Dirty Pair: With Love From the Lovely Angels

Kei and Yuri, the World Welfare Work Association or WWWA Trouble Consultant Dirty Pai... er Lovely Angel team are at it again. This 2 episode OVA was to finish off the original Dirty Pair TV series which was cancelled after 24 episodes. I can only surmise that fan reaction was good and so the last 2 episodes got released as a 2 episode OVA. I was initially expecting something better, but Episode 25 of the TV series (1st episode of the OVA) followed in the same lines as the TV series. A short and simplistic plotline, with little to no character development, and the sound ananimation had not improved at all. Not a good sign. In fact, what is sadder is in the 24 episode TV series the watcher actually finds Nammo (the robot) and Mughi (their cat) more interesting as characters. This is dispelled in Episode 26 though. The second episode of the OVA (Episode 26) was much more enjoyable. Kei and Yuri fight over a piece of cake at the start, making their cat "Mughi" the unwitting middlecat in their silly battle. They then decide to disobey orders to rescue their commander, Gooley, who is being held hostage. That episode showed more character development for the Dirty Pair than the previous 24 episodes of the TV series. Episode 26 was awesome on 3 levels, which actually elevated this anime from mediocre to fair (needed better animation to be Good). There was suspense, drama and a tight plot with emotional moments. Humor was evident, especially the scene where the 2 girls come out dressed as orange tabby cats, guns blazing! There were some great lines, like "Men prefer breasts!" and "just like a woman you can't shut up!". Overall, this 2 episode OVA was better than the TV series, the second being much better than the first. For the 2007 standard, this series is OK, nothing groundbreaking, but nothing totally horrible either (except the old school animation). The characters and concept are very promising. The producers must have realized that with a little better animation, soundtrack and plot, the Dirty Pair franchise could take off - and they're right. I'm an outlier tho, I'm compulsive, so since I've seen one of the Dirty Pair movies (Project Eden) and liked it, I'm now compelled to watch ALL the rest of the Dirty Pair series. Here's to hoping the animation gets better for the rest of it.