Dominion

Original Title: ドミニオン
Romanized: Dominion
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

In the not so distant future, Newport city is the pinnacle of modernity: The air is perpetually polluted by an ever present bacterial cloud, the general populace is forced to wear gas masks in the street, and crime is so out of control that the police formed a special division to deal with it: the Tank Police. These are the best, the brightest, the most sadistic, of the city's police force. Ok, so they're feared by the general populace, they usually cause more destruction than they prevent, and they care more about their tanks than catching criminals, but they do perform a mean interrogation (pun intended). These guys are NYPD Blue, the LAPD, and Rambo all rolled into one.

Our story follows the newest member of the tank police, Leona Ozaki, and her adventures in getting used to the Tank Police's rather unorthodox crime control methods, falling in love (with her mini-tank Bonaparte), and battling the notorious criminal Buaku and his beautiful-as-they-are-deadly henchmen, the cat sisters Annapuna and Unipuma

Quick Review

Rating: 4 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2005-02-01

Dominion is an anime classic with a little bit of everything: lovable characters (from the tank-crazed Britain to everyguy Al), fun action in abundance (even a couple Scooby Doo-style musical interludes), silly humor in all the right places, and (true to Shirow form) a really convoluted plot. The philosophy may get a bit heavy in the second half of the story, but even then the unexpected time spent on an outwardly superficial villain is an interesting change of pace. Throw in animation and a creative world that holds up well to the test of time and a funky soundtrack for good measure (in the sub only--the re-recorded songs and weak acting make the dub a poor choice on this one).

If you're a fan of Shirow's manga work, you definitely shouldn't miss Dominion--it's one of the most faithful anime adaptations--and anybody who enjoys a light comedy with a bit of a sadistic streak and a dose of convoluted plot and philosophy should give it a look.

US DVD Review

The original DVD release was a nice production, including Japanese and English stereo soundtracks and an English subtitle track (which is identical to the old VHS sub), character intros (some appropriate clips from the series), and some comments by the director (not Shirow). On the down side, the disc uses the format of the dubbed version, which had the four acts in the series separated into two parts, each with it's own credits (although the previews are included between the two acts in each part), and those credits are the same as the old dub--the animation that originally appeared underneath the Japanese credits is shoved into a tiny box above the scrolling English credits, and even the Japanese soundtrack has the English end theme. It's bad enough having the fun ending animation shrunk down to near-invisibility (would it have been so difficult to throw in the original credits as an extra?), but not including the original song was totally unnecessary, and just made me mad. US Manga Corps now takes the subtitled half of their DVDs much more seriously, but I don't know if the re-release fixes these issues.

Content Guide

13-up seems reasonable, but some parents might find any of a number of scenes objectionable, so 16-up isn't unreasonable; has a (relatively tame) striptease, a couple of "torture" scenes (perpetrated by the good guys) that are played for laughs but could be considered objectionable, and some blatant phallic imagery in the second act.

Violence: 2 - A lot of violence, but it's pretty silly stuff for the most part.

Nudity: 2 - A few scenes, but they're brief and not terribly graphic--even the striptease has no actual nudity.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - The above-mentioned dance, and a cute sort-of-romance.

Language: 2 - A few expletives here and there.

Notes and Trivia

Based on the first of two Dominion manga series by Masamune Shirow; the second was Dominion: Conflict, and being done a long time after the first, had a lot of changes in the art (which you of course won't see here). There is also another much newer animated Dominion series, New Dominion Tank Police, translated by Manga Video.

Availability

Available in the US from US Manga Corps on hybrid DVD. There was also an earlier hybrid DVD release, as well as four subtitled VHS tapes or 2 dubbed VHS tapes, and even a subtitled LD set, all out of print.

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