ダーティペアの大決算 — the Great Decisive Battle, or more precisely the Great Reckoning. VPLY-70266. VAP, 1993. Nine CLV LaserDiscs at 99 minutes each. Twenty-four television episodes, two TV specials, ten OVA episodes: everything VAP had licensed from Sunrise, Haruka Takachiho, and NTV, in one box.
Two troubleshooters named Kei and Yuri work for the World Welfare Works Association. They solve cases with a thoroughness that tends to leave blast craters. Takachiho's light novel series launched in 1979. The 1985 Sunrise TV series ran through 24 episodes and one special. The OVA series — officially the オリジナル新ビデオシリーズ, ten episodes released 1987–1991 — extended the franchise past the TV run. This box is the complete accounting of all three.
What warranted that accounting: a franchise sustained by a friendship. Kei and Yuri were designed as co-equals — different temperaments, identical capability, genuine mutual regard — at a moment in 1985 when female-led action anime almost never did that. The series held both hard sci-fi action and deadpan comedy in the same frame without explaining the tonal range, because the characters were credible in both registers without switching mode. That combination traveled across production contexts: novels, television, OVA, theatrical films. In 1993 VAP put all of it in a box and documented every production decision that had made it.
Each disc has its own commissioned cover painting. Nine paintings for nine discs, using the same two characters across different visual registers: solo portraits, action combat, ensemble casts, a deliberately chibi comedy cover for the disc that transitions into the OVA. The box front is a close-up portrait of both faces together. The box back is a red spacecraft — no characters at all.
The booklet is not promotional. It is a production record: Takachiho's personal essay with photograph, animation rough design sheets for every main character and vehicle, settei comparing TV-era and video-era versions side by side, complete costume archives, and episode-by-episode production staff credits for all 36 episodes including key animation reference images. The survey card asks which character you prefer. The New Character settei sheet shows the redesigned Kei and Yuri. That last item is not a bonus. It is a notification.
The Box
VPLY-70266. Nine CLV discs. 99 minutes per disc, MONO, NTSC/COLOR. The complete Dirty Pair television run, both specials, and all ten original new video series episodes. Each disc sleeve fits into a rigid outer box whose back carries no character art at all — only a full-bleed painting of the Lovely Angel spacecraft in red and black, cockpit detail rendered with the precision of mecha illustration. You pull the discs out into red ship. You slide them back in. The characters are inside.
Box exterior back — full-bleed painting of the Lovely Angel spacecraft in deep red against a dark atmospheric background. Cockpit interior visible. No character art, no text beyond the catalog number and barcode. The back of the box is pure mecha documentation.
Disc 1 jacket — Yuri in yellow outfit leaping with handgun, the pink Lovely Angel spacecraft behind her. TV episodes 1–4. VPLY-70266.
Disc 2 jacket — Kei in white outfit, same pink Lovely Angel in the same compositional position. TV episodes 5–8. The paired disc: one ship, both heroines, matching the series' two-character structure.
Nine Paintings for Nine Discs
Discs 1 and 2 are a matched pair: Yuri with the Lovely Angel, then Kei with the Lovely Angel, same composition flipped. The box establishes early that the cover program has an internal logic. Discs 3 and 4 continue: Kei in an orange combat suit alone amid spacecraft and weapons; Yuri in dark purple flying through military hardware. Two different action registers, one character each. Discs 5 and 6 break from solo portraits into ensemble paintings — supporting characters, antagonists, figures from the stories. Disc 7 breaks from everything: a chibi illustration of small Kei and Yuri sitting against the large black Mughi, hearts floating in a pink sky. It is the transition disc (TV specials and the opening OVA episodes), and the cover announces the register shift. Then Discs 8 and 9 close the set as another matched pair: Kei standing at dusk against the red spacecraft; Yuri in white at the same dusk against the same ship. The box ends where it began — one character per disc, one spacecraft — but the palette has cooled and the action has stilled.
Disc 3 jacket — Kei in orange-yellow full bodysuit, handgun raised, surrounded by blue spacecraft and missile hardware. TV episodes 9–12. The combat register.
Disc 4 jacket — Yuri in dark purple outfit flying horizontally through a military vehicle landscape: tanks, aircraft, helicopters. TV episodes 13–16. The mirrored combat register.
