Dominion: Tank Police

Dominion: Tank Police (ドミニオン) is a two volume manga series written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. Set in the fictional city of Newport, Japan, in a future in which bacterial air pollution has become so severe that people must wear gas masks when outdoors, the series follows a police squadron that uses tanks.

Dominion has been adapted into three OVA series: Dominion Tank Police, New Dominion Tank Police (特捜戦車隊ドミニオン) and TANK S.W.A.T. 01 (警察戦車隊 TANK S.W.A.T.). The first OVA was animated by Agent 21 and released in 1988. New Dominion was animated by J.C.Staff.

The manga was published by Hakusensha, Kodansha and later by Seishinsha. It has been published in English by Dark Horse Comics. The anime has been released in English translation in the United Kingdom and Australia by Manga Entertainment and in the United States by Central Park Media, under their US Manga Corps division.

The Tank Police

 * Leona Ozaki :  A young female officer in the Tank Police. Extremely enthusiastic about her work, and obsessively protective of her tank, which she calls "Bonaparte."


 * Originally, Leona was an officer in the motorcycle division before requesting a transfer to the Tank Police.


 * Alcuad Solte : A young male officer, Leona's much calmer partner and co-pilot of Bonaparte. He is very taken by Leona but is always second in her affections behind Bonaparte. He also is a very good computer hacker (In the final episode of New Dominion Tank Police, Al refers to himself as "Al Southwell").


 * Charles Brenten: Leona's squad leader. Very macho, with little regard for regulations or the health, safety and property of civilians. He also is the best shot in the force, preferring a large, old-fashioned revolver (which he lovingly refers to as "the Castigator") to the automatic weapons used by other members of his unit. He also has a lifetime subscription to "How to Kill" Magazine.  According to Shirow, he is named after the Bren Ten 10mm handgun, as popularized by the then popular TV series, Miami Vice.  In some translations he is known as "Britain", due to a mistranslation.


 * Chaplain : An unofficial police chaplain and tank pilot. Once took pity on a criminal, who then shot and killed his partner and escaped.


 * Jim E. Lovelock (Specs, Megane or Four-Eyes) : A scientific expert and tank commander. His knowledge and insights are often helpful on difficult cases and his calm and logical thinking are a blessing in crisis situations. He has a friendly rivalry with Chaplain.


 * Chief : The chief of police. Prone to tearing out what little hair he has left... and what's left over turned white due to the stress of the job. He also has a chronic ulcer that always acts up whenever the Tank Police cause too much collateral damage. In arguments with the previous mayor, he comments in the introduction that tanks are insufficient for keeping the peace, and would prefer 'replacing our guns with tactical nuclear weapons,' though it's unclear if he means this to be taken seriously.


 * Charlie Nam : Charles Britain's weapons officer in New Dominion.


 * Sophie Tucker : The chief's pretty, bright-spirited aide in New Dominion, who is often looking for Brenten for the morning reports.

Criminals

 * Buaku : The "super criminal" the Tank Police was formed to fight, specializing in bank robbery and general mayhem. He leads a gang, but appears to be backed by unknown individuals. Buaku's true origins are unclear between the OVA and the Manga itself.  In the OVA, Buaku was apparently a "test dummy" for the Greenpeace Crolis project, who escaped destruction when government agents raided the lab and destroyed everything except for encoded data disguised as a nude portrait of himself.  He ends up living on the streets and is eventually framed for a bank robbery by an unidentified woman and later arrested by police...which starts the chain of events that led him to become a criminal.  In the Manga, it is said that Buaku started his criminal career over 80 years ago in Argentina.


 * In part 1 of the first OVA his goal is to retrieve urine samples for a mysterious go-between for the unseen crime boss "Mr. Big." The Tank Police thwarted his plans, but are unable to arrest him.


 * In part 2 of the first OVA he tried to retrieve the encoded data from the Greenpeace experiment, which is on display at a local auction house in Newport. In the Manga, his final criminal act is the theft of the Space Colony "Embryo", in which he succeeds and escapes to the stars with his gang, with the exception of the Puma Sisters, who were left on Earth to organize the final getaway.


