Lovely Angels Done Dirty? The Dirty Pair Kickstarter Saga
by Coop Bicknell,
Full Disclosure: Coop regularly works with Justin Sevakis and MediaOCD, including the modern incarnation of AnimEigo. His opinions given here are purely his own and do not reflect those of his employers.
On October 1, 2021, devotees of the Lovely Angels found themselves drawn like moths to the flame of an ambitious Kickstarter campaign. The Iowa-based Right Stuf Anime and its home video division, Nozomi Entertainment, aimed to produce an English-language dub for the 1985 Dirty Pair television series and release it on Blu-ray. The dub's cast would include familiar faces such as Pam Lauer as Kei and Jessica Calvello as Yuri—both reprising their roles from A.D.V. Films' releases of the Dirty Pair OVAs and films. Since producing a dub often comes with a sizable price tag, Right Stuf turned to crowdfunding to cover the cost.
Dirty Pair diehards, steadfast oldtaku, and freshly christened anime nerds came out of the woodwork to back this project—enticed by oodles of exciting stretch goals, exclusive merchandise, and a couple of once-in-a-lifetime experiences for the high rollers. Just two days after going live, the Kickstarter reached its initial US$275,000 goal. That total eventually topped out at US$731,406 by the campaign's conclusion on October 31, 2021. With the players set, the proper crowdfunding disclaimers in place, money in the bank, and plenty of work ahead, Right Stuf had its sights set on an August 2022 delivery window for backers. Additionally, they planned to introduce a retail edition of their now-comprehensive Dirty Pair release six months or so later.
Backers didn't see a single Blu-ray in their mailbox until September 2025.
Over the course of four long years, this highly anticipated release played witness to multiple production setbacks, a company sale, and ever-increasing pushback from backers whose patience had run dry. It didn't help that the final product was plagued with quality control issues and the absence of promised features.
So, what was the holdup? I'd been asked to look into that question four months before the set's surprise release. By working on more than a few home video releases, I've developed a basic understanding of what goes into the production process. Some take a bit while others are relatively snappy—it's different in every situation. However, that situation drastically changes when 3,303 Kickstarter backers have put their money on the line.
As I started searching for answers, I ran into a major setback of my own almost immediately.
I quickly found myself convinced that any insights to be gleaned from the Right Stuf and Crunchyroll sides of this story are probably locked behind a series of nondisclosure agreements. I had that hunch confirmed much later on. Within the comments of a November 2025 episode of AnimEigo's documentary series, The Anime Business, an AnimEigo representative publicly confirmed that Right Stuf co-founder Shawne Kleckner was currently under such an agreement. For reference, the series' English and Japanese captions appear courtesy of The Kleckner Foundation. With that in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if former Nozomi Entertainment producers Judy Albert, David Olsen, and Kris Gero are in the same boat—all three declined to speak with ANN for this piece. As did anime historian and funky dub aficionado Mike Toole, who'd been brought onto the project to record a trio of commentary tracks.
For a while there, it seemed that I was fresh out of leads... But not long after backers received their Blu-rays, I was put in contact with the English dub's director—Joe Digiorgi, owner of the New York-based Headline Studios. At the same time, I'd fallen in with a group of technically savvy fans who'd taken it upon themselves to document the Kickstarter's broken promises and perform their own quality control pass on the set. As I spoke with DiGiorgi, combed through the group's notes, and reviewed the campaign's numerous updates, I finally started to piece together an idea of what happened.
Looking back, I wouldn't call it a stretch to say that AnimEigo's Macross campaign laid the groundwork for anime home video crowdfunding as it's known today. From establishing a firm production cost target to making paired-back retail releases available down the line, the formula hasn't changed too much over the years. Jumping ahead to the 2010s and the golden age of Kickstarter, AnimEigo had a hot streak of successful campaigns for titles such as Bubblegum Crisis, Gunsmith Cats, and Riding Bean. Meanwhile, Funimation successfully crowdfunded a new dub for The Vision of Escaflowne, Anime Sols drummed up the support to bring Dear Brother to North America for the first time, and Right Stuf raised the funds to dub Aria the Animation and Emma: A Victorian Romance. Going into the 2020s, it seemed that Dirty Pair was next on Right Stuf's Kickstarter dub hit list.
