I mean it didn't actually break my heart, I'm being facetious here, it is a little, how you say, hyperbole from me, but boy howdy I just finished the last episode of the show and at the risk of sounding like a games reviewer circa 2005, it's a real mixed bag. There's three series in all - the first one is six episodes, the second and third are five apiece. It's an attempt to take the winning combination of Kei and Yuri and change things around, give the girls some more stuff to do and actually tell a story with actual continuity (at least in the first two series, the third one drops the idea and returns to the show's episodic roots with uh... well, we'll get into it).
It is important to note that I actually really like the idea of "hey let's change a bunch of stuff about the setting but keep the characters more or less the same" when it comes to this. If, god willing, we are ever blessed with more Dirty Pair, I would rather they try new stuff than regurgitate the 80s series at me - although if they did an Urusai Yatsura-style reboot I wouldn't complain, don't get it twisted: I think the 80s TV series designs of Kei and Yuri rule extremely hard, as does the Lovely Angel's design, Mughi's design, and Nanmo's existence. But if you wanted to take another run at the character designs and change some stuff around, setting-wise, I would love to see it! It's what they did with Dirty Pair Flash and, you know, it's...
You know what, meet me past the read more and we'll dig into it a little, or as much as I can dig into it with this headache I've got going on right now.
Let's get one thing out of the way real quick here up at the top: I do not know who the hell decided Kei and Yuri should be 17 instead of 19, but it's a weird decision that makes no sense and only gets ickier when you consider the amount of time both characters spend naked along the course of the show. Yeah, yeah, I get it, it's an OVA, you gotta give the people what they want, but have you considered the people shouldn't be lusting after 17 year old anime titty?
Now that I've said that, let's give them this: the whole concept of Dirty Pair Flash is that Kei and Yuri are just starting out, and the fact that they're so young (and relatively unqualified) is a specific way of demonstrating that the 3WA is on hard times, relatively speaking. This is, however, really only relevant in the first arc - the 3WA of the second and third series is in a far less-perilous position. It also kinda ignores the Central Computer conceit in the third series but whatever, whatever, by that point it doesn't matter. I mean it is a little weird to have the Central Computer be like a sidekick in the first series and then just kinda disappear but you know what, it was weird having it be a character in the first place so I don't blame them. Also the thing about this explanation for having a younger Kei and Yuri is that they still could've been 19 and just as green and inexperienced. Have you seen a 19 year old recently? They don't know shit about shit!
Also, and I have talked about this with my podcast co-host a lot (did you know I have a podcast? It is us watching all of Dirty Pair, which will most likely include Dirty Pair Flash if we survive long enough), but the first series would be better served as a 120 minute feature rather than three hours of OVA episodes. Series one wants to be "This is how Kei and Yuri become a team," and it more or less accomplishes that but - because it's trying to also be episodic - there are a lot of little deviations from the core arc that feel off, tonally. The real tragedy is that some of those deviations are the better parts of the show! It's unfocused, and I wish it weren't! It is also extremely Kei-centric (I love Kei, I think she rules, I think Yuri is criminally underserved in most of Dirty Pair Flash to its detriment), which is not the worst thing in the world but again, it makes the parts where the show almost forgets what it's doing even more jarring.
The second series is easily the best of the three, in that it has its own continuity, but rather than being tied to a Big Plot, it is more that they just strand the two on a planet and let them have adventures there while they wait to not be stranded anymore - something they save for the finale, and it works. Kei and Yuri gel as a team and get a little more interactions with each other beyond repeatedly talking about how they hate each other (that's most of season one, or at least the first few episodes until Kei quits the 3WA, at which point they just kinda snipe at each other and build the relationship from there). They even go on some lunch and dinner dates, which are fun. Yuri also does a great job of fucking with Kei, because one of the best parts of Dirty Pair Flash is that they make Yuri a consummate shit-stirrer and little goblin which rules, actually.
Which brings us to the third season, which features the worst two episodes of any Dirty Pair thing I think I've ever seen, mostly because for the most part they are just transparently someone's fetish. It's rough, is what I'm saying. There is some real creeper costume design and both Kei and Yuri are, let's say, very cold all the time, apparently. Fortunately, the final two episodes pull the series out of its skid - Yuri gets her own spotlight episode and it's a weird premise and while I'm not gonna come out and say it's fantastic, it at least had some solid writing and at the end Everyone Learns a Lesson (except Kei, who is kinda just here in a support role). It also brings back the sudden reintroduction of the idea that the 3WA needs funding for one episode, which is nice? We're grading on a curve here, but it's not bad and might even be good!
The final episode - the last episode of anything with Dirty Pair in the title that exists, broke my heart a little, if only because it is the best episode of the whole fucking show, an action-filled romp that gives Kei and Yuri lots to do, gives them good banter with each other, and even drags the chief of the 3WA into things! Mughi is even around for some of it, even though Mughi's role in Dirty Pair Flash is to be the tiny mascot kitten who shows up whenever the show remembers he exists. But hey, that's how it goes sometimes. It is heartbreaking specifically because we really only get one episode of Dirty Pair Flash that feels like it really sings, and that's it. That's all we got. Roll credits, everyone goes home, we all move on with our lives and face down the fact that the next redesign we got of Kei and Yuri was the god-awful manga adaptation that feels like it misses everything about what made Dirty Pair fun (I'm including the light novels in this - I shit-talked the prose, and I still think it's a little clunky, but even as "tee hee we are only 19 and did I mention how hot I am" as that gets, it kinda works because Kei's narrating the whole time and Kei is, among other things, prone to bragging and also horny, when she's not busy trying to start a fight because she's bored. That's the spirit that the Kei of Dirty Pair Flash taps into now and again, and whenever she does it's some of the best stuff the show does. I think series three would have benefitted from having an overarching plot like the previous two, but alas! At least it gives them a proper send-off.
If you were inclined to seek out Dirty Pair Flash but you aren't a completionist, I'd suggest watching the first and second series completely, and then maybe just watch the last episode of series three (I will also accept arguments for episodes 1 and 4, but episodes 2 and 3 are basically just awful, apart from some stuff for those who really think Kei and Yuri should date in episode 3 which, absolutely, you're right, I have some literature on the subject. Episode 2 just sucks, apart from the casual way in which Kei and Yuri defend each other from repeated assassination attempts). I'm glad I watched everything, because I am a completionist, but boy it's not the ending I would have wanted for the series' animated history. God willing one day we'll get another animated Dirty Pair series, and even more god willing it will be better than this was - although like I said at the top, I can't say I disliked it! It had a lot to live up to - the original series is legitimately banger after banger, I cannot actually think of an episode of that show that made me come away thinking "well that was a waste of time," which is a real hard thing for any show to do. Even Cowboy fucking Bebop has episodes that I could just as well do without, and Cowboy Bebop is like, the thing that really got me into anime in high school (like everyone else, I watched Dragonball Z and Gundam Wing and some other shows before that, but Bebop was the thing that made me go out and start buying DVDs (no coincidence that I also had a job and income for the first time at that point too, of course, but I wasn't ever gonna go out and hunt down Dragonball Z DVDs, sorry to Dragonball Z). It's just a kickass show for kickass people, and Dirty Pair Flash was never quite gonna reach those heights, even though its finale comes awfully close.
Anyway, please look forward to the podcast eventually reaching this series and then you will get hot episode-by-episode breakdowns of it sometime in 2025 or thereabouts.
The ending song for the second series whips ass, though.