Dirty Pair comes to DVD after being a huge American hit in the 1980s. © A.D.V. Films.

Original Dirty Pair: Project Eden
Theatrical feature, 1987. Director: Kouichi Mashimo. 90 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $24.98. Distributor: A.D.V. Films.

Dirty Pair was one of the first big success stories of the 1980s anime home video market. This sci-fi comedy-action title was designed by the Sunrise studio as a 26-episode TV series in 1985, but ratings were so dismal that it was cancelled with the last two episodes unfinished. But it was such a hit with adolescent video buyers that #25 and #26 were finished and three anime features were made within the next five years; two released directly to video and this one (titled simply Dirty Pair) released theatrically on March 14, 1987. It appeared on video in America in 1994 as Dirty Pair: Project Eden. There were also sequels in Japan, which is why this new DVD release has “Original” added to the title.

Dirty Pair began as a series of award-winning space-opera spoof novels by Haruka Takachiho about Kei and Yuri, two busty, ditzy trigger-happy “secret agents” in bikini uniforms that draw the attention of every post-pubescent male for miles around, in a 2141 A.D. galactic civilization. (Background not in this title rationalizes why their sensible WWWA superiors want to get rid of them but cannot.) In Project Eden, Kei & Yuri are assigned to stop sabotage of vizorium (a mineral essential for space travel fuel) mining and production on the planet Agerna before the planet’s two nations, one capitalistic and one socialistic (blatant parodies of the U.S. and U.S.S.R.) go to war.

The two discover that the villain is neither nation but a genuine mad scientist, Professor Wattsman, who needs the raw vizorium ore for his experiments to create “the next step in evolution: mankind’s successor!” So far, all that he is getting is a vicious monster like in the movie Alien that feeds on vizorium and its miners. An additional complication is a handsome galactic master thief, Carson D. Carson, who is also trying to break into Wattsman’s huge laboratory for a caper he insists is separate from the vizorium affair.

The deliberately chaotic plot keeps the girls unsure whether to arrest the guy or draft him as a temporary ally. Comedically improbable accidents soon reduce the sexy cops to wearing even less than usual, and the hunky crook to his embarrassingly gaudy underpants, as they crawl through air vents and clamber up huge ominous machines which tend to explode if a wrong switch is accidentally thrown; while the comically manic Mad Scientist, with wires plugging himself into a dozen computers, boasts of his genius to Bruno, his long-suffering veddy-proper English butler.

Project Eden is probably the first (and probably only) sci-fi action musical, with several bouncy disco numbers. Dirty Pair was seldom serious, so there is little point in criticizing Project Eden for its sophomorically simplistic plot, which resolves every problem with a spectacular explosion. The mood throughout is “Let’s party!!!” with both cheesecake and beefcake. DP was one of the first anime hits to gain an American following larger than the then-tiny anime cult. The original DP TV series included Star Trek in-group references, leading DP fans among the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew to add Kei & Yuri in-group references in that series; a licensed American original DP comic book begun in 1988 is still mostly in print in trade paperback collections. Although some ingrained 1980s elements look a bit dated today, DP continues to win new adolescent fans.