Dominion Tank Police
“Chaos, Tanks & Fun”
All countries, regions, areas, and domains have their own form of law enforcement that maintains order to some degree. They may not intimidate and control everyone, but their existence alone reinforces people's behavior and conduct, which would otherwise descend into complete and utter madness. Love them, hate them, or even just tolerate them, they do their thing in their own way, and sometimes they even need a worthy adversary to keep them revving up their engines and forging on for their “justice”...
“Dominion Tank Police”, also known simply as “Dominion”, is a 4-episode OVA series that aired from the 27th of May 1988 to the 11th of August 1989. It was produced by Toshiba Entertainment, licensed by Central Park Media, and brought to life by Studio Agent 21. The main staff behind it included Mashimo Kouichi as Director and on the Script, Ishiyama Takaaki also as Director, Yamazaki Tatsuji as Assistant Director, and Mori Yukinojo on Theme Song Lyrics. Featuring the genres of Comedy and Sci-Fi alongside the Mecha theme, each episode ran for 37 minutes and earned a PG-13 rating for teenagers 13 years or older.
The Anime is based on the Manga series “Dominion”, which was released as a single volume comprising just 04 chapters from 1985 to 1986. It featured the additional genres and themes of Action and Detective, respectively, and was serialized in Comicomi as the work of author and artist Shirow Masamune (also known as the creator of Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed). The series got republished as “Dominion F” on the 27th of January 1993. It was first published in English as 6 issues by Dark Horse Comics in December 1989, and Dark Horse later republished Dominion as trade paperbacks in 1993, 1996, 2000, and 2007. A sequel OVA series to the Anime titled “New Dominion Tank Police” or “Tokusou Senshatai Dominion” aired for 6 episodes from the 20th of October 1993 till the 21st of October 1994. It was produced by Sanctuary, licensed by Maiden Japan and Manga Entertainment, and animated by Studio J.C.Staff. It was also based on the same Manga; it was targeted at the Shounen demographic and featured 27-minute episodes. A Spin-OFF OVA series titled “TANK S.W.A.T. 01” or “Keisatsu Sensha Tai TANK S.W.A.T. 01” released a single episode on the 24th of March 2006 by Studio DOGA Productions. This was an original work that featured Sci-Fi and Mecha aspects for its 29-minute runtime.
The story is set in the fictional city of Newport, Japan, in a futuristic timeline in which bacterial air pollution has become so severe that humans must wear gas masks whenever they venture outdoors. In this hazardous world, law enforcement takes the form of a police squadron that uses tanks in its operations, where we meet the protagonist, Leona Ozaki, who has just joined the city's infamous Tank Police division. Now backed by Al, her onboard AI, and her newly built mini-tank dubbed 'Bonaparte', she proceeds to wage war against the antagonist Buaku and his cohorts, the dreaded Puma Sisters!
While the tale is told from the Tank Police's perspective, it's made abundantly clear these aren't your average "good guys." They run the full gamut of police work from bureaucratic headaches to outright homicide, but in tanks. Despite the tanks being framed as a signature element of the series, I have real issues with their design and deployment. The standard fleet sports a deliberately rounded, almost inflatable silhouette that reads more like parade floats than instruments of law enforcement. Bonaparte, Leona's custom mini-tank built from scrap parts, at least has an in-universe reason for looking like it does, but the rest of the fleet doesn't get that pass. This is compounded by the fact that the tanks are barely used as tanks. They function primarily as set dressing to remind you that the show has "Tank" in the name, and are rarely deployed in any way that turns the tide of battle, despite being visible in nearly every scene. Whether this was a deliberate creative choice or a reflection of late-80s OVA production budgets is debatable, but either way, the result is the same. These cops had access to mobile artillery and consistently fought as if they'd forgotten it was there.
No matter how many battles conspired in these desolate lands, only a fraction actually utilized the tanks in very specific settings, so I started seeing them more as regular patrol cars because the cast conveniently forgot they were equipped with massive guns, which could’ve turned the tide of battle at any given time. Leona herself has a customized tank, which always proves to be leagues above the regular tanks by virtue of being the MC’s, but never becomes impactful enough to save the day. Seriously, I strongly believe these cops would've gotten much more done if they just removed the tank guns and carried them around as rocket launchers instead. Merowlink Ality from Armor Hunter Mellowlink took down Armored Troopers solo, on foot, with one oversized anti-AT rifle and a bad attitude, and still came out ahead. The Tank Police had a whole fleet and somehow managed to look less efficient.
Talking about the plot itself, for a series with only four episodes, everything is extremely convoluted. This kind of tale would've actually benefited from a consistent, centralized MacGuffin that everyone was chasing from the jump. What we get instead is "Greenpeace," and it turns out to be both a covert government biotech project and an actual character: a green-skinned android girl named Greenpeace Crolis, designed as a living air purifier capable of producing breathable atmosphere in a world choking on bacterial pollution. None of this is introduced until the final episode, and the OVA barely explains it. Even then, the manga spells it out far more clearly, leaving anime-only viewers to assemble a centuries-long shadow-government conspiracy from almost no setup and zero foreshadowing.
Before that reveal, all we have are antagonists who steal and plunder on behalf of this mysterious apparatus, with no real sense of stakes. The narrative constantly insists the world is aflame with crime, declaring an "emergency" at every turn, yet never earns that feeling; all we actually see is Buaku and the Puma Sisters running standard heist jobs. And here's the part that makes it genuinely interesting in retrospect: Buaku himself is a clone created by the Greenpeace Project, meaning he's been unknowingly chasing his own origin story the entire series. That's a compelling hook, it's just buried under four episodes of bank robberies with almost no trail of breadcrumbs to follow.
