Dominion Tank Police (1988)

I saw this one way back in the day when the Sy Fy channel was the Sci-Fi channel and actually played more variety of stuff than the do now. So I do not remember it exactly except I watched it all one night and I was thoroughly enjoying it when it kind of just ended in almost a cliffhanger and there was no more movie. So I was rather disappointed with that, but from what I read here they just never really completed the story that came from a Manga comic. The story is about a police organization that uses tanks to track down criminals and take them out. A new female cop who is not exactly wanted by this particular branch of the force and does not exactly endear herself to the chief as she destroys his favorite tank is a bit of the focus in this one. Not entirely though as is expected from an anime movie. She ends up making a little tank out of the remains of the chief's tank and that makes up a bit of the first half of the story. The second bit of the story is rather interesting as it focuses more on the villains of the piece and I began to get a sense that the bad guys were not all that bad. Then it just ended, I just wander how it ended? I guess I could go online and try to find the last bit in comic form, but it still ticks me off that they never finished it in animated form. Still, it had laughs, it had action and it had mystery...to much mystery as they never cleared it up in movie form.

The anime that got me hooked on anime...Set in the year 2010 (hey, that's not too far away now!) the Earth is now poison gas wasteland of pollution and violence. Seeing as how crimes are happening ever 30 seconds are so and committed by thieves who have the fire power of third world terrorists, the government of the fictional New Port City form the Tank Police to deal with the problem - cops with tanks! Oh the insanity!The "heroes" of this series include the new recruit Leona Ozaki, a red haired Japanese woman (yeah I know, they never match their distinctly Japanese names with a Japanese appearance) who has just been drafted into the Tank Police and is quickly partnered with blond, blue eyed nice guy Al. Leona is new at using tanks and unfortunately she destroys the favorite tank of Tank Police Commander Charles Britain (also known as "Brenten"), a big guy who looks like Tom Selleck on steroids and sporting a pair of nifty sunglasses, a big revolver and a bad temper. Britain didn't like having Leona join the Tank Police in the first place and her wrecking his Tiger Special (a giant green monster tank) doesn't exactly endear her to him, nor is he fond of her taking the remains of his giant tank and using it to build a mini-tank that she nicknames Bonaparte and he is soon pushing to have her transferred to child welfare "where the boys are more your size" as he puts it. There's also Specs, the bifocal genius, Bible quoting/God fearing Chaplain, purple MO-hawked Mohican, and the pot bellied Chief, who's right on the edge thanks to the Mayor always yelling at him about the Tank Police antics. Seeing as how the tank cops often destroy half the city while chasing the bad guys and use extreme violence to capture them, they're not very well liked by the people.The "villains" are a cyborg named Buaku who's got a mysterious past that's connected with a project known as "Green Peace", his gang and his two sexy cat cyborg sidekicks Anna & Uni Puma. In the first installment these guys are being paid to steal urine samples from a hospital treating people who haven't been infected by the poison gas clouds and in the 2nd they're hired to steal a painting that is of a naked Buaku. The story, however, was uncompleted in the anime and was finished up in a cult comic ("Manga") book that's very hard to find.All sorts of chaos and mayhem ensue in this black comic venture that examines how far people want their police to go in order to catch criminals and what happens when the fine line between good guys and bad guys starts to get blurred. This is the kind of thing that if you were going to make a movie of it, you'd better go get Quentin Tarantino. Uneven in places but still a lot of fun.Followed by "New Dominion: Tank Police".

I first caught this movie when I would watch (HEAVILY) Sci-Fi Channel's Saturday Anime block. Without that lineup of quality japanese animation every saturday I would've never known about anime at all. I got to see all sorts of awesome stuff like the megaman-esque "Cashaun: Robot Hunter," "8-Man After," "Project A-Ko," "AKIRA," and of course, the classic "Dominion Tank Police" This wasn't Bugs Bunny, Chip N Dale, or Care Bears, or any of the soft american animation I was used to. This was something totally new to me. It was rough, dark, and agressive. But with enough humor thrown in that I could chuckle at it. This was intelligent animated entertainment.The technology they use, the furutistic concrete jungle they live in. The concepts and ideas. Incredibly interesting. And they actually cursed! I had never heard anyone cuss in cartoons except for Beavis and Butthead. (not top notch on intelligence but its funny)Everything about this movie is just awesome. Okay well maybe not all of it, their noses look pretty wierd and sometimes its hard to understand but hey, its anime and not everyone in anima draws in the same style. The humor and the things discussed in this movie aren't for your kids to watch (unless they are mature enough to understand it) there's a part in the movie where Anna and Una Puma start tossing out all these plastic sheets that turn into giant multicolored phalluses (think about it for a while.) Plus there's alotta destruction and gunfire. Still awesome. Oh and anime cat chicks rock! (even though I'm gay hehehe ^.^) Rent this movie. Or do something even better and complain to Sci-Fi till they bring back Saturday Anime.

Don't have much to say about this other than I think that these movies are underrated in England, they're funny and very well written out etc. I watched my first one a few days ago and I will admit that I'm quite impressed at the story lines and also the characters involved since they are at times stone head stupid and then at others can be REALLY senstive and funny 0=] Watch this if you like Anime and have a laugh, this movie won't be very good for thought provoking drama or such like, but it is something just to waste the time away....