What IS Halloween about, anyway? On some level, it's about fear. Why else do we pick this month and this holiday to indulge ourselves in horrific delights? This is a season of fear, and today's introductory post should have reflected that. Then I changed my mind, because Halloween is also fun. Fun for kids who get to go out trick-or-treating in order to amass loads of free candy. Fun for adults to go out and socialize, working on amazing costumes. It's essentially a giant spooky-themed party, when you think about it. Halloween is fun! You know what else is fun? My favorite anime series, Dirty Pair. Here we have a show that rekindled a liking for an entire animated form, all because it cut out all the bullshit I hated and was just... fun! So here we are, with an episode of the show that combines the natural fun of Halloween with the inherent fun of being Dirty Pair. This is Episode 2 of 1987's 10-episode Dirty Pair OVA series, "No Thanks! No Need For A Halloween Party", and I am here to proclaim how great and fun it is in brisk form.
I freely admit to being nowhere near a Dirty Pair expert when it comes to writing about this show. That honor I'd give to Josh Marsfelder of Eruditorum Press. I'll link his writing about this particular episode so you have a Smart Person perspective on it, but I'm deliberately not re-reading it as I write this so you get my own fresh -ish take on it. Okay. So, the main thing I love about this episode is... you guessed it, how much fun it has being both Dirty Pair and Halloween. A brief bit of context on the premise before we go on: Dirty Pair is set in space in the 22nd century, and focuses on a duo of "Trouble Consultants" who go out into the cosmos and solve problems on commission. Kei and Yuri, the Lovely Angels, often end up causing huge amounts of collateral damage as a result of their exploits, thus earning infamy and the pejorative name of "The Dirty Pair." Got that? Great. So this episode has them patrolling their home city-planet, I suppose, of Eleanor City, on Halloween night. Halloween in the future, light-years away from Earth, has evolved into some sort of city-wide Mardi Gras sort of deal. Everything is lit brightly, Halloween banners and vid-screens are all over, there's costumed people partying in the streets, balloons, airships, parades, fireworks, the whole deal. It's a plausible evolution, and both Kei and Yuri don't quite know how Halloween started; it's just a huge party night with costumes now. I absolutely adore it. This is the kind of place I'd love to visit and party at, running around in some dumb costume. It looks stunning as well, a near-perfect utopia. Of course, then everything goes wrong, as is usual in Dirty Pair.
Through a bungle of a takedown by the Lovely Angels, a "Tactical Robot Weapon" is unleashed upon the festivities. Nobody pays attention to the horrifying metal exoskeleton running around the streets because it's Halloween night and everyone's dressed up anyways. So, Kei and Yuri have one hour to stop the thing before it goes into its active mode and starts blowing shit up indiscriminately. Thus, the havoc begins. The episode is essentially one big comedic chase with lots of explosions and great music, and what makes shit even funnier are the criminals. See, four gangs of crooks in themed costumes are each planning their own heists and robberies on Halloween night. The chase between the Tactical Robot Weapon and the Lovely Angels ends up accidentally foiling every single one. Hell, in one case, Kei and Yuri actually make things worse, in a sense; the gang of robot-costumed crooks led by a knockoff C3PO are ready to rob a museum. The girls, in trying to blow up the robot weapon, fucking level the museum. Slightly worse than robbing it, yeah. Like I said. Collateral damage. It all culminates in an amazing final sequence when the robot weapon activates in the middle of the annual Halloween fireworks show. It grows guns on every part of it and starts firing missiles with reckless abandon, making huge explosions in the sky and levelling more buildings... which the crowd all takes in as part of the show and "oohs" over. In the end, it's the soul of the Halloween party that takes out the robot weapon. Kei and Yuri, out of explosives, start using the fireworks against the robot... and it works! They get way into it as well, announcing the main event, even shoving each other aside to get hosting duties. They're having fun, and that's what wrecks the chaotic robot of destruction! In the end, they get to enjoy the rest of their Halloween night with a quiet drink together. Not a bad way to spend an evening.
Half of this was just a plot summary, but you get the underlying theme here; Halloween havoc with a healthy dose of having a good time. It's satisfying to go out and wear your costumes and party with friends. It's satisfying to watch shit blow up, be they fireworks in the sky or buildings blasted by a death robot. It's not so satisfying to be a criminal foiled by a death robot bursting into the jewelry store you're blowing up, echoed by the Alice cosplayer's final shouts of "I hate Halloween night!" as she's carried away in the police van. Still, it's an episode that shows the lighter side of Halloween's chaotic nature. It is, in fact, one of my favorite episodes of Dirty Pair; not just the OVA series, but all of it. I do hope you've given it a watch, as I put it up there for that purpose and I've summarized all the good bits. Dirty Pair is an excellent little show that is just plain fun, and so is Halloween, so let's all have a good time.
30 left to go. Maybe something scary next time.
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