Dominion Tank Police

Summary: >

The future of mankind doesn't look that bright. It's actually pretty dark due to dark bacterial cloud covering cities, blocking sunlight and requiring that people wear air filters. Crime is rampant to the extent where the police are given tanks to maintain order. Leona is a fresh transfer to the Tank Police, but on her first job destroys the captain's tiger tank. In a last ditch effort to avoid pushing paper for the rest of her career, she takes parts from the tank wreck to make a smaller tank she can easily control. Would such a small tank be useful?

Leona will have to find out because with Waku and the Puma girls on a crime spree, no one is safe. From stealing urine samples to art theft, Waku must be stopped.

Thoughts: >

Among the many older titles, Dominion Tank Police fell off the charts of remembered old school titles. For its time, the quality is reasonable in all respects. With a shift in anime fandom and standards, it's not surprising that this show was mostly forgotten. That said it's not bad for a 90s sci-fi show. Particularly because anime used to take sci-fi more seriously, and the setup is well thought out.

Dominion Tank Police is a dystopian outlook of the future mixed with oddball comedy. This can make it hard to know what it's doing since it's simultaneously serious and thought provoking while intermixed with silliness; a common formula for action adventure anime of the 80s / early 90s. Most humor isn't in the form of explicit jokes. Instead you're expected to find the wackiness of the situation humorous. You're also expected to buy into the concept as it won't bother trying to win you over.

As a four part OVA, the first two episodes are on the humorous side; building up the characters and introducing the environment. These work pretty well and are entertaining enough. The second two episodes build up more details on a plot and antagonist. This OVA is a kind of prequel to the manga (not exactly the next OVA - New Dominion Tank Police), leading up to events taking place elsewhere. This means the story gets serious for no reason as it ends in an intentionally incomplete spot.

One of the more oddball historical features of Dominion Tank Police: the amount of effort spent making the anime "suitable" for American consumption. This included not only (weak) dub, but dubbing and changing most of the music. While I consider myself a bit of an anime purist, I have to admit I really loved the music they came up with. The Tank Police Theme is catchy as hell, and just as memorable is the puma girls stripper music.

Dominion Tank Police isn't bad, but lacks a strong enough feature to make it a fondly remembered anime. If it was trying to achieve anything, maybe it was having fun blowing things up, but it only managed an uninspired version of that. I may sound down on this series and wouldn't recommend it but it has it' s moments. Just... not enough of them.

Screen Caps: >