Dirty Pair was never a series that clicked with me when it was released on DVD earlier this decade. I gave a few episodes a shot, but there was something about it that just didn’t do it for me. Tastes change over the years, and I’ve always heard positive things about the television series, so when it hit the internet in it’s entirety along with some serviceable subtitles a few months ago, I immediately went to check it out.
Much to my delight I found myself having an absolute blast with the TV series. Very nice looking animation that stays fairly consistent throughout the series, Yasuhiko Yoshikazu character designs, and an engaging soundtrack all came together to put a big stupid grin on my face whenever I popped in an episode or two. For a show about a pair of girls in skimpy outfits doing odd jobs and blowing things up in the process you really can’t ask for more.
The show is largely episodic, although it has a “memory” if you will, of events from earlier episodes, there is no overarching plot at all. As of episode 20, there hasn’t even been a 2 part story yet. Although part of the reason I am drawn to anime in the first place is it’s ability to tell a story serially, I enjoyed the variety of stories presented without feeling rushed for them to “get back to the point” like a filler episode in a more serially plotted cartoon.
Some of the stories can get downright absurd, like a rich businessman firing his son’s post-op transexual girlfriend into space because he doesn’t approve of their relationship, but even in that light, I never expected this particular plot device to rear it’s ugly head. The “female allergy.” A character who is literally unable to come into contact with women without having some kind of absurd reaction, in this case, black out and violently throw things.
The story goes something like this: Kei and Yuri (the titular pair) abandon a flying pod in mid air after it runs out of fuel during a job they were working on. The unmanned pod crashes into a wealthy man’s estate, killing his girlfriend. The man decides ironically to hire the pair to find the killer so he can get his revenge by killing THEM. Here is where it gets weird. The girlfriend is a doll. Now obviously Kei and Yuri don’t want to die because they broke a doll, so they come up with the a foolproof plan to convert him to real girls so he forgets the doll by appealing to him themselves. This is where the aforementioned allergy comes into play.
Now my familiarity with late 70′s / early 80′s cartoons is not as broad as I would like it to be, but this is the earliest occurrence of this particular trope I have seen. Is this the origin of the “female allergy” trope? Did something else like Urusei Yatsura come up with it earlier? And if not, does that mean that Dirty Pair is directly responsible for things like DNA^2 and Girl’s Bravo, not to mention the obvious modern fan culture parallels one can draw from a man who can only love a doll? Lovely angels what have you done!?
Nothing springs to mind in Urusei Yatsura, possibly there’s a minor character along those lines. The closest I can recall from the main characters is Asuka Mizunokoji, who ends up afraid of MEN after her first encounter with a man is Ataru Moroboshi.
Obviously Lum is trying to give Ataru an pavlovian girl allergy throughout the series, but his libido always wins out over electricity.