Forum - View topicLovely Angels Done Dirty? The Dirty Pair Kickstarter Saga
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bluebaron
Posts: 160 |
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I still hope many people will see the English dub eventually.
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JohnnySake
 Posts: 597 Location: Auburn Hills, MI |
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Excellent article, thank you for writing it!
Although I did not participate in the Kickstarter, I did pick up the various Nozomi Dirty Pair releases, and in retrospect I am glad I did. Reading through all of this, it reminded me of and made me think of the various Macross titles that were licensed by Nozomi before the Crunchyroll buyout. I wonder if those will ever happen? |
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NJ_
 Posts: 3409 Location: Wallington, NJ |
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Most of them have been picked up Anime Limited with the exception of Macross 7. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 5353 |
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It definitely sounds like there is more to it. On the one hand, you have people who were directly assigned to the project doing their best and making things happen with massive hurdles thrown up throughout. On the other, you have things like not providing updates as stated or not including things that were promised to backers. It kind of seems like unless a task was specifically assigned, it got overlooked or passed off to someone who didn't care as much as the ones specifically assigned to it.
At least going from the sources that could speak about it, it sounds like things were handled as well as they could be, but then you've got the results after their parts were done. And then things like sending out multiple replacement discs to individuals makes it seem like at some point a decision was made to get this thing over with ASAP. |
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JohnnySake
Posts: 597 Location: Auburn Hills, MI |
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Thank you! I did not know that! 
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aware.o.vacuity
 Posts: 3 Location: Houston, Texas, USA |
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Thanks for the great research and presentation. Given the lengthy delays in the project, it was clear that not all was well under the hood. Further proof that the last 10 percent of a project takes 90 percent of the effort...
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Jafwasw
Posts: 25 |
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Interesting insight into the issues that were taking place with this release. I confess the whole affair left a sour taste in my mouth and that is probably why I haven't watched any of the discs yet.
I already have the previous Noizomi dvd sets so the main reason I participated in the kickstarter was for the Artbook. IMHO I cannot see how that book ever got approved to go to print in the state it was in at the point of publishing.What we got was really not acceptable for a supposedly professionally produced book with a stated value of $60.00 US. The sad thing is the binding and printing process were as good as the previous books but that effort is utterly wasted on the contents of those pages. IMHO it is without a doubt the absolute worst excuse for a companion book I have come across in a supposedly premium media set. Doubly disappointing considering the quality of the previously released Aria and Emma companion books. With turmoil of the takeover and the delays, plus the fact that we are dealing with a much older series I wasn't expecting something of the quality of the previous books, but something of a similar quality to the Udon Entertainment Bubblegum Crisis book would have been reasonably expected. What we got was a very shoddily thrown together collection of pages 50%+ of which were poorly reproduced grey scale photographs of story boards with no cleanup and no context that were clearly and cynically used to pad out the page count and frankly the color and model sheet pages were not much better in terms of composition and layout. The screenshots, such as they are, were a random bunch many of which were downright ugly in-between shots. Coop mentions time need to get approval for "oodles of new materials" I get that if it had been true but there is absolutely no evidence of it in this poor excuse for a companion book. They didn't even bother to reuse assets they had created for the booklets in the DVD sets. I am fortunate to have in my collection of artbooks the Dirty Pair Mook and I pulled it out to compare with this effort and it's modest 80 color page count is a 1000 times better and more competently put together than any 80 pages in the disappointment that resulted from the Kickstarter campaign. Rant over |
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PurpleWarrior13
 Posts: 2061 |
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For my part, I have watched the entire English dub, and I’m very happy with it. It’s like a throwback to the best dubs of the 80s and 90s with distinctive-sounding characters, strong energy, funny dialogue that doesn’t sound like a bland translation, and an overall sense of fun that’s missing from most anime dubs today. You can close your eyes and know when Kei or Yuri is talking. I was a bit nervous about hearing Pam Lauer’s performance, considering she hadn’t voice acted since 2003, but this is her best performance as Kei yet. While she has an awkward line delivery here and there, she captures the character’s smart intelligent energy very well, and she and Calvello have great vocal chemistry. Calvello does well balancing the fine line between Yuri’s sweetness and no-nonsense edge, and she has excellent comedic timing. Jason Douglas sounds exactly the same as Gooley as he did decades ago, and he perfectly nails the character’s authoritative-yet-stressed personality. The supporting characters recycle a lot of the same actors (especially Mike Pollack, Carol Jacobanis, Nick Corda, Dan Green, Wayne Grayson, etc), but I don’t mind because it reminds me of old classic anime dubs and western cartoons that had to recycle a lot of the same actors out of budget necessities. They were able to establish a “sound” for the show just from the actors they used. Overall, it’s one of the better dubs I’ve heard in years, and I noticed none of the production issues in the final product. I hope it gets wider distribution (streaming, a wider disc release, etc) so that more can appreciate all the effort that went into it.
