Dirty Pair Strike Again Vol. #01

By Ben Leary     June 02, 2008
Release Date: March 31, 2008



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Haruka Takachiho / Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
Translated by:John Thomas
Adapted by:N/A

What They Say
When a miner on the industrial planet Chakra is attacked by an unknown animal yet somehow survives, Trouble Consultants Kei and Yuri are called in to investigate. How did the miner survive his wounds, and what are the ulterior motives of the company-town's superiors: the enigmatic religious leader, the town mayor, and the owner of the mining facilities? The answers will shock the two women and embroil them in yet another highly dangerous - and highly destructive - adventure!

Features the original cover and nine interior illustrations by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, character designer for such anime as Mobile Suit Gundam and The Venus Wars, for which he was the writer, character designer, and director.

The Review
Contents: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sequels can be tricky things to pull off. Often a series of stories becomes of a victim of itself, each story trying to maintain the regular cast, add a few new characters, and top the previous plot, eventually collapsing under its own weight. But the Dirty Pair stories are a bit more sequel-proof than usual. Each mission makes for a stand-alone story, so with an endless supply of trouble in the universe, and no baggage from continuity, I didn't see any reason why the second Dirty Pair book shouldn't be as good as the first. But I didn't expect it to be so much better.

A team of dishy girls cruising around the galaxy, ostensibly to solve problems but in reality creating much bigger ones, is a pretty good idea; but this book is where the idea is fully exploited for the first time. The two stories in the first book were fun, but most of the fun came from Kei's opinionated, vain, and very funny narration. The plots were decent, I suppose, but I think if someone other than Kei were guiding us through them they wouldn't have amounted to much. This time things are very different. Kei's storytelling is as funny as ever. But now she has a good story to tell, and the result is dynamite.

The change is evident from the first sentences. When we read "The darkness was broken. Bowed down to the darkness, the Absolute Children of Heaven, sensing a great presence, simultaneously lifted their heads and opened their eyes," we rub our eyes and look back at the cover to make sure this is really a Dirty Pair novel we've picked up. Before the first chapter's over, we've been treated to - or should I say, gripped by - an all-out action scene that is far and away the best we've seen yet. Not only is it an extended fight with a variety of locations, tactics, vehicles, and allies, not only is it described to the pitch of virtuousity, not only does it whiten your knuckles the entire time, it comes absolutely out of of nowhere. It's established right away that this is a story where anything can happen. The first book had some surprise eruptions, but none of them were as intrinsically good or did more for the tone of the story. This time the Dirty Pair are squared off against enemies who can bring the fight to them. In the other book I didn't care for the Bloody Card, due to it being a bit gruesome, and because it was used not so much to win a fight as put a stop to it. Thankfully, this time the Bloody Card is nearly useless, and though it gets pulled out a couple of times it's never the determining factor in a battle. That means we get to see the Dirty Pair at its most resourceful - and the author at his. Even the plot itself is quite good. I see that I remarked in my first revew that the plots "exist only to provide twists and turns for the stories to swing around with two wheels in the air" - a clever and apt description. Well, there are still plenty of twists and turns, and the wheels spend a lot of time in the air, but this time there's a destination worth getting to.

I continue to be amazed by how good this translation is and I can't bear to leave off without gushing about it a little. Even with an improved plot a great deal depends on Kei and her rapidly changing moods and tone of voice. Her enthusiastic descriptions of action scenes, her glossy-eyed and weak-kneed encounters with the sherrif, her jealous sidelong glances at Yuri, her hair-trigger reactions to almost everything - the translation just nails it all. A translation so dependent on the narrator's personality must have involved great pains, but the result looks effortless.

The Dirty Pair Strike Again is an across-the-board improvement. The things that were lacking in the first book are good; the things that were good are better - even the illustrations. We even get a fold-out colour poster with this one (though you should probably wait until you finish the book to look at it - otherwise it won't make much sense). As far as light novels go, you'd be hard press to find an equal for sheer goofy, unpretentious fun. Sure it's trashy - but you can find a lot of fun things in the trash.