Disc 5 jacket — ensemble cast cover: multiple antagonists and supporting characters arranged around a central composition, with Yuri visible at upper right in a pink dress. TV episodes 17–20. The franchise's villain and support roster documented in paint.
Disc 6 jacket — ensemble casual register: a woman in a red dress, Kei in casual clothes front and center, a man in profile, Yuri in a pink cardigan holding a cocktail glass. TV episodes 21–24. The closing TV series arc in a social, off-duty composition.
Disc 7
Disc 7 holds TV specials 25–26 and OVA episodes 1–2 — the seam in the box where the TV series ends and the original video series begins. The cover acknowledges this. Kei and Yuri in chibi proportions sit on a green field against a heart-speckled pink sky, the large black Mughi between them, the tiny Lovely Angel visible in the upper left. Everything about the cover is soft where the preceding six were hard. The joke is in the scale: the franchise mascot is enormous and the heroines have been reduced to round-faced children. VAP chose this for the transition disc. It works because the OVA series was looser and more self-aware than the TV run, and the cover announces that shift before you load the disc.
Disc 7 jacket — chibi Kei and Yuri seated with a giant Mughi on a green field, pink sky with hearts, small Lovely Angel in the upper left. TV specials 25–26 and OVA episodes 1–2. The transition cover: the franchise at its most consciously playful.
Disc 8 jacket — Kei in a white bodysuit standing with her back to the viewer, looking left, the red spacecraft behind her against a dramatic sunset sky. OVA episodes 3–6. The dusk register opens.
Disc 9 jacket — Yuri in white uniform in the same compositional position as Disc 8's Kei, the same red spacecraft, the same sunset sky. OVA episodes 7–10. The closing pair: the franchise's final original episodes in matching dusk.
Disc 1 back jacket — chapter/track listing: TV Series Episode 1 (コンピューターの殺し方教えます, Chapter 1: Opening / A-Part / B-Part / Ending / Preview) and Episode 2 (可愛い天使は無毛がお好き?). Side 2: Episodes 3–4. CLV, 99 min, NTSC/COLOR. Each episode has its own opening and ending chapter markers.
Disc 2 back jacket — chapter/track listing: TV Episodes 5–8. The cockpit painting bleeds into the right half of the back. Each episode chapter-marked with Opening / A-Part / B-Part / Ending / Preview. CLV, ©1993 VAP Inc.
Disc 3 back jacket — chapter/track listing: TV Episodes 9–12, including うちらを買って/用心棒には美人がお得 and ホホホ、ドレスと男はオニューに限る. CLV, 99 min. The large letter 'R' watermarks the lower half.
Disc 4 back jacket — chapter/track listing: TV Episodes 13–16, including ここ疲れニャンニャン 果報は最後にやってくる and まかせなさい!WWWAは素敵なお仕事. CLV, 99 min.
Disc 5 back jacket — chapter/track listing: TV Episodes 17–20, including 出てこい出てこい!隠密者 and 追撃のブルースは殺しのBGM. CLV, 99 min.
Disc 6 back jacket — chapter/track listing: TV Episodes 21–24 (the final TV episodes), including うっそー!消えた463人?, やったね!出てきた463人!, and かりマリ?マンションは危険なアドレス. CLV, 99 min.
Disc 7 back jacket — Side 1: TV Special Episodes 25–26 (ひえっっ洋館の坊やはターミネーター / ホ、本気!?美女にキャノン砲は脱出のキーワード) then OVA Episodes 1–2. Side 2: OVA Episodes 1–2 continued. CLV, 99 min. The seam disc.
Disc 8 back jacket — OVA Episodes 3–6: 天罰なんかこわくない できめん!神の挑戦状 / がねだからってなによ! / そして誰もしなくなった / 本気なの!?海辺でどっきりウェディングパニック. CLV, 99 min. The red spacecraft bleeds in from the right.