 * AnnaPuma and UniPuma
 * Anna & Uni are a pair of tall, beautiful android catgirls who were created as "love dolls" to be marketed for profit, but they developed beyond this superficial programming and became criminals, joining forces with Buaku. After Buaku disappears, they wander about aimlessly doing odd jobs for anyone who can pay them. Except for the occasional spat, they are inseparable and sisterly in the most extreme ways. They despise the series' heroine Leona Ozaki, and the feeling is mutual.


 * Uni is the original, and Anna is in fact cloned from her (whatever this means - they are androids, and as was shown in the manga, quite definitely not organic).


 * In the first anime series, they have blonde hair, but in the second anime&mdash;New Dominion Tank Police&mdash;they have red hair.


 * In the Sequel 'No More Noise' the Puma Twins join the Tank Police. Understandably Leona objects, but the chief points out that, as androids, they're not responsible for their actions and therefore can't be held criminally liable (another recurring theme in Shirow's work: what constitutes a person? The puma twins have shown they are quite capable of making their own decisions, but are exempt from taking responsibility for their actions on a technicality).


 * Interestingly, for all that they were created as sex dolls, they are vastly superior to humans in terms of strength, agility, speed and ability to take damage. They also have what seems to be the equivalent of military-grade targeting computers. The oddest trait of their construction is that much of their large size is optional. They have the ability to shrink to child-size by expelling large amounts of water (and returning to normal size by ingesting water). This is revealed when it's discovered their normal size is too big to effectively pilot the tanks. Many of these traits don't come into play much (or at all) in the OVA, but are all present in the manga.


 * They also have a cameo in the Manga version of Ghost in the Shell, where they are selling black market robotic mods and subsequently get robbed by a Fuchikoma.

Others

 * Greenpeace Crolis (or Chloris) : A mysterious green-skinned girl with wings, kidnapped from the Critical Science Development Agency by the Buaku Gang. She was originally developed to counteract the bacteria-laden smog that covers the Earth:  a humanoid "air purifier." Although she's constantly in the company of Buaku and his gang, she couldn't really care less about their motives... as long as she's in a place with plenty of light.  Annapuma and Unipuma are constantly left caring for her. As of the end of the first manga series, she is in outer space with the Buaku gang.


 * Critical Science Development Agency : A scientific research institution and think tank. They first show up to try and recover Greenpeace Crolis from the police, with little success.  Later, Specs joins them after they finally accept his application for employment, only to return when he finds out they only wanted to steal his research and put their name on it.


 * Citizens Against Destructive Police (CADP) : A group of citizen activists who oppose the Tank Police. They are led by a woman who is only known as the "District Prosecutor."  She only shows up in Dominion Part 1 with the unveiling of the T4-F tank and in one of Leona's nightmares in "Phantom of the Audience."

Anime
The Dominion: Tank Police OVA is a prequel to the original manga series. New Dominion Tank Police appears to be a direct sequel to the original manga, right down to where Leona's Bonaparte is a different color, and minor differences to its body, showing when she had to rebuild it after the initial Bonaparte's destruction. This anime also shows the first incarnation of the that later shows up in the Ghost in the Shell (manga) (issue 5). Reference: List of Ghost in the Shell mecha

Tank S.W.A.T. takes place near the events of the Conflict arc, the 'pumas begin as members of the police department. Unlike in the manga, however, it seems that they don't need to shrink down in order to fit into the driver's section of the tanks.

Dominion Conflict One: No More Noise
Dominion Conflict One: No More Noise (ドミニオンC1コンフリクト) by Masamune Shirow was originally published in collected form February 1995 (Seishinsha) and published in North America March 1997 (Dark Horse Comics). It is not considered to be part of the same continuity as the original stories. As before, the story centers around Leona Ozaki and the members of the Newport Tank Police; Conflict One contains some of the same elements of the original stories, but other aspects have been downplayed, altered, or completely removed. Originally planned for 4 Conflict series, Shirow has placed Dominion on hold while he worked on other projects, namely the various Ghost in the Shell anime and Man-Machine Interface. Conflict Two, originally planned for 1997, has yet to be published.