 © Kaoru Mori • ENTERBRAIN, INC. |  © 2005 Kozue Amano / MAG Garden-ARIA Company |
Whenever Right Stuf (and later, Nozomi by extension) needed a dub, they'd turn to Joe Digiorgi and Headline Studios to make it happen. From 2000 to 2008, Headline served as the primary dubbing partner for Right Stuf's home video releases, contributing to the production of titles such as His and Her Circumstances and Boogiepop Phantom. According to DiGiorgi, Right Stuf stepped away from dubbing following the completion of their The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye DVD releases in 2008. DiGiorgi told me that Right Stuf felt the sales numbers didn't justify the additional time and money spent on these productions. Considering that the anime home video market also took a nosedive in 2008, the company's decision proved sound in hindsight.
Despite the shift in their business, DiGiorgi recalls that Right Stuf CEO Shawne Kleckner floated the idea of using Kickstarter to fund their dubbing ventures as early as 2011. In particular, the goal of these campaigns would be to produce dubs for the fans who really wanted them. Six years later, Headline Studios was brought on to do just that for Aria the Animation in 2017, followed closely by Emma: A Victorian Romance in 2018. By the time Dirty Pair's campaign got underway on October 1, 2021, Headline had long been a trusted partner to Right Stuf. DiGiorgi emphasized to me that this partnership worked so well because both sides were adamant about producing the best product possible. Even if it took a little extra time, DiGiorgi was keen to ensure his work was worth being proud of instead of rushing it out the door. Aligned with that vision for Dirty Pair, longtime Nozomi Entertainment producer Judy Albert set about working closely alongside Headline. For his part, Kleckner served as the executive producer.
The August 2022 delivery date might've been a touch ambitious, but I've seen a handful of projects whip around in record time while working with MediaOCD. As I alluded to earlier, project timelines can fluctuate for a variety of reasons—whether due to approval of materials from the license holder or simply the amount of work required.
However, most well-oiled production teams can rip through a project fairly quickly. One of the faster parts of the process is quality control, but that doesn't mean it's easy—it's mission-critical to the overall quality of the product. To get a better idea of the production process overall, I spoke with a colleague who knows it all too well himself, MediaOCD CEO Justin Sevakis. When it comes to quality control, Sevakis told me these checks typically take a few weeks at most—a fact to keep in mind later in this piece. As for producing a dub, he said a 26-episode series like Dirty Pair could take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months to record. With Sevakis' insights and Right Stuf's past Kickstarter successes in mind, nine months sounds like plenty of time to knock out a project of this scale. However, Aria and Emma weren't produced in the middle of a pandemic...and a company sale.
As the calendar flipped from 2021 to 2022, all parties involved got right to work. On the Right Stuf side, Albert and the Nozomi team regularly popped in with progress updates as they assembled their materials. Meanwhile, DiGiorgi had Jessica Calvello flown to New York so the pair could get a head start on recording while they waited for the finalized scripts to come in. Working from the already available subtitles as a starting point and writing on the fly, DiGiorgi was dead set on ensuring that he nailed the series' tone in two key areas—faithfulness to the original material and the humor. In DiGiorgi's words, it had to be funny.
“A perfect example of this is in episode 10 of Dirty Pair TV when they stumble across Prince Heace in the woods. Kei says, 'Is he alive or is this a ghost?' and Yuri earnestly, and with perfect delivery, in a hushed tone says, 'Check for legs.' The delivery right before the eye-catch break is so perfect and hilarious to me. That could easily have been adapted to something like 'I'm not sure!', but instead we stuck to the Japanese line, which is basically saying 'If he does not have legs, then he must be a ghost floating' in some idiomatic Japanese way. The key point I'm making here is that it is not just more accurate... It's funny!”