Disc 9: The Archive Track
Disc 9's back jacket chapter listing runs to fourteen tracks. OVA Episodes 7–10 fill the standard slots, then Side 2, Chapter 10 opens a different archive: 番組宣伝用 TV-CF 15秒タイプ (the 15-second broadcast commercial), 番組宣伝用 TV-CF 30秒タイプ (the 30-second broadcast commercial), TVシリーズ ノンクレジット・オープニング (the TV series opening without credits), オリジナル新ビデオシリーズ ノンクレジット・オープニング (the OVA opening without credits), and オリジナル新ビデオシリーズ ノンクレジット・エンディング (the OVA ending without credits). The last disc of the box holds the broadcast commercials that sold the series, and the clean animations that played behind the credits. Documentation all the way down.
Disc 9 back jacket — OVA Episodes 7–10 plus archive content: TV broadcast commercials (15-second and 30-second), TV series no-credit opening, OVA no-credit opening and ending. 104 min total. The only disc in the set that runs over its standard runtime.
Box poster — large-format reproduction of the box front portrait: Kei and Yuri in close-up, faces filling the frame. Printed on coated stock. The box art in its intended scale.
Mughi photo card — a small square bonus card showing Kei and Yuri with the large black Mughi, sitting against a plain background. Printed as a photograph rather than illustration. ダーティペアの大決算 title in the upper corner.
The New Character Sheet
Loose in the box with the poster and photo card: a single folded sheet headed 'New Character' in English, with red-line settei drawings of redesigned Kei and Yuri in multiple poses and angles. Beneath it, a questionnaire card: ダーティペアの大決算 LD BOX アンケート, asking how you learned about the product, whether you've watched previous Dirty Pair releases, and — pointedly — which character you prefer. The sheet is a preview of Dirty Pair Flash, which began its OVA run in 1994. VAP inserted it into a box archiving the complete original series. The new designs are angular, rounder-faced, wearing different uniforms. The question 'which character do you prefer' is in both directions at once.
New Character settei preview sheet — red-line drawings of redesigned Kei and Yuri in full-body and three-quarter poses, with the LD BOX survey card (アンケート) below. A preview of Dirty Pair Flash (1994) included with the complete original series archive. VPLY-70266.
Booklet spread — 原作 高千穂遥 (Original Author: Haruka Takachiho): opening essay page with Takachiho's photograph, three columns of text, and a 'Jacket Collection' gallery strip showing disc covers at the bottom. The author's personal account of the franchise.
Booklet spread — Takachiho essay continued: two more text columns, additional Jacket Collection strip including English-market Dirty Pair releases ('The Great Adventures of Dirty Pair') alongside Japanese LD covers. The franchise's international reach documented at the bottom of the author's essay.
The Production Bible
The booklet is not a souvenir. It is a production record compiled at the end of the original Dirty Pair run. Haruka Takachiho's essay opens it — his photograph on the page, his account of the franchise from light novel to television to OVA. Then the Animation Rough Design section: image boards, character rough design sheets for Kei and Yuri (multi-angle, costume variants, expression sheets), and then full settei for every supporting element — Mugi the cat in silhouette and orthographic view, Nanmo the robot in schematic detail, the Lovely Angel spacecraft in both TV-series and video-series variants. Following the character and mecha settei: a complete TV-versus-video comparison, costume archives documenting every outfit Kei and Yuri wore across the franchise run, and then the episode-by-episode production staff listing for all 36 episodes with key animation reference images. The booklet ends with the franchise's logo design evolution — five iterations of the ダーティペア title from final to rough. The box was assembled as documentation, not as celebration.
Booklet spread — Animation Rough Design / Image Design: image board illustrations and early concept paintings establishing the series' visual tone, with 作画監督 (animation director) credits. The 'IMAGE DESIGN' section precedes the character-specific sheets.
Booklet spread — Animation Rough Design / KEI: full-body poses in multiple angles, facial expression grid (multiple rows of head shots), alternate costume sketches. Animation director and character designer credits listed. The complete Kei production reference.
Booklet spread — Animation Rough Design / YURI: full-body poses, multiple-angle standing views, detailed expression sheets. The same documentation format as the Kei spread — both characters receive equal production-reference treatment.
Booklet spread — Yuri expression sheets continued (left); MUGI: the large black cat companion in silhouette studies, multi-angle body schematics, size comparison with character. Mugi's design documented at the same level of detail as the principal characters.
