Indigo Tropical Resort

Central to any conception of Dirty Pair, above the genre trappings and beyond the symbolism, are Kei and Yuri themselves. Rare is it that we see real genre fiction featuring female protagonists as more than supporting characters at best at all, let alone putting them front and centre as the only two starring roles. But Kei and Yuri are adult, professional, likable and incredibly complex characters, and that was the very first thing that hooked me on Dirty Pair. Kei and Yuri were trailblazers not just in science fiction, but really *all* of fiction because they were the first female double act co-leads effectively anywhere. As a result they have been endlessly imitated though never quite duplicated-Any show that features a pair of female characters who are very close with one another, one who’s tomboyish and outgoing and another who’s a bit more reserved and conventionally feminine, owes at least something to Kei and Yuri and Dirty Pair.

So it’s really Kei and Yuri themselves, even moreso than the oversignified themes and sophisticated exploration of different ideas, who guarantee Dirty Pair’s immortality. Haruka Takachiho has often said that you could take Kei and Yuri and transplant them into any fictional setting or genre and they would still work and it would still be Dirty Pair, a fact he tried to get across through the last bit of Dirty Pair as of this writing he’s been directly involved in: A pair of radio plays which reimagine the girls as FBI investigators and ninjas-in-training. That statement really resonated and stuck with me, and I wanted to write a series where the only real constants were Kei and Yuri themselves, with the setting, concepts and even genre trappings changing from episode to episode. But in order to accomplish this, I knew Kei and Yuri had to be the most meticulously defined players on display.

It’s a job I do not approach at all lately. Kei and Yuri are my favourite heroes, so I want to be sure I do right by them in turn. Upon reflection, I think one of the reasons why they’ve been able to become such singularly defining figures is because they’re an instance where a subversive and deconstructive case came before the archetype itself was established. The Lovely Angels were created as a double act based on traditional Japanese theatrical tropes: The refined and urbane Yamato Nadeshiko (Yuri) and her foil, the coarse and boisterous rural woman of the provinces (Kei). Together, they appear to comprise a manzai stand-up comic act with Yuri as the tsukkomi (straight man) and Kei as the boke (funny man), or alternately a “Red Oni/Blue Oni” duo with Kei as the Red Oni (boisterous, outgoing, defiant, brawny) and Yuri as the Blue Oni (placid, introverted, respectful of authority, brainy).

In reality though they actually don’t, in large part to Dirty Pair’s puroresu (pro wrestling) artifice: If Kei and Yuri map onto those stock characters at all, it’s only because they’re the *wrestling gimmicks* they’ve adopted as part of their act. If you pay close attention to Dirty Pair in its manifold iterations, you’ll find clues to the girls’ true performative nature-Yuri frequently displays evidence she’s not really as cool-headed and serene as she lets on, and Kei is a far more complicated and nuanced character than she’d have you believe at first glance. And far from being a “tomboy and girly-girl” pair, both Kei and Yuri display masculine and feminine characteristics in equal abundance. So while the Lovely Angels were the first female double act in anime (possibly in all of modern fiction) from which all others can ultimately be traced back to, they’re also a subversion of the very archetype they establish. This is a crucial fact to keep in mind for anyone attempting to write specifically for Kei and Yuri *themselves* instead of just another female double act of the likes that have come in the decades since Dirty Pair. And there have been a ton of them.

Some of these spiritual successors, however, have actually built upon the legacy of the Lovely Angels to a significant degree. Part of the reason Kei and Yuri are so influential is because a lot of their characterization and background in the source material seems left deliberately open to interpretation, which just makes it easier for adaptations and spiritual successors to take on the process of reiterating them while focusing on different specific aspects of their personality. And plenty have. So much so that I find it incredibly difficult, careless even, to do a new Dirty Pair without acknowledging the characters I’ve somewhat presumptuously decided to call “Lovely Avatars”: Those characters who may not be Kei and Yuri in name, but obviously owe their existence to them and thus invoke them, whether intentionally or not. In fact, I find myself defaulting back onto some of them more than I do some actual depictions of Kei and Yuri.