But after some time had passed, DiGiorgi noted that he'd started receiving scripts at a slower clip and the reality of giving such an in-depth level of care to each line set in—Dirty Pair was going to be a long-haul job. It didn't help either that the world was still weathering the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Omicron variant spreading like wildfire at the start of the year. This other, grim reality affected Headline's recording schedule, workflows, and introduced new hurdles the studio struggled with throughout the project. If that wasn't all, DiGiorgi also had to contend with the absence of his regular production team and a studio move due to lease stipulations.
Amid these initial roadblocks, Nozomi had a notable triumph when they obtained the thought-to-be-lost music and effects track for the Dirty Pair OVA series in April. Following a few backer product surveys and the debut of a preview clip prepared for Anime Expo, Headline received the finalized scripts in July. Around that time, DiGiorgi realized that the August release window might be untenable given the project's scope and conditions. In fact, he was wary of such a window to begin with.
“I was not informed of initial timelines straight out, and I would always be hesitant to make definitive statements in such things because at the core of a Kickstarter dub is the fact that the people who paid for this venture want it to be really good! All three of these shows done via Kickstarter [Aria, Emma, Dirty Pair] were very well loved by the backers, so the idea of compromising anything to make these shows—especially Dirty Pair since, in my opinion, it is a true classic and a masterpiece—was impossible for me. This time, my main responsibility was to the fans themselves. It made it very personal and special. Now, seven months for 26 episodes in many cases can be a totally reasonable timeline. But 13,000 lines, 250 characters, COVID-19, special recording conditions like masks, isolation, remote recording, and a missing preproduction staff? Not possible. Once I got a handle on the scale and scope of the project, my hope or plan was to have it wrapped by mid-2023. But this was not meant to be. None of us in production were really aware that there was going to be an acquisition by Crunchyroll.”
On August 4, 2022, Right Stuf formally announced that it had been purchased by the Sony-owned Crunchyroll. This move made waves throughout the industry, shocking fans, the press, and industry members alike. Right Stuf initially claimed that business would carry on as it always had under Kleckner's continued leadership, but that ended up being very much not the case. In the years since Crunchyroll's purchase of the company, adult products were abruptly removed from sale, trust in customer service gradually eroded, and Right Stuf eventually ceased to be. But as the move applied to the Dirty Pair Kickstarter, DiGiorgi found that Crunchyroll's involvement helped the project reach the finish line.
“I can't say enough positive things about Crunchyroll's intersection with Dirty Pair. And this is a perfect moment for me to shout out to Jake Hockenberry. Jake had worked for Right Stuf for many years and was taken on by Crunchyroll as an employee. He became my executive producer and was my main ‘go-to’ person for facilitating all budget and creative matters with Crunchyroll. It leads me to make another big shout-out again to Judy Albert, because she stayed with me to the VERY end on this. She did the final QC [quality control] (along with another person here in NY) right before I submitted finals to Crunchyroll. We QC'd everything... all the shows and features. There was this period where I was working away, the company had been sold, but several matters were not yet discussed. Then Jake appeared as my liaison to the Crunchyroll people, and they worked out every single detail about which we had not yet come to conclusions. I will say here that I personally feel that I do not know if this show would have ever made it to the fans were it not for Crunchyroll and their support.”
Following the purchase, the team seemed to keep their noses to the grindstone as work continued. In October, Pam Lauer flew to New York to record her remaining dialogue over nine days, finishing her lines in November. She'd made a previous trip in March to knock out nine episodes' worth of sessions. Lauer's visits to Headline made a great deal of sense considering that she had come out of retirement to reprise her role, but other members of the cast had their own in-home studios. Some might wonder why Dirty Pair hadn't been fully remotely recorded from the jump. After all, the voiceover industry had largely shifted to remote recording during the pandemic, with localized productions such as 2020's 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim proving it could be done without a noticeable drop in audio or performance quality. Before Dirty Pair, DiGiorgi had some experience with remote recording for ADR [automated dialogue replacement], but it was a process he hadn't thought of applying to anime, nor was he a fan of it.
