Tank Chair is on Prime Video.
Nagi Taira, one of the deadliest assassins known to mankind, falls into a vegetative state after taking a bullet to the head during a mission to rescue his sister Shizuka from kidnappers. Devastated, Shizuka soon learns that Nagi briefly wakes up only when his life is threatened, so she turns him into a ‘tank chair’, recruiting him for deadly battles since he always wakes up upon sensing somebody’s ‘killing intent’, even though he falls asleep soon after. Shizuka is convinced this is a form of therapy that will eventually heal him completely.
Based on Manabu Yashiro’s manga of the same name, the premise of this animated show is obviously wacky and exciting: a dude in a wheelchair turns into a killing machine. What’s not to like for an action fan? And of course, there’s the sweet yet twisted sibling bond. Sweet because Shizuka wants her brother back at any cost, and twisted because she constantly puts his life on the line, signing him up for deadly battles with crazy psychos and criminals.
Since the story is set somewhere in the future, the animation has a slightly neo-noir style, it’s colorful, bright, but isn’t as snazzy or catchy as what we were served in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. In fact, despite its offbeat, violent, comatose-killer protagonist, Tank Chair‘s first two episodes lack the intense energy you’d expect from such a story. I would’ve done a pilot episode review and followed it up with episodic reviews each week, but found the opening chapter quite lacklustre and couldn’t confidently give a verdict.
Now, two episodes down, Tank Chair still feels slightly underwhelming, maybe because Nagi Taira, the primary protagonist, is conscious only during combat, and we don’t get much of a sense of his personality. Except that he might just be the best assassin in the world, with killer instincts that are alive and on fire even when he is technically almost brain-dead. And that he cares about his sister. In the second episode, after taking out a dreaded opponent, Nagi is lucid for a few extra seconds, during which he asks Shizuka to eat her vegetables before falling asleep. Which was kinda funny, considering he’s a vegetable himself.
It’s the temporary opponents who get to do more of the talking in ‘Tank Chair’ and so far they’ve been pretty forgettable. Shizuka does bring some excitement to the show. She’s a bit of a maniac, with scary enthusiasm, and even though she looks like a cheery schoolgirl, she somehow has access to all sorts of nefarious men with whom she cuts deals to find her tank-chair-bound brother’s next target. Her ultimate goal? To find a worthy opponent, someone with the kind of killing intent that will really shake up Nagi and jolt him back to life.
Considering the show has only just begun, it looks like we’re in for a whole lot of episodes of Nagi fighting different kinds of wackos. Not sure how exciting that’s going to be, unless Shizuka is given a more complex storyline than simply being some sort of broker for her brother. Or at least some new permanent supporting characters would be nice, and not just opponents who’re bound to die.
If you’re looking for a fun animated show about an assassin, I’d recommend Hit-Monkey instead. Why did that come to mind? Well, Nagi fights an entire gang of violent, monkey-like creatures in the opening episode, so there’s that! (I mean I really haven’t thought about Hit Money in a while!)
Watch ‘Tank Chair’ on Prime Video.
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