In creating my own version of the Lovely Angels, I’m drawn in particular to a handful of sources. There’s naturally the original novels by Haruka Takachiho, or at least the two that have been translated into English. And of course there’s the Classic Anime Series, though the specific bits of it I’m looking the closest at are Original Dirty Pair, Dirty Pair: Affair of Nolandia and Dirty Pair: Flight 005 Conspiracy. Those of you who know me from elsewhere will not be at all surprised by these picks, but I’m giving particular weight to the two movies, the latter of which has what I consider to be possibly the single best portrayal of Kei and Yuri I’ve ever seen. In addition to that though, I’m also basing Kei and Yuri’s personalities quite heavily on those of two pairs of characters from two non-Dirty Pair sources: Namely, Benten and Oyuki from Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura and Haruka Tenou and Michiru Kaioh, a.k.a. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, from Naoko Takeuchi’s Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon.

(If you want evidence that Benten/Oyuki and Uranus/Neptune are in fact derived at least in part from Kei and Yuri, check out the exhaustive Dirty Pair fansite Teatime in Elenore City for some historical context. Also highly recommended is this essay on astrological symbolism in Dirty Pair, which very nicely forms a composite sketch of who Kei and Yuri are and what they’re meant to represent. I don’t agree with absolutely all of the conclusions that site reaches, but I find most of it incredibly compelling.)

Kei, for example, gets a lot of added nuance from Benten and Haruka (how cool is it, by the way, that Sailor Uranus shares a name with Dirty Pair’s creator?) emphasizing certain aspects of her character more strongly and intensely. Kei is already a very genderfluid and mercurial figure: Transgression and nonconformity are built into her character from the outset, and her role as the series’ narrator allows her to obfuscate and play with things we have to read between the lines to fully pick up on. These are, however, somewhat incidental to the narrative of Dirty Pair itself because, as old-style (or at least older) science fiction, Dirty Pair is primarily concerned with exploring high-concept ideas at a textual level. The bulk of Kei’s (and Yuri’s) characterization and the backstory of their relationship, along with a lot of the interesting mystical and metafictional stuff, is left mostly implied. And while I love Dirty Pair for focusing on ideas, if we want to get at the root of who Kei and Yuri truly are, it can help to examine some secondary sources.

And both Urusei Yatsura and Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon are a big help in this regard. Benten, first of all, is an *actual deity*, the goddess Benzaiten. A fundamentally syncretic figure (which is really fitting for both Dirty Pair *and* Urusei Yatsura), Benten is a mirror-sister of the Hindu Saraswati and one of the Japanese Buddhist Seven Gods of Fortune, but she can also be seen as a Shinto kami. Along with bestowing good luck, Benten is the goddess of things that flow, such as music, time, water, knowledge, language and writing (which I find quite fitting not just given Kei’s role as a storyteller, but also because of the water in her Chinese Zodiac and her connection to Yuri, who is associated with the ocean). So straight away, Benten makes explicit the mystical themes in Kei that Dirty Pair sometimes only touches on, which makes sense because syncretic mysticism is something Rumiko Takahashi is overtly interested in exploring with Urusei Yatsura, a series predicated on mashing up various folk beliefs and traditions with pulp sci-fi. So her Benten becomes a scantily-clad tomboy spacefaring biker chick and chain gang member who leads the gods in a ritualistic Setsubun war with Lum’s Oni clan to bring good luck in the new year.

(Benten as a goddess, that is, rather than an Urusei Yatsura character, also plays a significant role in the SEGA Genesis game Battle Mania Daiginjō, which is in itself a spiritual successor to Dirty Pair. In fact, Battle Mania Daiginjō is basically Dirty Pair with the serial numbers filed off.)

Another theme Rumiko Takahashi is very interested in is gender identity and performance. Benten is effectively her defining statement on the issue, and we can learn a lot about how to approach Kei knowing this. Although very tomboyish, Benten is also shown to be deceptively complex, and it’s actually more accurate to say she’s both a male and female energy simultaneously. There are a couple of moments wherein certain characters overlook Benten’s femininity (and her feminine power) and get blindsided by it because they’re so used to seeing her as a crass or unrefined person. Most notably, whenever she literally lets her hair down (which is normally tied up…with a bike chain), Benten can go from tough and masculine-looking to rather stunningly feminine with a flick of her wrist. Unlike some other characters in the series, Benten sees no conflict whatsoever between the male and female sides of her personality and seems to be at peace with the understanding she can be both, which even becomes something of a plot point late in the series’ run when she is paired, and contrasted, with the tortured and conflicted Ryuunosuke. A very Tantric conception of divinity then: The harmonious union between male and female energies.

