Dirty Pair: Project Eden
(1986 movie)
Being an actual movie and all, one might hope for an increase in animation quality and maybe even a somewhat more involved storyline. Well, do not look to hope, it has forsaken this movie. Now the animation isn't horrible or anything and neither is the story exactly, it's just that everything is pretty much on par with the original TV series. What that translates into for this movie is a long drawn out storyline that actually made it a little difficult to remember what the Lovely Angels were originally sent to do when the movie was finally getting close to being over. The movie tried to make up for this a little by filling up time with musical action sequences, some of which were in slow motion and none of which had any dialog. Basically it was like someone had made some AMVs and stuck them in the middle of the movie.
As for that actual story, it revolved entirely around some strange lizard creatures attacking some kind of unobtanium plants, killing everyone in sight, and running off with the unobtanium. There are two main factions on this planet, one of which is capitalist and the other communist, and both sides are convinced the other is behind these destructive attacks. The Angels are sent in to figure out what's going on. It doesn't take that long for the movie to reveal that some mad scientist type is behind it all, apparently seeking some kind of next stage in evolution or some crap along those lines. These creatures are basically the result of him zapping some kind of a fossil with a weird-looking vagina eye energy ray.
While the Angels take a brief side trip to one of the factories that had been ruined in one of these creature attacks, they meet a thief who very obviously is also supposed to double as a love interest. Naturally this happens when the Angels are taking a bath, since there were conveniently a couple of tubs available right next to each other in some completely ruined room which also apparently had hot running water available to them. As you might expect, our thief/love interest, Carson D. Carson, falls into the tubs, both of them. He even manages to feel Kei up. And for me, this is where mediocre started to go downhill, because from this point on the Angels suddenly aren't as capable as they always otherwise have been, basically just so this thief can prove his worth to the Angels. It's a classic example of making one character look better at the expense of others. They also do that whole love/hate thing between Kei and Carson, where the two act like they don't like each other even though it's really obvious that they're supposed to have a thing for each other.
As it turns out, Carson is looking to get back at the mad scientist and his butler for stealing some very rare wine which he stole himself fair and square. The movie then quickly becomes a fight between the mad scientist, his butler, and the lizard creatures against Carson and the Angels, which is why it became somewhat difficult to remember why the Angels were even there to begin with. The movie, being oh so stereotypical in pretty much every way imaginable, manages to have its cake and eat it too by having Carson not only make the heroic sacrifice, but live through it so he and Kei can get their kinky thing on. Of course, this wouldn't be an episode of angels without things ending in disaster, so the movie ends with the Angels having unwittingly unleashed a ton of those lizard creatures on the entire planet.
When it comes to the characters, there really isn't a lot to say. The Angels are pretty much the same as in their previous outings, except that in this movie they become somewhat less capable after Carson shows up. Mughi is the only other character from the original series to show up in this movie, and his role is very limited. Nammo didn't even turn up at all, which disappointed me a little because I always liked her better than Mughi anyway. Carson is a very stereotypical sympathetic thief archtype who we're just supposed to like. I have to admit that I liked some of his responses to the Angels, but otherwise he was somewhat boring.
As for the fan service, well, it's pretty much like the TV series, which is again disappointing if you're a perv like I am. Pretty much all of it was the teasing type that didn't really allow you to see anything, except for the very Bond movie-like opening and one scene where Yuri gets her makeshift shorts torn. To make things worse, there is plenty of fan dis-service, mostly from the lizard creatures. The thing about them is that their long neck and lack of a distinct head was somewhat phallic-like, which wasn't helped much by their tendency to spew some kind of white sticky substance from their mouths. Later versions of these creatures all had some nice racks and asses, but with the typical anime anatomy, though in this case it wasn't a bad thing. Aside from being lizard creatures, they also lacked a typical head, and had something resembling a head nestled where the breast bone would normally be on a human, though their mouths were where the neck would normally be.
I don't hate this movie exactly, and I don’t even regret seeing it, it's just that it's not an experience I ever intend to repeat. I can honestly say that this is the worst outing of the Dirty Pair franchise that I've seen to this point. The only fun to really be had in watching it is in how very riffable this movie is. 3/10.