Imagine seeing a paraplegic coming right at you in a wheelchair. Just moments ago, however, he was catatonic. Yup, that’s the world’s most dangerous assassin, apparently. You might be wondering where the tank part comes in. Don’t worry, he just keeps it in reserve for boss fights. But he’s not even the goofiest part about this anime. Rather, it’s that his first target or targets — of the series, and not as a whole — is… uh, a really intelligent gorilla and his gang of equally intelligent monkeys. What did apes ever do to deserve this, you ask? Well, they’ve been killing and robbing delivery drivers foolish enough to drive into the wrong parts of the city. Gangs of monkeys. In the slums. Oof, I really, really hope this isn’t some kind of dog whistle.

The cops won’t do anything about the violence in this seemingly dystopian vision of the world, so the shady powers that be turn to Shizuka, a little girl who accepts killing contracts on her brother Nagi’s behalf. Wait, wait, wait… the world is so dangerous that heading down the wrong street could get you killed, but a little girl can just skip and hop through dark, seedy alleyways on her own? Yeah, I dunno about that. And here’s the thing… Nagi used to be a normal assassin. One of the best, too. But as you can imagine, you can’t really have a family when you’re in this line of work. Naturally, someone took Shizuka hostage one day. Nagi managed to save her in the end, but he let his guard down. As a result, a bullet from some schmuck not only left him wheelchair bound, he’s been a vegetable ever since. Thanks to years of assassin training, however, Nagi reawakens to his normal self whenever he detects someone’s killing intent (groan). I guess his brain gets a boost of adrenaline or whatever, so it pulls itself together long enough to do whatever job Shizuka assigns him. But this is only temporary. Nagi will eventually go back to being a vegetable before long — when the high wears off. Even so, Shizuka hopes that if his brain gets stimulated enough times, he can “rehab” back to being normal again. Right. But that’s beside the point, which is that they’re only in this mess because the world is too dangerous for Shizuka. So what’s stopping the bad guys from attacking Shizuka now, i.e., before she can awaken her brother? I guess that’s a potential future plot point, huh?

This is one of those 3D anime, but the visuals are a letdown. The show relies heavily on “he moves so fast, you can’t even track him,” so actions end up being one big blur with action lines obscuring almost everything. The monkeys bleed hot pink blood a la Danganronpa, but it’s probably not exclusive to them. Everyone will probably bleed hot pink, because ooooh, red makes it real… or something. I dunno, I think if you’re going to exhibit this level of Ichi the Killer-esque mayhem, you should just commit to real blood. But I suppose this is just cartoon violence at the end of the day, no matter how sliced and diced the enemy gets. It’s not like the blood even gets on Nagi. He can wipe out an entire room of monkeys, but he still comes out of the chaos completely spotless. You might think this is a nitpick, but I disagree. The fact that all this murder doesn’t have any bearing on the world itself reinforces the idea that this is, again, just cartoon violence. Visual storytelling is important in a visual medium.

I was thinking about how this might end for Shizuka and Nagi, i.e., if there really is a happy ending for them after X amount of assassinations. Maybe back in the 90s or early aughts, when anime had a penchant for depressing or downer endings — absurdly so, at times — they would assuredly be doomed. In fact, the tone would also be 1000x heavier. Remember Texhnolyze? Boy, was that ending needlessly grim. It’s art, okay?! It’s art when you cry! Not that TANK CHAIR reminds me of Texhnolyze, mind you. It just happens to be the first depressing show that comes to mind. But even anime like Cowboy Bebop leaves you bummed out by the end of it. Back to TANK CHAIR, I’m sure Shizuka will be imperiled once or twice before the season is over. But I dunno, I get the sense that I don’t have to take this show seriously.