Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Star Trek is usually the last franchise audiences would associate with anime. Not only is the Gene Roddenberry franchise primarily associated with live action, but also its foray into animation (as with Lower Decks a Extravagant) were clearly more inspired by the West than the East. Nevertheless, two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“A Matter of Honor” and “Peak Performance”) managed to sneak in references to Dirty Coupleone of the most influential anime series of the 80s.
Star Trek A Dirty Couple
If you are already pulling up Star Trek: The Next Generation so you can mark these moments with the pause button, be warned: your fingers will have to be faster than Data Data to freeze the frame in the right place. The first reference to Dirty Couple takes place in “A Matter of Honor,” the memorable Season 2 episode where Riker serves aboard a Klingon ship as part of an officer exchange program. When visiting officer Benzite Mendon notices dangerous bacteria on the Klingon ship, his science monitor contains the terms OP KEI and OP YURI hidden among all the scientific information.
What the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it names on a Star Trek A background monitor has to do with anime, though? In both the Dirty Couple manga and anime series, we follow the troubles of Kei and Yuri, two troublemakers who always catch the bad guys but cause a lot of damage. like Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Manthese gals’ reputation precedes them, and “Dirty Pair” is the derogatory nickname given to them for their tendency to cause massive property damage whenever they save the day.
It’s unclear which Star Trek set designer was a huge anime fan, but they took theirs Dirty Couple references to the next level in the season 2 episode “Peak Performance.” This is the episode where the Enterprise crew held some war games, with Picard pitting the Federation flagship against an 8-year-old Starfleet ship under the command of Riker. Data is also struggling to beat a visit alien in Strategema, but it looks to be game over for everyone once some angry Ferengi show up.
In this Star Trek episode, the first anime reference is hidden on a monitor showing Data systems. Thanks to the show’s amazing Blu-Ray transfer, we can see that one of the android’s systems is labeled as a “Kei/Yuri Submodule.” Obviously, this is just another easter egg for fans, but we can’t help but fall in love with the idea that Noonien Soong is a huge vintage anime nerd and has programmed centuries-old animation knowledge into his greatest creation.
Interestingly, this Star Trek episode hides its nerdiest anime direction in plain sight. Look closely and you’ll see an Okudagram display that names the war games Picard and Riker are participating in as “Operation Lovely Angel.” In Dirty Couple“Lovely Angels” is the code name for Kei and Yuri’s team, although their harshest critics prefer to refer to them simply as the Dirty Pair.
Given that Of the greatest importance at some sort of crossroads with Star Trek, the powers that be should seriously consider creating an anime series. Not only is it something that fans would love, but like this Dirty Couple story goes to show, the franchise has been created by avid fans of Japanese animation for decades. Throw in the fact that cartoons are more budget friendly than live-action shows and we might have a Star Trek anime in just two shakes of a targ’s tail.
