During last summer’s Superman rollout, one delight manga fans got the pleasure of witnessing on X/Twitter was fan art from mangaka Manabu Yashiro. On a pretty regular basis, he’d upload fan art of Hawk Girl and Supergirl hanging out whenever he wasn’t posting fan art of other pop culture icons like Hellboy, Wolverine, and Godzilla, to name a few. It even caught James Gunn’s attention in a cute moment on social media.
James Gunn commented on my fan art
OMG
#Superman pic.twitter.com/WVqUiEzGVC— やしろ学/Manabu YASHIRO (@yashiro_manabu) July 18, 2025
On a lark, I decided to check out what Yashiro was cooking with his own series. The title of his ongoing Kodansha manga, Tank Chair, carries the same punch-you-in-the-face name as Chainsaw Man does, and that was as good a reason as any on top of seeing what his art looks like when not paying homage to pop culture icons and playing with his own imagination.
What I got was a manga as advertised on the tin: some pretty kick-ass brutal action whose hero feels like a fusion dance of Kamen Rider and Jason Voorhees placed smack dab in the middle of Dorohedoro’s wild dystopian world. But what kept me motivated to catch up on the series was the surprising amount of heart Yashiro wove into outcasts who felt in line with Gunn’s lovable low-tier heroes.
Tank Chair is a sci-fi action shonen series that follows two siblings, Nagi and his little sister, Shizuka. Nagi was once feared as the best assassin of all time until he was shot in the head while protecting Shizuka, the weakest assassin ever. Thankfully, Nagi has a healing factor, so he survives, albeit in a comatose state. He’s also a wheelchair user. Still, Nagi is just as capable a fighter as Tank Chair, a vigilante seated in a souped-up chair with an increasing number of mech-like configurations as the series progresses. That’s because whenever he senses the killing intent from a strong opponent, he awakens from his stupor for a limited time. It’s a cool ongoing visual that feels like the Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice death prompt.
What typically follows is a pretty ultraviolent manga panel of Tank Chair completely annihilating everything, from a swarm of assassins to talking gorilla men to kaiju to all sorts of supernaturally gifted assassins. To Shizuka, pitting her brother against tough opponents to bring him back for a brief moment acts as his “rehab therapy” as they search for a way to bring him back to full-time consciousness. Though the former assassins’ guild he used to run with wants to use Tank Chair for different ends.
By far, the coolest aspect of Tank Chair is that it prominently features characters—heroes and villains alike—with visible physical disabilities, without treating those disabilities as a hindrance or weakness. While likely not a conscious decision on Yashiro’s part, having Tank Chair‘s cast be pretty punk rock, defiantly chasing their goals as brashly and visibly as in the manga, feels like rekindled embers of the Cripple Punk movement made mainstream. It also sets itself apart from other series that tend to use disabilities as a nerf for their heroes and instead makes them a part of who they are, a pretty cool bit of representation for a manga that leads with ultraviolence and heart, primarily from its characters with disabilities.
But, to keep things a buck, one caveat to getting into the series is that Tank Chair‘s story takes some warming up to beyond its stunning fights and panel work. Though to give Yashiro his flowers on that front, he expertly showcases the scale of its set pieces and where its characters are situated, highlighting its pretty impressive background art. On the whole, the manga especially smacks of the build-as-we-go Saturday morning fare that Kamen Rider would have with its growing ensemble of wacky villains and the allies Tank Chair acquires along the way, painting the full tapestry of where its story is headed.
It’s a stretch that’s not necessarily frustrating, but it does leave a reader flying from the seams of their pants, given how the start of the manga feels like a march toward its end, with its quick pacing, only for that to be the prologue to the story. All of which have a shotgun spread from a distance, a chance of landing as characters you’ll like beyond their neat designs. It’s pretty comparable to Undead Unluck in that regard.
But after that prologue ends and a timeskip ensues, Tank Chair really gets moving, and the inertia it built from points that felt a bit thin starts to bloom in pretty resonant ways to match the visual spectacle the manga’s been nailing thus far. And what lies at the center of its uninhibitedly weird tale is a pretty touching story about family—be it found or otherwise. And it’s there where the series really shines, adding texture to side characters who’ve got just as much going on as its main duo as well as adding dimension to its monster-of-the-week-looking villain troupe, creating the same kind of magic Gunn flourished in Guardians of the Galaxy and Peacemaker, turning outcasts into endearing characters you want to root for even if as a reader you aren’t entirely sure you’re vibing with the grander scale of the story as it’s being built.
If Tank Chair piques your curiosity, you can read the manga on K Manga.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Read the full article here
