Dirty Pair: Affair on Nolandia - 1985

Dirty Pair: Affair on Nolandia is a 1985 OVA. It was created parralel to the TV series and came out on video during the series' first broadcasted run at the end of 1985. Although the OVA sold reasonably well, many fans rejected the more serious and hard sci-fi tone and style to the franchise. Sequels were clearly intended with the phrase 'See You Next Time, Vol ??' appearing at the end of the show's credits.

The production team obviously wanted to produce something more closely related to the original 1980 novel called 'The Great Adventures of Dirty Pair' both in designs and content. Takachiho Haruka, the author, also played a big part in writing and supervising the story in this OVA. It's assumed that this is also his favourite adaptation of his work.

The story is complex and the pace deliberately slow, since the Dirty Pair need time to unravel the mysteries of Nolandia. They must face everything from psychic powers, strange creatures, conspiracy casea, as well as the true secrets of Nolandia. The light heartedness and humour that made up the TV series is almost entirely absent from this rendition. It's clear the creators wanted a fresh break, so even the character designs got majorly changed and revamped. Both Kei, Yuri and as well as all the other characters in the story, now have realistical proportioned figures. The cute, curvy look is gone and a more angular, skinny, well proportioned look, is now in. Backgrounds equally go up a notch, boasting some really impressive color and detail. The music is delightfully catchy and sweet with the typical 80's synthesisers doing a wonderful job of adding to the atmosphere.

Affair of Nolandia simply offers some of the best animation and storytelling seen from this era. It's creativty is captivating, offering both fresh outlooks on designs and storytelling. Affair of Nolandia is a mind blowing experience upon first viewing. It continues to be benchmark for which other 80's anime must be compared to. Affair of Nolandia was lucky enough to get a release on DVD in 2003 and re-released in a thinpack bundle in 2005. Both are out of print, however the single release still goes cheap on Amazon Marketplace for around $5. A remastered DVD release in Japan, occurred in 2006. While the color and grain levels are slightly improved, the sound quality is vastly inferior to the R1 release. I therefore continue to treasure my Region 1 release over anything else. I urge you to hunt down a copy for yourself upon viewing this treasure. Hurry before copies get even harder to find, I suspect ADV lost the license to this a couple of years ago and this will soon become collector's fodder.

Download Here - Dirty Pair: Affair of Nolandia

Overall Grade/Rating: A+
Commercial Availability: VHS (Japan, USA), Laserdisc (Japan, USA), DVD (Japan, USA)