. For those wondering about Beauty Pair, Google ???????. It would be nice if AWO added a picture or a video of them.

  7. Interesting back story on the title thanks! I always thought “Dirty Pair” got their name because they never came out of a mission “clean”, i.e. they caught the guy, but an entire planet was blown up… I am a female who finds this series amusing. Haven’t seen it in forever.

  8. The female pro-wrestling fad showed up in Iczer-1 since that was what the main character Nagisa wanted to be (despite being a cowardly waif).

    I’m down for a review of Harmagedon (tries so hard to be serious, ends up being so corny).

  9. The original DP TV series was slated to run 26 episodes and was cut down to 24. The really awesome “final two” came out as an OAV later. -That guy

  10. Aside from being in the U.S. of A. for the contest, I automatically cancel myself out for not using iTunes at all, so I’m thereby out of the winning anyway. That’s OK I guess, I don’t really know how to do a review for you guys anyway since I can’t find the right words to let people know of what to expect from your podcast. It just is!

  11. After hearing Gerald’s review of the Dirty Pair TV series I decided to listen to his advice and check our Project Eden. I liked it (despite the strange music and “silent talk” sections) and now thinking about checking out the TV series as well.
    Btw: great to get a new episode, I was beginning to worry that we had lost another good podcast.

  12. I’ve been listening to AWO for a while, but this is my first comment. I just have to say that it’s great to hear another episode and now I really want to check out Dirty Pair!

  13. Of course, I’m a little prejudiced in the matter, but I think Adam Warren’s DIRTY PAIR deserves to be ranked among any of the Japanese versions. He’s got all the basics covered that you would want out of DP: the character designs, the action, and the science fiction. Among the new things he contributes to it is perspective (not surprisingly, perhaps, since he’s an American fan adapting a Japanese series), expanding on the way Kei and Yuri might be viewed by society–as a cross between movie stars and war criminals.

    For example, 1995’s “Fatal But Not Serious,” based around an interstellar get-together for DP fans that turns (naturally) into a genocidal bloodbath, was not only a relatively early satire of anime con culture (even AX had only 2000 attendees in 1995!) but anticipated “media studies” dissection of anime, back when hardly anyone was doing it yet (Kei and Yuri struggle to figure out whether an academic who says their nickname reflects fear of “cthonian procreative nature” is praising or insulting them).

    It should be noted that Warren’s Dirty Pair definitely has fans in Japan, too, in part for the simple reason that Dirty Pair Flash aside, the visual adaptations of DP (as opposed to the novels) over the last twenty years have largely been Warren’s work. In other words, he’s done much of the job of keeping the characters alive for their international fan base.

    1. “Fatal But Not Serious” is definitely my favorite among Warren’s Dirty Pair work.

      And to add to what you are saying, Warren is even known among creators in Japan. Although it was a long time ago, I remember an interview with Masamune Shirow where he mentions Warren and how he was impressed with “Dirty Pair: Sim Hell”.

      Of course, his work on “Empowered” is better than most of his Dirty Pair comics…

  14. Thanks for another great show! I was introduced to the Dirty Pair with the Adam Warren version have been hooked on them ever since. I did not know about the pro wrestling tie-in, so hats off to Gerald for researching the subject that deeply.
    I would like to apologize on behalf of all Canadians to Daryl Surat for the one Canadian who does not understand what “Only in the US” means.

  15. Because Dirty Pair was cancelled, it is sometimes assumed that it was unpopular among anime fans in Japan. But people forget that Dirty Pair won the Animage Grand Prix fan poll for favorite anime of 1985; it beat the runner-up, Zeta Gundam, 1293 votes to 1027 (3rd place went to Urusei Yatsura: Remember My Love; the poll was for all anime, whether TV, movie or OAV). That was a pretty remarkable victory, especially considering what anime powerhouses Gundam and UY were.

    This goes a long way towards explaining why the movies and OAVs were made, but it does throw something of a mystery as to why Dirty Pair was cancelled in the first place. It doesn’t seem that it was for lack of fan support; perhaps studio or network politics played a role?

    (If you’re curious about male vs. female fan support for Dirty Pair in the Animage poll, the 1293 votes consisted of 930 men and 363 women. Dirty Pair was #1 overall among male viewers, beating Zeta Gundam 930 votes to 616, whereas Dirty Pair was #2 overall among female viewers, losing more narrowly to #1 Zeta Gundam, 363 votes to 411.)

  16. It’s been a long time coming but I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, thanks again for getting one made when you all have such busy schedules.

    If there’s one thing that I have an issue with, it’s when Gerald said something along the lines of “Well, the animation in the ‘Dirty Pair’ is clearly inferior to even the most low budget modern show”. Now, I can’t be sure that I heard that right but if it was indeed what Gerald said, I’d argue that such a statement is fundamentally incorrect.

    If you avoid watching shows from C and D tier studios you might well avoid the worst in modern anime animation but you can be assured that it exists and it is horrifying sight to behold. The Dirty Pair’s animation is leaps and bounds above many of these works.

    Of course, I may have misheard in which case I certainly sound like a fool. If so, I apologise.

  17. Too bad you didn’t explain the podcast’s title. And I wish there was some way to get those early fandubs today….

    1. I felt it needed no explanation myself, though I’m sure there are those scratching their heads at it, I just feel like not being the one to say what it is.

  18. The NHK anime ending is actually line for line from the novel ending, not the manga. They do however use manga material to fill up the show’s middle section.

    Jeeze, Daryl!!

  19. Noticed another mention of the Pokemon seizure episode here too, such a terrible loss we ended up with afterwards.

  20. I think you guys forgot to mention that even though violence and genocide follow the Dirty Pair wherever they go, it’s NEVER THEIR FAULT [/Snitsky]

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