Star Trek Anime References Revealed Decades Ago

According to Chris Snellgrove
| Published 28 seconds ago

Star Trek is usually the last franchise audiences would associate with anime. Not only is Gene Roddenberry’s franchise mostly associated with live action, but its forays into animation (eg. Lower decks and Miracle) were clearly more inspired by the West than the East. However, two episodes Star Trek: The Next Generation (“A Matter of Honor” and “Peak Performance”) managed to sneak into the links Dirty coupleone of the most influential anime series of the 80s.

Star Trek and the Dirty Couple

If you are already pulling up Star Trek: The Next Generation so you can pinpoint those moments with the pause button, be warned: your fingers will have to be faster than Dato’s to freeze frame in the right place. First link to Dirty couple occurs in “A Matter of Honor”, a memorable Season 2 episode where Riker serves aboard a Klingon ship as part of an officer exchange program. When visiting Benzite Officer Mendon notices dangerous bacteria on a Klingon ship, his science monitor contains the terms OP KEI and OP YURI hidden among all the science information.

What are these names that flash and you miss them on a Star Trek the background monitor has something to do with the anime right? In both Dirty couple manga and anime series, we follow the misadventures of Kei and Yuri, two troubled counselors who always end up being the bad guys but causing massive damage. Like Sylvester Stallone in Demolition manthese girls’ reputation precedes them, and “Dirty Pair” is a derogatory nickname given to them for their tendency to cause massive property damage whenever they save the day.

It’s not clear which Star Trek set designer was a big fan of the anime, but they took theirs Dirty couple references to the next level in episode 2 “Peak Performance”. This is the episode where the Enterprise crew did some war games, with Picard pitting the Federation flagship against an 8 year old Starfleet ship piloted by Riker. Data is also trying to beat the visit foreign in Strategema, but it looks like it’s game over for everyone once some angry Ferengi show up.

In this episode of Star Trek, the first anime reference is hidden in a monitor displaying Data’s systems. Thanks to the amazing Blu-Ray transfer of the show, we can see that one of the android systems is labeled as “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 was a huge vintage anime nerd and programmed centuries of animation knowledge into his greatest creation.

Interestingly, this episode of Star Trek hides its dumbest anime reference in plain sight. Look closely and you’ll see an Okudagram display naming 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 as the Dirty Couple.

Given that Paramount is at a crossroads with Star Trek, the powers that be should seriously consider creating an anime series. Not only is it something fans would love, but like this Dirty couple story shows, the franchise has been created by passionate fans of Japanese animation for decades. Throw in the fact that cartoons are more budget-friendly than live-action shows, and we could have a Star Trek anime for just two shakes of the targ’s tail.