Great Adventure of the Dirty Pair Vol. #01

By Ben Leary     January 03, 2008
Release Date: August 13, 2007



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Haruka Takachiho (Illustrations by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko)
Translated by:Dana Lewis and John Thomas
Adapted by:N/A

What They Say
Charged with keeping the peace and investigating crime among the stars, the Worlds Welfare Work Association (WWWA) prides itself on a reputation of safety and regard for life and property. If only someone would tell that to Agents Kei and Yuri: codename "the Lovely Angels," but better known as the Dirty Pair! Part female James Bond and part walking disaster, this duo gets the job done - though there are no guarantees that a city or two won't get razed in the process.

In this adventure, the Angels are called in to investigate the cataclysmic destruction of the Gravus Heavy Industry facility on the planet Dangool. What they find there hurls the pair into a danger-filled trek across the galaxy.

The Review
The Dirty Pair are on the case. Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of civil disturbance.

Packaging:
Nothing to complain about here. The text is clear and easy to read without a single printing error. I can't even remember any typos. The monochrome illustrations come out just as well, eveything looking as it should. The covers use red and white simply and effectively to complement the black lettering. I'm not particularly keen on the cover illustration, although it is nice to get a rare detailed look at Mugi. The back is entirely devoted to write-up. There aren't any extras apart from an "about" page at the end for the writer and illustrator. It's not a terribly flashy package, but everything is done just right.

Artwork:
Even though this is a novel - or, more accurately, a pair of novels - there are enough illustrations to warrant a grade and discussion. I learn from the book itself that the artist is actually the same guy who did the character design work on the original Gundam. Ah, so that's why Kei looks like Amuro's big sister! The character drawings have a lot of detail, but the backgrounds are a mixed bag: sometimes just a few slanted lines suggest, rather than depict, a setting; sometimes we get an elaborate layout, such as the cockpit of a spaceship with all the dials, displays and buttons. It's the action shots that look best though. All of those have a good sense of movement and urgency. Another plus is that the illustrations actually look more like book illustrations than like something pulled out of a manga.

Text/Translation:
The book makes good use of italics and ellipses and other formatting tricks to punch things across. In most novels it would come across as gimmicky, but with the kind of story being told, not to mention the kind of person telling it, these give just the right touch. This is where the book really had its work cut out for it. The fun of it all is that Kei does the narration, so we get her descriptions and impressions and overwrought reactions to everything. This gives the book a very funny point of view to work with...but at the same time everything depends on Kei's personality coming through in the writing. We should all be thankful that the translation team is up to the task. Even apart from all the outrageous situations that erupt there are a lot of teriffic moments that come just from Kei being her crazy, messed-up self, or contrasting her descriptions with what the real situation must have been like. This book must have been murder to translate. I'm in awe of how well everything comes across. Bravo.


Contents: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The universe of the Dirty Pair is the ideal place for light sci-fi. Humanity has developed an efficent form of space travel. Terraforming has made space a tolerably interesting place to travel in, and everyday technology can give you a pretty decent life when you decide to stop travelling and settle down. There's even a large inter-planetary government to keep an eye on things.

But no matter how peaceful you try to keep things, there are always going to be a few wise guys around to cause problems. As you might expect, that's where our heroines come in. Wherever there's trouble in the galaxy, you can be sure the Dirty Pair will show up and...cause a whole lot more. You see, the Dirty Pair is the nickname of a team of "Trouble Consultants" - sort of the galactic equivalent of Interpol agents, only a little more combat-oriented - who have a tendency to fulfill their missions with an absurdly large number of civilian casualties. Not that they're bloodthirsty, or even irresponsible. It just sort of happens that way.

I came into this novel - or rather, this pair of novels - knowing nothing about the anime adaptations, so I can't do any comparison for the folks who are already fans of those. But even if I could I don't think a comparison would be wise. Because the real stroke of genius here is not something that could be duplicated in any sort of dramatic adaptation. The books live by one simple but all-important stylistic choice: Kei is the one telling the story. Everything, everything, depends on the way she tells it.

The only other parallel I know of is the Bertie Wooster stories of P. G. Wodehouse. Both feature tales told by an idiot, but an idiot with a vastly entertaining personality. Both characters are vain and foolish, to say nothing of their colossal self-ignorance. In fact, they're both people who would probably be infuriating to meet in real life; but a book puts them at just the right distance, so that we can watch and be amused by them without having to actually put up with them.

It takes a pretty amazing character to pull that kind of thing off, but Kei has the "voice," so to speak, to make it work. Her asides are always good and often priceless. "I was swept with an overwhelming confidence in how beautiful I must look," she says, as she dodges death through the passages of a hostile space station. While wearing a space helmet and the tackiest outfit in creation. Or again, this time justifying her gambling in a casino: "The murder case isn't going anywhere! The investigation can wait! So, some hick from Maleenay died! I'll be finished here soon!"

I hope nobody picks up a book with a title and a cover like this one expecting depth or subtlety, because you're not going to get any of those. What you will get is a large dose of action and comedy, all filtered through Kei's hotheaded, idiotic, riotously funny personality. The plots have no real significance in themselves. They exist only to provide twists and turns for the stories to swing around with two wheels in the air. Apart from a couple of passages that provide necessary background information, the novels move at a break-neck pace and read very quickly. It's easy to read each in a single sitting - which I recommend if you want to keep the names of the supporting characters straight.


Comments:
The Great Adventure of the Dirty Pair does for sci-fi action what P. G. Wodehouse did for the comedy of manners. It not only gives the genre a shot in the arm, but a good-natured kick in the pants as well. While it reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse in style, in substance it reminds me of the A-team. It knows it's silly action junk, but it doesn't care, and it's done with such good humour and lack of pretense that you can't help but like it. It's the kind of book where car chases, dogfights, saloon brawls, and gun battles can break out at any time - and frequently do. I liked the second story a bit better than the first (it's laid out a bit more tightly), but both of them fly along by the seat of their hot pants with scarcely a dull page between them.

If you're in the mood for good crazy fun, it's difficult to think of a better light novel to recommend than these. Even the bad taste, something that nearly always turns me off, works here because it takes on an almost satirical wrinkle, with the joke being on Kei. The funniest thing in the whole book involves the deaths of 1.2 million people - and no, that's nothing as mean as it sounds. The only thing I really find myself disliking is the Bloody Card; that's a bit much, especially considering it gets used in every fight. But when I put the book down, I felt a good deal better than I did when I picked it up. And seeing "Volume 1" on the spine puts me in an even better mood. If Dark Horse treats us to some more volumes of the "Lovey Angels" and the poor slobs who have the bad luck to be in their vicinity, count me in for the ride.