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Saturday, June 8, 2024

Dirty Pair (1985) Retrospective - Episode 7: Love is Everything. Risk Your Life to Elope!!





This is a very subversive episode. It begins with a fancy wedding dinner in a huge establishment. Clicky, the son of Mr. Goldjeff, a wealthy man, is about to get married to a bunch of brides. He is shackled, meaning that he's forced into marrying them. Also there are male waiters dressed as bunnies, occupying the sexualized role females usually do. 

All of the sudden, the music changes tone and the person playing the ominous song at the organ takes out a machine gun and starts shooting at the guests. She is revealed to be Joanca, the boy's girlfriend, who frees his lover and runs away with him as the place shakes by explosions and the giant wedding cake is slashed. 





An engaging cold opening. One of the few that doesn't involve the Lovely Angels.





The dirty pair is sent to aid Mr. Goldjeff get his son back. The girls then have some unpleasant words for the man's secretary. Mr. Goldjeff then tells the girls that the woman who took his son has actually kidnapped him, he wishes to have him back even if it means losing 2 million bucks. The girls are shocked but they agree.


Then Clicky and Joanca have a chat about Clicky's dad not being ok with their relationship for undisclosed reasons at this point. Another outlier moment, because we don't often get too many scenes that focus on another pair of characters that aren't Kei and Yuri, giving us a sense that this story is different and important. The couple then win a free trip to Grebus Island, they decide to spend their honeymoon there.



We cut back to the Lovely Angels, who aren't happy about taking on the mission, but they are soon interrupted by Goldjeff's secretary disguised as Joanca. After exchanging a few insults, she tells the pair that she changed the location of the meeting; they are now supposed to deliver the money on Grebus Land. A scheme planned by Mr. Goldjeff in order to villainize Joanca.  
















The Dirty Pair find the couple and proceed as planned, unbeknownst to them, they are just harassing the innocent pair of love birds. They throw the ransom money at the girl but when Joanca touches the briefcase everything flashes and her mind is altered, she suddenly shifts in her attitude and claims she isn't in love with Clicky. 












The briefcase is damaged and the Angels discover that it had a device that manipulated Joanca into saying awful things to her boyfriend. This is of course a trick pulled off by Mr. Goldjeff. 



A shocking revelation is made: Joanca used to be a man and got a sex change. Her father disapproves of their relationship because of it. The Angels call him out on his backwardness. They are then threatened by Goldjeff's men, they try to fight them back but the bad guys overpower the group with their weapons. Goldjeff then takes the couple with him. 









The Lovely Angels are all tied down but they manage to call in some help and escape, chasing after the bad guys in their ship. Goldjeff is about to get rid of Joanca by shooting her into space but the agents arrive just in time, using Mughi to go through the trigger-happy guards. Accidentally, Joanca is effectively sent into space.





An upset Clicky decides he wants to go with her no matter what, this breaks his fathers heart and rushes to meet the same fate as his son. All three are sent into the galaxy, but do not worry, they will be back in fifty years. A good ending? A bad ending? It's an ending that's for sure.




It is one of the standout episodes as it touches upon transgenderism, parenting and the main romantic couple isn't normative in any way. It's also notable for having a narrative that deviates from what's presented in most of the show as it spends time with secondary characters that drive the story forward and give some depth to seemingly disposable and episodic characters, the melodramatic touches add a lot of emotional charge to the script and the bitter-sweet ending works because of the utter commitment to it by the writers. 

I could see this working even better as an OVA, with more time to flesh things out, because parts of the episode do feel a bit rushed and somewhat forced but not in any meaningful way, it just feels like time was an issue. Other than that, it's probably in the top ten of the show. An ambitious episode that paid off in the end.

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