There are many things that set Conflict apart from the original Dominion story, and are the main reason Shirow himself has asked people to downplay some elements and think of Conflict as another time line.
 * New continuity
 * The pollution problem. Newport no longer suffers from the poison smog that kept the city in a haze. Many images in the manga feature skyline shots showing clear skies, and it is commented that aircraft are now much more common.
 * Formalization of the Tank Police. No longer a rowdy mob operating under the whims of Lieutenant Brenten and answering directly to the Chief of Police, The Newport City Police Department is shown as a full station house. The chief is still in command, but there are now many other divisions (including traffic control, investigation, forensics, data processing, and internal affairs) making the unit much more realistic. The Tank Police themselves have also changed, becoming a much larger organization with a clearly-defined role in police operations.
 * Bonaparte. With a larger and more structured Tank Police, Bonaparte is no longer a unique vehicle created by Leona. Now the backbone of the Tank Police, the Kenbitsu Heavy Industries Bonaparte Mark 9 is a modular urban combat vehicle used by all Tank Police platoons.
 * Characters. Despite a much larger cast, many old faces are absent from Conflict, most noticeably missing are Chaplain, Mohican, and the Mayor. Buaku and Greenpeace are also absent. The largest surprise is the disappearance of Al Cu Ad Solte, Leona's tank driver and possible love interest.

Set in November 202X, Conflict One exists to introduce the new reality of Newport City. No longer plagued by the poison clouds that covered the city in the original Dominion, the story starts with Urushi-maru the "Skyscraper Pirate" and his partner attacking the Nankaiden department store while being pursued by the Osaka Air Police. Tank Police Sergeant Leona Ozaki gets involved when she fires on Urushi-maru's plane, causing the pirate to drop his stink bombs on Nankaiden's rival (and presumed backer of Urushi-maru's attack) Hokutenro, and a familiar face comes out of nowhere to take part of Urushi's plane.
 * Plot

From there, the story follows a number of plot lines. While searching for Urushi-maru, Leona must deal with the selection of the next generation of police tanks, relationship issues, public backlash against the Tank Police, personal rivalries with the current members of her old traffic division, and--to her greatest displeasure--the addition to her unit of the former criminal android Annapuna.


 * Characters
 * Charles Brenten. Tank Police Commander (T-30A). Head of the 3rd Platoon, Brenten has calmed down from the earlier story but is still firmly in control of his reduced unit. As Platoon Commander he oversees three Squads. He is also joined in this story by his brother Brady, a pro-wrestler.
 * Leona Ozaki. Tank Police Sergeant (T-31-1). Once the rookie and mascot of the TP, Leona is now one of three squad leader operating under Commander Brenten. A well known figure in both the Newport Police and the Tank Police Battalion, Leona now commands a squad of three Bonaparte class tanks
 * AnnaPuma. Tank Police Officer (T-31-2). Formerly a member of the Buaku Gang, found to be not criminally liable as she is an android. Assigned to Leona's squad, she becomes Leona's new driver and partner.
 * Habana. Tank Police Corporal (T-32-1). Injured earlier in his career, Habana is confined to a wheelchair. Leona's second in command.
 * Shinozaki. Tank Police Officer (T-32-2). Member of Leona's squad.
 * Asada. Tank Police Officer (T-33-1). Member of Leona's squad.
 * Shimizu. Tank Police Officer (T-33-2). Member of Leona's squad. A One-Monther (a fast-track management candidate present only for form's sake.)
 * Yon. Tank Police Sergeant (T-34-1). Leader of the 2nd squad. (In the original Dominion manga, this character was known as Jim E. "Specs" Lovelock.)
 * Pak. Tank Police Sergeant (T-37-1). Leader of the 3rd squad.