One thing not mentioned in this article is that the OVA dub still has the US replacement music and sound effects instead of the Japanese M&E tracks, as promised in a 2022 update. It wasn’t obvious to notice at first since the US music tries to mimic the Japanese score as closely as possible, but this is indeed the case. I also listened to the older OVA and movie dubs and they flow very well with the new TV series dub. After a couple episodes, Lauer and Calvello sound very similar in the OVAs as they do in the TV series. The only thing is that the first couple OVA episodes were scripted by Steven Foster, so there’s some improvised comedy that probably isn’t very faithful to the original script, although it’s at least very funny. The rest of the episodes don’t seem to have this problem. The movie dubs are a lot more dry than the TV/OVA dubs, with some stale direction as well, with Affair on Nolandia being the worst and Flight 005 Conspiracy being the best. There’s also a different voice for Yuri, but Allison Sumrall did well filling in for Calvello; they have very similar-sounding voices, even if Sumrall’s tone is a bit sweeter. I’ve only sampled Flash; it’s a mediocre series with a kinda terrible old dub with annoying performances from its leads. |
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deathfromabove1993
Posts: 129 Location: Chicago, IL |
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I had previously backed the dubs for Aria and Emma, so I was happy that Dirty Pair was gonna be next. But round the time that the Kickstarter campaign was launched, I had quit my job and unfortunately I had to pass on donating because I wanted to save money until I had found another job. I was a little sad that I never got the chance but I decided to just wait until they released a retail version. But MAN, with all the crap that went down with the Kickstarter over FOUR years, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
I knew that Crunchyroll buying Right Stuf would bring nothing but trouble, so it was no surprise that this affected the KS. I don't blame the backers for their frustration and dissatisfaction of the final product. I think if they had not been bought out, RS would've released two years earlier (probably 2023). It still sucks that we probably won't get a regular release of Dirty Pair. I wanted to watch the English dub. |
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Glordit
 Posts: 1184 |
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This is why I will never use crowd funding. There's so much that can and does go wrong that it's a net loss at the end.
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FlamingFirewire
 Posts: 503 |
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Your mileage definitely varies on the project, but overall the last decade & change, I've had great experiences in crowdfunding. Specifically on the anime side, AnimEigo has excelled across all of their efforts - between Bubblegum Crisis, Otaku no Video, Riding Bean, Gunsmith Cats, Dagger of Kamui, MADOX-01, and Megazone 23 - all turned out amazing, with a good final product & consistent communication/engagement from campaign to post-shipping support. The worst you could say is that most initial estimates weren't met, but there was always a net benefit to their individual releases before they came out. AnimEigo still has their Macross II KS pending, but it's also getting closer to fulfillment. Heck, even outside of those, there were stand-out releases from others to: - Pied Piper's Time of Eve Movie International Release (even included the illusive soundtrack CD that a lot of releases don't get) - All the Anime's KS release of Mai Mai Miracle & Patema Inverted (later was only a UK release, but a very nice set - Pied Piper's Skip Beat! English dub & blu ray KS - an unqualified success - RightStuf's own Aria & Emma dub & blu ray KS' I think the pattern really is - the smaller & more experienced/cohesive your staff is, the more likely your project will meet backers needs (transparency, good communication, comprehensive releases, high quality end product). I think there's a reason why FUNimation's Escaflowne KS & RightStuf/Crunchyroll's final release of Dirty Pair had so many issues through their campaigns to the finish lines. Not to say there weren't positive aspects to both, but there's a reason why some many issues have been documented previously (and in this article!) for both. Crowdfunding at the end of the day is always a gamble with no guarantees, but there are lots of unqualified successes that still make it worthwhile to engage with if you know what you're looking for. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5731 |
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Greed1914
Posts: 5353 |
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At least with what we have from the article, that seems to be the situation. The smaller group with experience handled things like before or made the best of the circumstances. It's when you go beyond that where things seemed to have come apart. Digiorgi wasn't managing the kickstarter side of things, so he wouldn't be in a position to know there was commentary missing, for example. Problems with the physical product also would have been out of their hands. Unless we hear more later, I think what we have is a situation where not everything that needed to be done got assigned to anyone in particular with Crunchyroll. I could see the answer to something like why QC took so long being that nobody knew it needed to be done, and then it got rushed to make up for it. A messy hand off could also explain why Digiorgi was only asked to record one commentary track with Mike Toole, and Mike seemingly didn't know it was supposed to be three or maybe thought someone would contact him later to do the rest. Last edited by Greed1914 on Mon Feb 16, 2026 4:13 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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LoopyChew
 SubscriberPosts: 112 |
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I’m mildly annoyed because, and I recognize my part in this, I have moved multiple times over the course of this KS and the last confirmed address was one of the old ones. I’m waiting for them to be available for regular purchase so I can pick up a copy.
Last edited by LoopyChew on Mon Feb 16, 2026 11:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7393 |
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I'm glad the saga is finally, FINALLY over, but I'm also pissed cus at one point, I sold my DVD sets for dirt cheap cus I went "well, the bluray will be shipping in just a few months!" and then it was a few years. I also didn't get the OVA or features and they're still not on their website for regular purchase. But now you check Crunchy's store and Emma and Aria blurays have both disappeared. I'm betting at this point, we'll have to wait for Discotek or AnimEigo to license rescue the lot of them.
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