Sailor Uranus of Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon expands upon these themes even further, and was literally designed around the concept of gender performativity. Not a wrestler, Sailor Uranus, like Sailor Neptune, was based on the Takarazuka Revue, a form of musical theatre where all the roles are played by women. Naoko Takeuchi felt that Takarazuka, in spite of its comparatively puritanical origins as a way to “clean up” Kabuki theatre, was still a form of female liberation and empowerment because of its in-built gender transgressiveness. Haruka openly shifts back and forth between presenting as male and presenting as female from one scene to the next, her confident and deliberate androgyny becoming central to her character’s symbolism.

While the mythological Benten is the goddess of music, Urusei Yatsura‘s Benten doesn’t seem terribly musically inclined. Haruka Tenou is though, often playing an accomplished piano accompaniment to her partner Michiru’s violin. I think I’d like Kei to play a musical instrument too, perhaps a biwa, in honour of Benzaiten’s signature instrument. I can imagine her pensively picking at it in moments of deep thought, almost like Sheik from Hyrule Warriors. And perhaps in lieu of Haruka Tenou’s piano, it might be appropriate to the setting for Kei to keep an analog synthesizer in her room. And maybe Yuri can accompany her on, let’s say, a traditional Ainu tonkori zither, just as Michiru accompanies Haruka’s piano with her own violin. Diegetically emphasizing musical motifs and concepts helps to reinforce the synthwave themes I’m aiming for, and making Kei in particular a songstress acknowledges not just her connection to Benten/Benzaiten and Sailor Uranus, but it also pays tribute to my personal fan casting choice for Kei: Yū Asakawa, a voice actor and singer who, not at all coincidentally, once played another wandering Sagittarian troubadour.

Another thing that really draws me to Benten and Sailor Uranus are their personalities. In weaker depictions of Dirty Pair (even, arguably, in the original books at parts), Kei has a tendency to come across as a bit of a tsundere or an idiot hero. That really upsets me, because not only does it not jive with my reading of her character, I confess I get a bit defensive and protective of Kei because of how much I identify with and project onto her. I find Rumiko Takahashi’s Benten to be at times a slightly more consistent and attractive depiction of this archetype for me: Benten is a supporting (and supportive) character who is very friendly and open…unless you upset her. In which case, heaven help you. Similarly, and in spite of certain adaptations turning her into a brooding, dangerous 90s antihero, the Haruka Tenou of Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon is a classy figure with elegant poise whose relationship with Michiru Kaioh is one of deep affection, understanding and smouldering passion.

I’d like my series to bring a more mature tone to Dirty Pair, both in terms of the synthwave themes and just due to where my personal interests lie at this stage of my life (Though I don’t have a particular age range in mind for this Kei and Yuri, I do see them as adult professionals who are at least 25 or older). I want to keep all the trademark humour, high-concept action storytelling and tight pacing intact, but to at the same time deepen Kei and Yuri’s relationship and put it more in the forefront. So these are all traits I’d like to write back into Kei herself, who I think would benefit from them the most: I see her retaining all of her fire, but with a much more easygoing and laid-back perspective representing how at peace she is with life now. I want a character with Kei’s sense of humour and perceptiveness, Benten’s temperament and symbolism and Sailor Uranus’ passion, charm and gracefulness. Instead of an impulsive tsundere, a voyager and free spirit who lets herself be guided from world to world and story to story.