“Dirty Pair might've been the first time I ever used it for anime dubbing. I'm realizing this as I think about your question. None of Aria or Emma was recorded remotely. I am not a fan of working that way in general. You have to be very experienced in acting itself to ‘make it work’ because you are, in effect, disconnected from the material. Jessica [Calvello], Jason [Douglas], and Brett [Weaver] excelled at it, though. It was very slow because you have to set up cues in very clumsy ways, and move sync around, and there is a playback delay, etc. But they know how to act.”
As Lauer wrapped her sessions and 2022 drew to a close, public sentiment around the Kickstarter remained mostly positive. Backers were well aware of the potential road bumps ahead, but that didn't change the fact that August had long come and gone. However, the project's (and Right Stuf's) future started to look concerning when Kleckner left Crunchyroll on December 14. Like most of the industry, DiGiorgi was taken aback by the departure of his longtime production partner.
“I was personally a bit shocked when he told me, but he felt it was time to move on. I'm sure he was expecting the dub to be done by then! I guess before the dust settled, I was wondering, 'Is Crunchyroll gonna let me finish this?' Well, they sure did! Once Jake Hockenberry became the executive producer—which was not too long after Shawne had left—it became very clear that Crunchyroll was completely behind it. Since I was not a direct employee of Crunchyroll, I could not say too much in my blurbs on the backer feed about how deeply sure I was about this to the backers. Which was frustrating, because I really wanted them to know, 'Don't worry! It's as slow as molasses, but it IS coming, and it WILL be great!' I totally understand the frustration of many of the backers. And yet, many of them were so incredibly understanding. In fact, many of them, I think, had the intuition of exactly what was going on. We had a NEW delay—the ‘Right Stuf is now Crunchyroll’ delay. But all along I was working away in the background. For the record, I never stopped production in any official capacity at all during the whole project. Not a week went by that I was not actively working on Dirty Pair. I was just working away in the background whenever time and schedule would allow. I went under the assumption that this is going to be released for sure.”
With Hockenberry taking over the reins as executive producer, Albert, DiGiorgi, and the Nozomi team continued to work away. But just as the holidays came to a close, DiGiorgi and a handful of his actors caught COVID. They all recovered from their illness by the start of February, but the team in Iowa was painfully aware of the additional delay and the growing concern from backers. Albert candidly addressed these worries in a February 2 backer-only update.
“We've seen people's comments wondering about the status of the project. It's perfectly understandable, and we're sorry that there hasn't been much to report in the last couple of months! Unfortunately, when the dubbing process hits delays, it affects the timing of every part of the project. (We can't encode audio until the dubbing is finished, we can't author Blu-ray discs until the audio is encoded, there would be no sense in printing Blu-ray covers before they're ready to be used, etc.)In a normal anime release, this type of production delay would be invisible to you, the end viewer. If this Dirty Pair release were being handled like a normal project, after the initial license announcement, there wouldn't be any more public information about the release until the project was close to being finished—close enough that we could be confident in setting a date for it.
However, this is not a normal release! You have joined the project as its direct patrons, and thus, you are experiencing the whole process alongside us, even when it hits snags or delays. But let me reassure you once again: we are continuing to move forward on the project, and we have every intention of delivering you beautiful new Dirty Pair Blu-rays, with a brand new English dub for the TV series. Thank you for your patience as we take the steps to make this a reality!”
With the team's dedication to the project reaffirmed, progress resumed. By the end of March, Calvello had finished recording her lines, and eighty percent of the series' total dialogue was in the can. Come June, that eighty percent was bumped up to ninety-eight. DiGiorgi spent much of the summer recording leftover bit parts, putting together initial stereo mixes for the team in Iowa to review, and making any other necessary adjustments to his work. In October, Albert announced that the team had finished checking over Headline's first-pass mixes of all 26 episodes. Additionally, their notes had already been provided to DiGiorgi, so the dub could be mix-fixed (or polished up) into its final release state. At the start of November, Headline had wrapped up any necessary vocal corrections and was about to start scheduling commentary recording sessions.
