Leona Osaki from the Dominion Tank Police

Leona Osaki


Context

Dominion (ドミニオン) a.k.a. Dominion Tank Police is a goofy cyberpunk  comedy (yes, it’s possible) manga . It was made by influential mangaka Shirō (Shirow) Masamune (士郎 正宗) in 1988, even though my brain keeps insisting that he made it before Appleseed (which started in 1985).

There were three OVAs (animated features) released from 1988 to 2006. The translations of the material are of varied quality, so there’s occasional variance as to the English names of the characters.


Background

  • Real Name: Leona Osaki, or maybe Leona Ozaki.
  • Marital Status: Single.
  • Known Relatives: None.
  • Group Affiliation: Newport Tank Police.
  • Base Of Operations: Newport, Japan.
  • Height: 1,66m Weight: 54kg.
  • Eyes: Brown Hair: Black (Red in the OAV).


Advertisement


Powers and Abilities

She’s a trigger happy nut with a tank. And excellent police, armored vehicles and urban combat training.

Scary, huh ?

Bonaparte

Bonaparte is a strange mini-tank, about the size of a van. It was built from pieces salvaged from Brenten’s Tiger Special Tank. It is thus made of Chobham steel  instead of bio-plastics. Bonaparte is powered by an hydrogen fuel cell and weights somewhere between 5 and 10 tonnes.

This compact vehicle nonetheless has four tracks. All are articulated, so Bonaparte can perform daring maneuvers such as :

  • Bootleggers reverses .
  • Rearing up the tank on its hind tracks (useful for getting over walls).
  • Jumping (although the prospect of doing stunt driving with a tank is a bit chilling).
  • Climbing inside a sufficiently large chimney or sufficiently closely spaced walls (!).

Bonaparte’s sensor suite is quite complete, Blue Thunder -style. It can use its comms to link up with cameras on observation blimps above the city. But of course, most of the time, the bacterial cloud is too thick for this to be useful.


Advertisement


Shell games

Bonaparte’s weapons systems include a stubby (well, sawed off, really) 75 or 105mm gun. It can fire :

  • Standard APFSDS rounds (in DC Heroes RPG terms, Projectile weapons).
  • HE rounds (Bomb).
  • Rubber canister rounds (meaning no Killing combat).
  • Special glue shells (Snare).

In the rear turret is a 12.7mm multi-barelled machinegun, which can fire live or rubber ammo (Projectile weapons). It has the necessary targeting computers to shoot down incoming anti-tank projectiles (Force shield). Of course, it has smoke projectors (Fog).

Bonaparte follows the US tradition of naming tanks after famous generals. The joke being that Bonaparte was short, and proved himself, among other things, a master of urban warfare and riot control.

It was built by Al and Leona in remarkably short order, and they’re still tinkering with it.


Video

The intro sequence and theme song.


History

Dominion Tank Police takes place in a near future in the city of Newport City. In this time, the air pollution as raised to such a level that the pedestrians must constantly wear breathing masks to limit the effects of a permanent bacteria cloud.

Most of the population is already affected by its ill effects (but the extent of these effects are not described). The crime rate is so high that a crime occurs every 30 or so seconds.

The police has entered a state of war against criminals. They created the Tank Police – cops patrolling in main battle tanks. The motto of the Tank Police CO  is “Nuclear weapon were able to stop wars, they should be able to stop crime… Give us more tanks !”. The Tank Police packs enough firepower to wreck a city block during a botched arrest.

Leona

Osaki is originally from the Motorcycle Patrol, but was later transferred to the Tank Police. She is the only woman on active duty in Brenten’s squad, which fairly earned its reputation for knuckle-dragging misogyny.

She was first posted as gunner in Britain’s favoured super Tiger tank, when they ran into Buaku’s gang. As her superior bailed out, she fired to stop fleeing felons. Apparently, the gun’s calibre was not the kind to be embarked in a mobile unit. The recoil threw the tank upside down and ruined it.

However, Leona used the scraps from the Tiger to build her own tank, Bonaparte. This quirky vehicle suited her perfectly, and she found her role.

She now protect Newport from such criminals as Buaku and the Puma Sisters, and blows up an alarming amount of stuff while doing so.


Description

See illo, and duck to cover.


Personality

Leona now follows the values of the Tank Police. These include a conviction that :

  • There is an actual state of war against crime.
  • That criminals are worthless scum.
  • That there is no such thing as too much firepower.
  • That the Tank Police is an instrument of justice.
  • That a tank is worth much more than a lousy perp’s life.
  • That the ends unconditionally justify the means.

Leona Osaki riding Bonaparte

She loves all sorts of mecha (a nice bike can certainly distract her), but her true love is her own mini-tank, Bonaparte. Her devotion to the tank is obsessive, excessive, erotic in its intensity. People wonder if she’s sane about it. Even scratching her tank will throw Leona into a fury.

This is in part a result of a sermon she received from Brenten after wrecking the Tiger, as he yelled that only men were able to truly *love* tanks and she would never understand. Osaki threw herself into proving him wrong.

Osaki is hot-headed, impulsive, and has a short temper. She’s quick on the trigger and almost always applies too much firepower to any situation.

Leona was born and raised in Japan, which isn’t the usual case among the Tank Police. She lives at home with her mum and little brother, but prefers to be at the Tank Police H.Q. with Bonaparte.


Quotes

“Go ahead… Make my day.”


DC Universe History

The Tank Police is a bit extreme, but you may try a variant : a special group of Russian police officers of various heritages with old Rocket Red battlesuits, who was formed after the Russian maffia started use military-grade hardware a bit too often.

They would easily use the same amount of attitude as the Tank Police does, and would be better equipped to fight supers.



Game Stats — DC Heroes RPG

Tell me more about the game stats

Leona Osaki

Dex: 05 Str: 03 Bod: 03 Motivation: Arguably Psycho
Int: 05 Wil: 06 Min: 06 Occupation : Tank Police officer
Inf: 06 Aur: 05 Spi: 06 Resources {or Wealth} : 005
Init: 018 HP: 040

Skills:
Charisma*: 05, Detective (Law, police procedure): 04, Gadgetry (tanks)*: 05, Medicine (first aid): 03, Vehicles (land): 07, Weaponry (heavy, firearms, melee): 06

Advantages:
Area Knowledge (Newport), Credentials (Tank police, Low), Scholar (Bonaparte’s blueprints).

Connections:
Tank Police (High).

Drawbacks:
Serious Rage (Goes up to Catastrophic if Bonaparte is damaged or even badly scratched, with an immediate Rage check), SIA toward cool mechas, MIH of criminals.

Equipment:

  • POLICE BODY ARMOR [/BODY/ 08, Radio coms: 06, Sealed systems: 14].
  • Handgun [BODY 05, Projectile weapons: 04, Ammo 23, R#2].
  • BONAPARTE [STR 08, BODY 14, Acrobatics (climbing): 02, Bomb: 08, Detect (explosives): 06, Directional hearing: 08, Fog: 06, Extended hearing: 06, Force shield: 03, Jumping: 01, Projectile weapons: 09, Radio coms (scrambled): 10, Running: 06, Sealed systems: 18, Snare: 09, Super-hearing: 04, Thermal vision: 08, Ultra-vision: 08, X-Ray vision: 08, Hardened Defenses, R#2, Bonus : Snare has an Area of Effect, Limitations : Force shield only vs. missiles and rockets (-2), X-Ray vision does not work against dense materials (-2)].

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Dominion Tank Police.

Helper(s): David Pulver, Surbrook, Nicolas Lemaçon.