Dirty Pair: Flight 005 Conspiracy ADV 50 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 09/17/2003

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The last time I wrote about the Dirty Pair I said straight out that I don't know how I could ever hate anything that had to do with those two gals and their spaceship and their giant cartoon dog. Well. Apparently these things happen. I remember about eight years ago, back in high school, I had indoctrinated a good amount of my friends into the wonders of Shaft. A classmate of mine, widely known as an inveterate liar, concocted a story of a Blaxploitation film wherein a large, pimp-ish man walked into a McDonalds with a parrot on his shoulder, a sable coat and oak cane. Upon receiving his order he dashed the hamburger to the ground and exclaimed in that shrill falsetto with which that all pimps must speak, "This is not my cheeseburger! This is not my Big Mac!" Whether this story is fact or fiction is besides the point.

This isn't my Dirty Pair, man, it's like a whole different ball game. The story starts out amicably enough. Kei and Yuri are contracted to find out why some people hijacked a flight and there's this whole big conspiracy and at the end of the first act there's this big explosion in a factory and Yuri dies. Obviously she doesn't, because main characters don't die in these shows, but it doesn't stop Kei from stumbling to some bar with some guy that she works with and drinking a whole hell of a lot of booze. Then the super-secret-spy-agent bartender mixes a poison into the drink. Fortunately for Kei, her coworker/lush buddy Danny scoops up the whiskey and his face summarily EXPLODES. Before we have time to query where this guy got his face explosion potion, Yuri runs in and shoots the bartender like five times.

Why Danny's face has to explode I wouldn't be able to put into any kind of cogent words. That's none of my concern. But the events after Yuri's "death" take place in less than two minutes. Before you're even able to realize that the girl has passed on someone's face has exploded and she's right back! This is literally the fastest paced scene in the history of the world. Kei gets approximately three seconds to grieve over Yuri, three seconds to grieve over Danny and then they're sitting on the couch giggling and have girl talk together again. This, most certainly, is not the least of the problems here. Plot holes are abound. At one point a character is sucked out into space and five seconds later everyone else seems fine hopping around in their spacesuits, like decompression suddenly got passé and there's nothing to worry about. Flight 005 Conspiracy is not Dirty Pair I've come to love. It sure as hell isn't Project Eden, which I'm hesitant to admit I have a secret fetish for and often try to man-molest it in my sleep. Kei and Yuri are eventually aided by Rick, the benevolent grandfather who does look a day over 45. I guess by anime standards that is pretty old, but it still makes me a little bit incensed.

The soundtrack doesn't fare much better. It's a redub and I wonder if I wouldn't just want the original Streamline elements on my plate. While the two leads (Lauer and Sumrall) performed respectively in Project Eden they certainly do not rise to the occasion here, nor does the rest of the cast. This dub is bad. It's like Manga UK bad. They do that stuff where they transliterate the 'L's and 'R's. That just kills me. Especially when the word is "Lucifer" and it's called "Ru-ci-fah" in the English version, like there's some big mystery what word the Japanese were trying to get across here. Flight 005 Conspiracy really doesn't have anything redeeming to offer once the first five minutes are up. What I imagined to be a delightful cloak and dagger romp really has nothing to do with anything of the sort. In fact, it really doesn't seem to have to do with anything (with the notable exception of sucking major ass). Watching this was like being slapped in the face with Bubblegum Crash again. And then twice more for good measure. It's like nothing I like can ever stay good. Gentlemen. Ladies. This is not my cheeseburger. This is NOT my Big Mac.