Albert's final update for the year, on December 1, gave backers a sneak peek at the freshly approved packaging and a telescoping chipboard art box. The project was moving much more slowly than anyone had expected, but at least progress was being made, and that was being communicated to some extent.
As the year got underway, DiGiorgi found himself fighting off another case of COVID he'd caught over the holidays. But once he could peel himself out of bed, he got back to addressing his odds, ends, and commentaries. Back in Iowa, the Nozomi team tried to update backers at least once a month through May—mostly focusing on the arrival of shirts, shot glasses, character lamps, and other backer-exclusive merchandise as it arrived at their warehouse. In a March update further highlighting the goodies, Albert announced in March that Nozomi had settled on a new release window.
“With everything continuing to move forward on pace, we are ready to announce that we aim to release the Dirty Pair Kickstarter Blu-ray sets in mid-summer of this year, most likely in late July," Albert wrote. "Please understand that this is a tentative window, subject to change.”
The update that followed featured freshly printed lithographs and a few additional details from Albert on the remaining tasks being tackled before launch: art book approvals and finishing the 5.1 audio.
On May 30, Judy Albert posted her last update before she departed from Crunchyroll: the dub was finally in the can... Well, officially anyway. DiGiorgi had a small handful of things he wanted to address and tweak before it was fully out of his hands.
“I think the final final mixes were done by August 2, 2024. I guess that was when I got into going from stereo obsession to 5.1. And also worth noting that the 5.1 mixes reshaped my concept of the stereo mixes, so I went back and remixed them! As I mentioned, this project became an evolution...of thought, process, strategy. And Crunchyroll never said 'Hurry Up! Get This Done!' All I ever heard from Jake was support and encouragement.”
DiGiorgi wasn't certain of the circumstances that had prompted Albert's departure, but he thanked Albert profusely for sticking by his side until the very end of the project. I got the impression that she was very much his ride-or-die producer.
Following DiGiorgi's completion of his role on the project, it seemed to fall on the shoulders of Jake Hockenberry and the remaining team members to finally get this set out to the backers. However, the additional tweaks to the final dub deliverables most likely contributed to the project missing yet another promised release window. After a rather stiff, all-bolded late August update hit the backers, they were largely fed up with the delays. Yes, they had their exclusive merchandise on the way, but those weren't the discs they'd paid for. The year ended with a December 13 update that claimed QC was almost wrapped up and discs were hoped to be pressed soon, but that didn't pan out either.
The aforementioned, all-bolded update promised regular posts every two to four weeks to keep backers abreast of the production's final stages. That was another broken promise. Aside from a final call for additional sets and artbooks, the updates posted drew intense scrutiny from backers, outside observers, and industry professionals alike. The first of these posts was a February 27 update that claimed QC was still ongoing. As previously established in my conversation with Justin Sevakis, this process should take two weeks at most, not two months. This becomes even more professionally embarrassing when one considers that the QC process was not finished until the end of May. A longer-than-normal check probably does occur from time to time, but five months is really pushing it.
The next round of scrutiny came from the following, June 27 update. The artbook had finally been approved by the licensor, allowing Crunchyroll to swing into full production on the final physical sets. The approval process for an art book is reasonable given the oodles of new interviews and previously unseen material to review, but the second part of the post had many eagle-eyed fans taking notice of the new packaging art. It had not only been redesigned, but all mentions of Right Stuf and Nozomi Entertainment had also been removed. To fans, it read as petty, given that the original packaging art had been approved for years. Needless to say, the backers just weren't having it anymore.
 © Takachiho & Studio Nue • SUNRISE • Crunchyroll |  © Takachiho & Studio Nue • SUNRISE • Crunchyroll |
On September 12, Crunchyroll announced that the artbooks, chipboard boxes, and sets themselves had finally arrived at their warehouse. These items went out soon after, but many backers reported that they'd never received a shipping notification, or it just arrived on their doorstep. It was strange, out of the blue, and a touch janky, but at least they'd started getting their Blu-rays, right? Well, while some were just happy to have it all after so long, others noticed several quality control issues. This included swapped art on the Affair of Nolandia and Flight 005 Conspiracy discs, missing commentary tracks (specifically two of Toole's commentaries), a misplaced 5.1 episode audio track, an episode audio track out of sync, and other missing audio options.