What we do see more of is the environmental damage rotting this world from the inside out, which is actually the most effective worldbuilding the series manages. But given that, the obvious question is: what exactly are the Tank Police there to do about any of this? Arresting Buaku doesn't clean the air. The watch itself is not bad. There are plenty of enjoyable, well-orchestrated firefights, a solid sense of physical scale, and enough collapsing buildings and crumbling infrastructure to scratch that late-80s OVA itch. So if you're cool with a surface-level narrative about cops patrolling a dying city and occasionally blowing chunks out of it in the process, it passes just fine.
I enjoyed the characters quite a bit. Leona possesses mother-like affection towards her tank. Charles Brenten is just pure insanity. The Police Chief is doomed to spend the rest of his days screaming and ranting about paperwork, while the villains engage in entertaining banter with their brain-dead schemes doomed to fail; they all have amazing chemistry and work well together in this hazardous world. They are mostly likable stereotypes and don’t have much development due to runtime restrictions, but it’s fine. Leona and Bonaparte are both cute and likable, who spend their days running after Annapuma and Unipuma, who are gun-crazy and sexy; simple yet effective.
They start simple, but it becomes apparent they are capable of self-reflection and growth. These are more than a bunch of brutes with big guns. Leona's real friction upon joining the force isn't so much with the rank and file as it is with the Chief, who is absolutely furious at her for destroying his prize tank, a machine he apparently held dearer than most of his officers. He threatens to transfer her out to Child Protective Services, which tells you everything about his priorities. It isn't until Leona has already built Bonaparte from scrap and the rest of the unit is caught with their tanks stuck, and those tanks being as useful in a crisis as an inflatable obstacle course doesn't help, that she makes him sweat a little. "I was told to report to a different agency," she reminds him. He rescinds the transfer fast enough, and by the second half of the OVA, he's riding on Bonaparte alongside her like none of it ever happened. She becomes the glue holding the unit together, matching their chaos and occasionally going further than they would, and she is thankfully no Mary Sue, compassionate and stone-cold capable in equal measure.
The criminal trio is just as hyperactive and carries some surprising nuance. Annapuma is the louder, more aggressive of the two, all impulse and noise, while Unipuma settles into a quieter, almost administrative role that shouldn't work as a character beat but somehow does. Watching that contrast develop gives them far more dimension than throwaway villain fodder deserves, to the point where you're quietly rooting for them to get away clean.
The Art and Animation department is very much of its era and holds up well even today. All the character designs are vibrant, colorful, and over-the-top in their own way, which contrasts superbly with the city's grayish, smog-covered atmosphere. Bonaparte is the cutest tank in the series, largely because she is an extension of the MC. In contrast, the other tanks look so off, and Brenten stands out for his exaggerated facial expressions as he’s barking out orders. The backgrounds are all captivating and carved with intention, giving off the right vibe. I genuinely enjoyed this aspect with its intentional over-the-top visuals set in this dreary world, making every chase and fight that much more entertaining.
The Sounds and Music department can be a hit or miss, depending on how you look at it. The Opening theme is "Cherry Moon de Odorasete" by Shoujo-Tai, which is very catchy and would get stuck in your head for some time, and the Ending theme is "Hoshi no Orgel" also by Shoujo-Tai, which is equally catchy. The OSTs can be very reminiscent of the era and even seem goofy, at times failing to complement the scene as needed. They may be trying to make things sound serious and deep, but it just ends up sounding corny and embarrassing. The sound design is also very dated, featuring a number of shallow, cheap audio effects that lack depth or impact, making this aspect seem somewhat lifeless.
I do want to point out that the English dub is significantly better than the original, which is rare; it just works so well in this setting, and everything just sounds funnier and livelier. Listening to the baddies bicker is just sensational, especially in the museum scene, making even the lackluster OSTs work wonders alongside smooth transitions. The English voice actors really had a blast with this project, and it shows! They are goofy and loud in a good way, and they don't fail to deliver the serious moments either.
One moment worth calling out specifically and lives rent-free in my head. There is a scene in the first half of the OVA where the Tank Police have the Puma Sisters fully surrounded, cornered, nowhere to go, and instead of surrendering, Annapuma and Unipuma do what any self-respecting gynoid lovedoll-turned-criminal would do: they perform a full choreographed strip dance. No nudity, they end up in skintight suits, but the show fully commits to the bit, cuts to the musical performance, and just lets it breathe. It's the kind of scene you only got in late-80s OVAs, where the budget and the era allowed creators to try anything, and nobody was going to stop them. It reminded me immediately of Download: Devil's Circuit (1992), where the monk protagonist Sid, part skirt-chaser, part hacker, deals with equally unhinged distractions in the middle of what is ostensibly a serious cyberpunk story.
That freedom is worth appreciating in context. The 80s OVA boom was a genuinely experimental moment. Studios had money, audiences were hungry, and a misstep didn't end careers. It's the same reason rock bands could put out a terrible album and bounce back without destroying everything. Shirow hadn't yet arrived at the dense, layered philosophical machinery of Ghost in the Shell; you can feel him here having fun, throwing ideas at the wall, seeing what sticks. The Puma Sisters' dance number is a product of that energy, and for what it is, it sticks.
Overall, Dominion Tank Police is absolutely worth a full watch as long as you make peace with a plot that keeps reaching for serious and complex while tripping over its own shoelaces. The most redeeming factor is the comedy, which is distributed evenly across the cast, and as long as you can laugh with these people rather than at them, it'll be a blast. The humor gets dirty and occasionally a little harsh, but that comes with the territory. This was the late-80s OVA era, where the gloves were off, and nobody was running it through a focus group. It is not for everyone, but if you can get on board with the exaggerated characters, the chaotic energy, and that specific late-80s OVA sensibility that made this period so unrepentantly fun, you're in for a solid watch.
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