Perhaps unusually for a Dirty Pair fan, I must confess Yuri has always been tougher for me to pin down than Kei, and I haven’t put quite as much thought into her here as I have her partner. Although maybe that accounts for her overwhelming popularity: A Piscean, fluid and malleable like water, perhaps Yuri is whoever and whatever her admirers (including Kei) want her to be. When I think of the Yuri who appears in my story outlines, the person I think of now is effectively Sailor Neptune: Someone very calm, quiet, refined, sophisticated and polite with an aloof distance that puts one in mind of the vastness of the ocean. But this is only half the story: Although she and Sailor Neptune are both Pisceans, for the Yuri of Dirty Pair, this air of refined elegance and grace is just her kayfabe persona in the narrative ring. Although she does display these characteristics, she’s no more tsukkomi than Kei is bokke. Just as Kei’s brash, hotheaded exterior distracts us from the hidden fathoms below, Yuri’s aloof Yamato Nadeshiko facade belies a very mischievous and silly person who is just as prone to pratfalling as she is to sage wisdom.

These are traits that are also present in not just Sailor Neptune, but Oyuki, Urusei Yatsura‘s Yuri analog. More so in Michiru, though, who can frequently be seen gently teasing her lover through their close bond and displaying a surprisingly dry and sardonic wit. It’s a terrible cliché to compare any relationship to an “old married couple”, but that really is the best way to describe that of Haruka and Michiru, and the vibe I want for Kei and Yuri, although “old bisexual swingers in a committed long-term relationship” would be more accurate. By contrast, the central joke of Oyuki (also associated with Neptune, which is in this story a planet of ice and snow. So Oyuki is a yuki-onna, or woman of the snow. Get it? Frozen water!) is that she pretends to be above things and goes through the motions of chastising her more boisterous, rabble-rousing friends, though she’s in reality every bit as culpable as them in the ensuing mayhem. Benten and Oyuki are never shown to be quite as close as Kei and Yuri or Haruka and Michiru, but they’re definitely shown to compliment each other, especially later on in the series.

Yuri, uniquely for Dirty Pair, has something of a character arc. Although it would perhaps be more accurate to say she has a signature plot structure that reoccurs a couple of times throughout the series. As a Piscean and a water elemental, Yuri is inherently formless (notice how she, unlike Kei, is a diegetic character in the novels), and while this allows her to slip into and out of different identities as need be, it also puts her at risk of losing her own identity and getting caught up in unreality. This is the primary guiding force behind the plot of “The Case of the Backwoods Murder”, the second ever Dirty Pair story, and it also shows up in some form in episodes 8 and 23 of the TV show, as well as a brilliant execution in episode 6 of the OVA Series. Each of these stories sees Yuri briefly fantasizing about leaving her life with Kei and the 3WA behind to live what she imagines will be a fairy tale romance happy ending, which Dirty Pair conceptualizes as Yuri in a sense risking “becoming her mask”.

(Interestingly enough Michiru Kaioh/Sailor Neptune has a very similar character moment in the Sailor Moon Dream arc of Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon.)

Given that I foresee this series depicting an older, more mature Lovely Angels, this is a plot I specifically want to avoid reiterating (anyway, it’s already been done exquisitely a number of times, and I find it revealing that it’s entirely absent in Dirty Pair: Affair of Nolandia and Dirty Pair: Flight 005 Conspiracy). This is something I would imagine Yuri has long since grown beyond, and I want to show her unwavering comfort and contentedness in the loving relationship she’s always had. For the same reason, I’d like to write a Kei more straightforward and open in her prose and demeanor and less reliant on narrative sleight-of-hand, at least when it comes to her real feelings. I want to melt the refractory ice crystals around Kei and Yuri a bit, dispel at least a few levels of the misdirection and artifice the series has built up over the years and let what I perceive to be their true selves shine through a little brighter. I’d like to portray a Lovely Angels fully at peace with who they are, what they mean for the universe, and what they mean to each other. It’s a risky move given how reliant on performativity Dirty Pair has always been and how much it’s been strengthened by it, but the way I interpret it is that enough time has passed and enough has changed in the universe  such that Kei and Yuri now feel they can be a bit more honest with us and no longer need to be quite so evasive.

The end result of this line of reasoning is that sometime soon I’m going to have to give serious thought to re-examining the role, and necessity, of performativity and puroresu themes in Dirty Pair. I suspect doing so will radically alter the ethos of the series at a fundamental level, however, so it’s an area in which I’m not at all certain how to proceed or comfortable even pursuing it. That may warrant an essay of its own here at some point.