When I asked DiGiorgi about the missing commentaries, he claimed he'd recorded everything his producers had requested. However, he wasn't fully aware of what had been promised to the backers, as he wasn't one himself. Regarding the other audio issues, DiGiorgi spotted an error in which the center and right tracks were swapped, but chalked it up to the complexities of the authoring process. To their credit, Crunchyroll was quick to replace the discs with revised copies.
Regardless of the company's speed in recognizing these issues, a small group of technically minded fans decided it was time they dived into these discs themselves. Kicked off by a fan who goes by the handle “Nick, Nick, Goose”, the group started performing their own quality control passes over the discs. They cataloged the set's known errors, confirmed features, missing features, and the campaign's broken promises. At the same time, they shared any updates they came across on social media and raised awareness among onlookers and other backers. Aside from Nick, their ranks were composed of Jefferson Taylor, Michael Rookard, ANN Encyclopedist vi, and industry professional (and MediaOCD colleague) Logan Rebholz—all backers themselves.
Not long before I'd been invited to research the group's findings, I sat down with my ANN colleague Christopher Farris in late September for a firsthand look at his set. At first glance, the set looked perfectly fine, except for the discs stacked on top of each other inside the case—a design flaw that could damage them during shipping. The only other element I noticed was the slightly revised DVD back-of-box copy on the packaging, but reusing previously written copy isn't uncommon.
As the replacement discs began arriving in mailboxes in October, backers noticed that they'd been sent multiple copies of the same disc in some cases. In light of this shotgun blast, some fans have attempted to build their own Dirty Pair sets out of a combination of duplicate and defective discs. But through it all, Hockenberry took a key role in personally ensuring that the campaign's backers were properly taken care of amid the multiple setbacks. Between the regular praise from the fan QC group, Joe Digiorgi, and other backers, it's safe to say that if there were a hero in this story, Jake Hockenberry is that hero. But for all of his efforts, many parts of the process were completely out of his hands. For instance, in mid-December, Rookard received a replacement disc that had been shipped in a napkin.
After looking into this story for most of 2025, what's my take on it? The Dirty Pair Kickstarter faced a series of tall hurdles right out the gate. The lack of regular communication, fan frustration, and shortcomings in the final product do not rest solely on Crunchyroll's shoulders. Rather, Right Stuf, Nozomi, and Headline had set out to tackle an ambitious project with tried-and-true strategies that had served them well in the past. However, none of these tactics had been adapted to the realities of working in the middle of a pandemic. Everyone involved had most likely learned that by the time it was far too late to change course. As a result, they likely had to deal with many roadbumps they were unprepared for—constantly swerving to stay on any semblance of a track. Needless to say, the Crunchyroll buyout probably didn't help the situation either.
As for reception of the dub itself, I've seen some minor praise here and there, but it pales in comparison to the folks who're just glad to finally have their discs. For DiGiorgi's part, he's incredibly proud of the work he and his colleagues did on Dirty Pair. While he suggests that backers hold on to their defective discs as collector's items, DiGiorgi hopes the series will see a wider retail release in the future—just as Aria and Emma had. However, with Nozomi's former licenses—titles like the Gundam series, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and The Irresponsible Captain Tylor—seemingly up in the air, a retail Dirty Pair release is firmly a “we'll have to wait and see” affair.
But more than anything else, I'm confident that this is far from the full story behind this tumultuous Kickstarter campaign. Once nondisclosure agreements start to drop off, I feel that one of two things will happen: a new side of the story will emerge, or everyone involved will simply have moved on. Considering how hot off the presses these discs still are, it'll be a while either way. Who knows? It could likely be kept only for those who were there—not every detail in this industry is meant for public consumption.
Special Thanks to Joe Digiorgi, Christopher Farris, and the Dirty Pair Fan QC Group.
discuss this in the forum (5 posts) |
