Star Trek Anime references were discovered decades ago

The author Chris Snelgrove
| Published 28 seconds ago

Star Trek is usually the last franchise audiences associate with anime. Gene Roddenberry's franchise is primarily associated not only with live-action, but also with its forays into animation (e.g. Lower decks and Prodigy) are clearly more inspired by the West than the East. Nevertheless, two episodes from Star Trek: The Next Generation (“A Matter of Honor” and “Peak Performance”) managed to hide references to The dirty coupleone of the most influential anime series of the 80s.

Star Trek and the Dirty Couple

If already pulled up Star Trek: The Next Generation so you can pinpoint those moments with the pause button, keep in mind that your fingers will need to be faster than Data to get the shot in the right place. First reference to Dirty couple takes place in “A Matter of Honor,” the memorable Season 2 episode in which Riker serves on a Klingon ship as part of an officer exchange program. When the visiting Benzine Officer Mendon notices a dangerous bacteria on a Klingon ship, his science monitor has the terms OP KEI and OP YURI hidden among all the scientific information.

What do these blink-and-you'll-miss-it names mean Star Trek is the background monitor anime related? In both Dirty couple manga and anime in the series, we follow the misadventures of Kei and Yuri, two problem counselors, who always catch bad guys but cause huge losses. Like it Sylvester Stallone inside Demolition Manthese girls' reputation precedes them, and 'Dirty Pair' is a derogatory nickname given to them due to their tendency to cause massive property damage whenever they save the day.

It's not clear which Star Trek set designer was a big anime fan, but they took theirs The dirty couple references to the next level in the Season 2 episode “Peak Performance.” This is the episode where the crew of the Enterprise played some war games, pitting Picard against the Federation flagship, an 8-year-old Starfleet ship captained by Riker. Data is also struggling to beat attendance an alien In Strategem, however, it seems like it's game over for everyone once an angry Ferengi shows up.

In this episode of Star Trek, the first anime reference is hidden in a monitor showing Data's systems. Thanks to the show's amazing Blu-Ray transfer, we can see that one of the Android systems is labeled as a “Kei/Yuri submodule.” Obviously, this is just another easter egg for fans, but we can't help but love the idea that Noonien Soong was a huge vintage anime nerd and programmed centuries-old animation knowledge into his greatest work.

Interestingly, this episode of Star Trek clearly hides its more sleazy anime references. Look closely and you'll see an Okudagram display of the war games featuring Picard and Riker titled “Operation Lovely Angel.” In Dirty couple“Lovely Angels” is the codename for the team of Kei and Yuri, although their harshest critics prefer to refer to them as the Dirty Couple.

Given that The most important thing are at a crossroads with Star Trek as they should seriously consider an anime series. Not only would fans like it, but like this one Dirty couple The story goes that the franchise has been created by enthusiastic fans of Japanese animation for decades. Throw in the fact that cartoons are more budget-friendly than live-action shows, and we can get a Star Trek anime with just two target shakes.