Nanmo and the Lovely Angel
The Nanmo (robot companion) and Lovely Angel (spacecraft) spreads treat non-character production assets with the same thoroughness as Kei and Yuri. Nanmo: orthographic views, mechanical detail drawings, scale references. Lovely Angel: separate TV-series and video-series schematics — the ship changed between productions, and the booklet documents both versions side by side. The 設定資料集 (settei archive) section that follows extends this: Kei and Yuri's TV-era and video-era designs on the same spread for direct comparison, equipment and firearms reference, then the full costume collection across the entire franchise run — every outfit from both productions, organized and labeled.
Booklet spread — NANMO: robot orthographics in multiple views; LOVELY ANGEL: spacecraft schematics for both TV series and video series variants, with sub-craft documentation. The ship changed between productions; both designs preserved here.
Booklet spread — 設定資料集 / KEI & YURI: TV series settei (left column) and video series settei (right column) side by side. Expression sheets below each. Equipment and firearms reference at the bottom. The booklet's clearest acknowledgment that the franchise existed in two distinct production versions.
Booklet spread — 設定資料集 / COSTUME: ダーティペア問学服 (school uniforms), ジャンプスーツ (jumpsuits), and コスチュームコレクション (costume collection) with alternate outfits for both characters across the franchise run.
Booklet spread — COSTUME continued: formal wear, casual outfits, period costumes. Lower section: 文音基本設定 — the typography and logo standards documentation. Even the franchise title design is treated as settei.
Episode-by-Episode Staff Credits
The booklet's final section is a complete per-episode production record for all 36 episodes. Each episode gets its own card: episode number, title, director, script, animation director, key animation credits, and a small reference illustration showing design work from that episode. The TV series cards run across three spreads; the video series cards fill a fourth. At the top of the TV series section: the full staff table for the series as a whole — series director, character design, music, all credits in a color-coded grid. The per-episode cards are the granular layer beneath it: which animation director oversaw each episode, whose key animation drawings make up each production. This is not a credits reel. It is documentation designed to be used as reference.
Booklet spread — 設定資料集: MUGI with TV/video variant comparison; NANMO orthographics; LOVELY ANGEL TV and video schematics with sub-craft variants; メカオゲーム設定 (mecha game settings) data table. The complete franchise hardware archived.
Booklet spread — 制作スタッフリスト各話担当定資料集 (Episode-by-episode production staff archive): full TV series staff table at top; individual episode cards for Episodes 1–8, each with director, writer, animation director, key animation staff, and reference illustration. Yellow background.
Booklet spread — Episode staff cards continued: TV Episodes 9–16. Each card documents the episode's production team with a small reference image of character or mecha settei from that episode. Jacket Collection strip at the bottom showing disc covers and original novel editions.
Booklet spread — Episode staff cards: TV Episodes 17–24 (the complete TV run) plus early OVA transitions. The TV series production record closes and the original new video series begins on the same spread.
Booklet spread — ダーティペア video series: OVA series staff table at top; individual episode cards for OVA Episodes 1–10. The complete original new video series production record, structured identically to the TV series pages.
The Logo
The booklet's final page shows five versions of the ダーティペア / DIRTY PAIR title logo stacked vertically — from the polished final version at the top to increasingly rough working drafts below. A note explains the design process. It is the last page of a document that spent its length on character sheets, mecha schematics, production staff grids, and episode logs. VAP ended the production bible with the typography. The title itself as a designed object.
Booklet final page — five iterations of the ダーティペア DIRTY PAIR title logo from finished version (top) through successive rough drafts (below), with design notes. The booklet closes with the franchise's own title as a designed artifact.
The box contains everything VAP produced around the original Dirty Pair: the complete TV run, the specials, the ten OVA episodes. The booklet documents how it was made — character by character, episode by episode, from image boards down to the title logo. Nine disc covers that form a complete painting program. The broadcast commercials archived on the final disc alongside clean openings and endings.
Loose in the box: a single folded sheet showing new character designs, with a survey asking which character you prefer. Dirty Pair Flash launched the following year with redesigned characters and a different visual identity. The box had already handed you the comparison.
The production record ends. The next production's settei is already in your hand.
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