REVIEW: ‘Tank Chair’ Episode 2

Tank Chair Episode 2 is another chaotic episode that maintains the themes and goofy nature introduced in the previous episode while giving viewers more background on the anime’s world and highlighting some characters and their quirks.

Tank Chair Episode 2 begins by explaining that the series is set on Guicheng Island, an artificial island abandoned after a mysterious economic collapse 50 years earlier. The island is now home to several types of violent criminals and outcasts. This would explain why there’s rampant crime, as established in the previous episode, and why there are so many killers for hire. However, Guicheng Island is also home to several civilians, such as immigrants and those likely without much choice about where they can live, and these are the people suffering the most.

Tank Chair Episode 2 provides brief background on the city and why it is the way it is, but unfortunately doesn’t go beyond a surface level. More information on the city, such as why it’s on an artificial island and what caused the economic crisis, would’ve been nice to know. However, these will likely be revealed as the overarching narrative unfolds.

Tank Chair Episode 2 provides brief backstory on Guicheng Island but doesn’t dive too deeply yet.

Tank Chair Episode 2 quickly switches scenes to a sniper on the rooftop who has his sights set on Nagi (Koki Uchiyama) several meters away and is preparing to shoot. It then cuts back three days prior and shows how Shizuka (Minori Fujidera) recruited this prolific sniper named Ryo Takanashi, who loves murdering high-value targets, to assassinate her brother. She does this by pretending she’s Goro’s daughter, the villain from the previous episode, and that she’s hiring him to get revenge for Nagi killing her dad.

This scene humorously shows that Shizuka, despite her age and nature as a regular child, isn’t afraid of danger and reacts to it unfazed. She goes into a seedy bar, bribes a violent-looking bartender to get information on Ryo, and even walks into Ryo’s room as he blasts bottles and fingers off a random unlucky man, but never shows any fear or reacts negatively to any of it.

Even when she’s clearly creeped out by Ryo’s artificial eyes and creepy tongue that makes him look like a chameleon, she never lets it be obvious, which is highly commendable. This makes sense given how her brother is one of the most prolific assassins on the island.

Shizuka’s exploits in hiring Ryo highlight how utterly fearless she is.

Tank Chair Episode 2 cuts back three days later after Ryo takes on Shizuka’s job. He positions himself on the roof and prepares his high-tech rifle. He notably disables the rifle’s stabilization and says he doesn’t need it, which suggests how good a sniper he is. He quickly proves this by intricately aiming his rifle and even accounting for air currents and the elevation of himself and his rifle. This part of the episode is delightfully accurate, as it shows the many aspects of sniping and what real snipers have to account for when aiming from vast distances.

However, the realism doesn’t last long. Shortly after shooting and noticing Nagi actually dodged the bullet, Ryo notes that his bullet moves at Mach 9, which is simply impossible in the real world, as it’s about twice the speed of the fastest bullet.

As such, it’s even less likely to dodge it, but Nagi does it anyway, even though Ryo notes that even a trained person needs 0.15 seconds to perceive the flash of the shot. It is further explained that the human brain takes 0.35 seconds to decide on an action. This is how the anime explains how Nagi felt the killing intent and then dodged in time.

Ryo is positively creepy and skilled to boot.

While it’s fair to suspend disbelief given this is an action comedy anime, especially as these numbers are so impractical it’s hilarious, it’s hard to do this because the anime tries to make it sound as official as possible with its brief explanations. It gets even harder when Ryo takes it up a notch by setting the rifle to Mach 27, which will hit its target 0.05 seconds after his first shot fails. What makes these calculations even funnier is that they are all accurate on paper despite being impractical or just plain impossible.

Before he can fire, Nagi unveils his Tank Chair Mark V, an elaborately built mechanical cannon that launches a cannonball over 500 meters, crushing Ryo’s incoming bullet and his skull instantly. This sequence is the most impressive and visually impactful part of the episode, even more impressive given Nagi launched the ball with just his arms, with support from the cannon. However, while this scene is colorful and flashy, it isn’t as captivating as the fight scenes in the previous episode, as it’s short and dull in comparison.

Unfortunately, the fight scenes are much shorter this episode, making it less exciting.

Shizuka expresses her glee that killing intent from 500 meters away is still enough to wake Nagi up. However, she didn’t account for what would happen if the plan failed. While scolding her, Nagi tells her to make sure to eat her vegetables, but goes back to his catatonic state mid-sentence. Shizuka returns to her apartment in a sad state, and it’s revealed that she has a wall of criminals she’s looking into who could potentially fix Nagi’s condition. The episode ends with a brief look at a new character: Touko, a dangerous-looking high school girl with cybernetic parts.

This last part of Tank Chair Episode 2 is incredibly heartbreaking. It does a great job of being impactful, showing how both siblings deeply care for each other and how desperate Shizuka is to help her brother. Overall, while not as thrilling as the previous episode, Tank Chair Episode 2 lays out important worldbuilding, provides goofy moments, and highlights its characters excellently.

 Tank Chair Episode 2 is streaming now on Prime Video.

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