Dirty Pair, a anime television series from the early 80's, was the first anime to inspire me to write fan-fiction. The "Dirty Pair" are actually the "Lovely Angels", two beautiful young women named Kei and Yuri, who work for a freelance law-enforcement agency in the year 2141. The name "Dirty Pair" was given to them by the media, due the unfortunate tendency for all of their cases to end in the destruction of the city or even the planet in question.
There have been many different versions of Dirty Pair, including the anime, Haruka Takachiho's original japanese novels, and the American comic written by Adam Warren. I actually read the American comic before I saw any of the anime, so my stories incorporate some of the cyberpunk feel of the American stories.
For more information on the Dirty Pair, visit this site: The Dirty Pair...uh...Lovely Angels
Please send me feedback!! mathews1@ix.netcom.com Or use ICQ: 11539925
Big Bang was the first fan-fiction story I wrote, and my first "serious" story of any kind. I wrote this story in January of 1991 when I was going nuts waiting for the third issue of Dirty Pair: A Plague of Angels. I wrote the original draft on 48 pages of yellow legal-pad paper, which I still have. I wrote it to soothe my own frustrations at waiting for the comic, which was over six weeks late, but as I wrote the second page, it occurred to me that perhaps others would like to read it. When I returned to grad school in Buffalo the following month, I posted to the newsgroup rec.arts.anime for the first time, asking if I could post the story. It wasn't until my first Anime Expo that I learned that no one had ever done that before. Big Bang will always have a special place in my heart, but it was a first effort, so be kind when you read it.
This story introduces Daved, a character who is ripped off, er, inspired by, several of my favorite characters. Try to imagine a man with the looks and libido of James Bond, Doctor Who's TARDIS, and who manipulates history like Isaac Asimov's Eternals. Daved is dispatched to solve the problem of a universe that is destined to explode. The reason is unknown, but the Dirty Pair are believed to have something to do with it. While Kei and Yuri investigate mysterious disappearances at a large corporation, Daved investigates Kei and Yuri. Eventually, their paths cross, and things get crazy.
I wrote The Ballad of Lord Robin in the spring of 1991, and it remains one of the most popular stories I've ever written, and Lord Robin one of my most popular characters.
The story begins as Lord Robin, a madman who continually spouts one-liners like a comedian, warps a enormous space fleet directly into orbit around a planet, a feat that is supposed to be impossible. He engages the world's leader in a game-show-like contest, then completely destroys the planet. Later, when the WWWA is decimated by a traitor loyal to Lord Robin, it is decided Kei and Yuri will go undercover to infiltrate Lord Robin's organization. An adventure ensues, and the Lovely Angels learn that appearances can deceiving, as enemies prove to be friends, friends prove to be enemies, and a monster proves to be a hero.
I got the idea for The Game Eternal while watching The Emblem of Gude, a great sword-and-sorcery anime about two young lady adventurers named Efera and Jiliora. As I watched, I noticed that the two looked and behaved surprisingly similar to Yuri and Kei. It occurred to me: wouldn't it be neat if the Lovely Angels were actually Efera and Jiliora reincarnated?
In this story, the Pair rescue a man from a cryogenic capsule. When awoken, he claims to be the legendary Crystal Knight, Tarc Meridian. He refers to them as Efera and Jiliora and asks them to help him fight the demon Nag'sharath, whom he identifies as a successful businesswoman. At first, Kei and Yuri think he's crazy, but as the world around them gets stranger and stranger, they are forced to make room in their lives for magic.
Message from Twilight was a practical joke a bunch of friends and I played on the 'net back in 1992. I wrote a "synopsis" of a non-existant Dirty Pair OAV and distributed it to my accomplices. I then asked a question about the OAV on rec.arts.anime. To the surprise of those who had never heard of the anime, my friends chimed in with answers. One even posted the synopsis, claiming he'd downloaded it from an FTP site. We had most of the 'net convinced there was another Dirty Pair out there none of them had seen.
Since the actual story is a synopsis itself, it seems silly to give a synopsis here. Just click on it and take a look. It's short. For what it's worth, I've included an unfinished full script version of the story I began the following year.
As I stated at the top of this page, I was first introduced to Dirty Pair through Adam Warren's American comics. As time went by, however, I became less and less enchanted with his view of the Lovely Angels universe. With each successive series, Kei and Yuri became less human and more cyborg. This is sad when you consider that Haruka Takachiho's original Kei and Yuri, upon which the comics are supposedly based, were not mechanically enhanced in any way. The final straw came when in the fourth series, Sim Hell, the Angels are shown to have huge computer sockets in the backs of their heads. I had a nightmare after seeing that, and shortly thereafter, I wrote The Lovely Angels Forever.
This is the darkest story I have ever written. In it, Kei and Yuri have had most of their humanity stripped away through constant biomechanical upgrades. They have been killed in the line of duty several times, each time being recreated through cloning. As it slowly dawns on the Lovely Angels' aging supervisor, Francis Goulet, that something is wrong with the 3WA, he decides to put things right.
I wrote this story to show just how bad things could possibly get in the Adam Warren universe. Ironically, he took yet another step forward in Fatal but not Serious, published after I wrote this story. In that series, we learn that the Pair can indeed be recloned much like I describe, and he kills off the original Yuri. Brrrr...
Reunions may hold the record for the longest-delayed piece of fanfic vaporware that was eventually released. I announced it in 1992, and finally completed it in 1995. Reunions was co-written with Larry Mann, and is a sequel to his story, Experiment 101-E, as well as to The Ballad of Lord Robin and the American comic series, Dirty Pair II (a.k.a. Dangerous Acquaintances).
In the latter, Adam Warren introduced Shasti, the artificially-created human that was to have been the 3WA's "ultimate trouble consultant", until she broke their control and became a ruthless criminal. She's beautiful and unimaginably deadly, yet you can't help but feel a little sorry for her, this woman with no childhood, no friends, and no purpose in life other than to serve the 3WA. Larry developed her character further in Experiment 101-E, which details Shasti's early life as a trouble consultant. (For copies visit Eyrie Productions.) In Reunions, we continue the development by giving her the childhood she "never" had.
There are actually three plotlines to this story. Shasti and her gang, assembled from the remnants of Lord Robin's fleet, are attempting to pull off the score of the century. Kei and Yuri, with the help of Darryn and Rumiko from Experiment 101-E and two new characters, are pursuing Shasti. Finally, Andrew Fisher, a psychologist who monitored Shasti's development during her brief mental "childhood", is helping the Lovely Angels, in the hopes of being reunited with the only woman he ever loved. Strictly speaking, Shasti is the villain of the piece, but she's just as much a protagonist as Kei and Yuri are.
The illustrations included below were drawn by Larry Mann.
