Saturday, September 18, 2010

Great Manga Adventure of the Dirty Pair



Comic Ryu has been running a manga adaptation of the first DP print story, Daatipea no Daibouken, starting in their May 2010 issue (which was released 19 March).  The story is being handled by Takachiho Haruka himself, and the art by Tamaki Hisao (probably best known in the U.S. for his manga version of Star Wars: A New Hope, the English translation of which was published by Dark Horse*)

*He has been quite active since that time, but not much of his work has been seen in North America






Here's their first appearance in the opening installment, arriving to break up a little party being held by the interstellar crime syndicate, Lucifer.  The sort of stage-set introduction refers back to the Lovely Angels' origins in both the famous wrestling (and singing!) team, the Beauty Pair, as well as female singing duos such as Pink Lady, all from the 1970s. (And I see that they've brought their instruments...)


As one of my correspondents, Tomzer1, points out, their character design draws on something from all of the preceding versions of the Angels, along with Tamaki's own contributions.

The original first story has already concluded, but the series is still underway (with the November issue of Comic Ryu having come out Saturday, 9/18).  From what I can find on Japanese blogs about it, there has been a segue into some other situation.  I'll be able to say more about that when I get my copies of the most recent issues.  (I will also select some pages from the series for posting, once I have the new scanner later this month.)




Historical note -- This is not the first time there has been a DP manga.  However, there had never been anything done as a sanctioned series during the run of the 1980s anime ("Classic") version, with the peculiar exception of an adaptation of the fourth TV episode which ran in a 1985 issue of a Thai fan magazine (which I will also scan eventually).  There were also two series of DP Flash manga (by two different artists) which ran in Dengeki Comic Gao! during 1995-96.

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