Leona Ozaki

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Leona Ozaki is the central character of Masamune Shirow's Dominion: Tank Police anime and manga series. She is approximately 23 years old, stands 5 ft 6 in, weighs 117 lb, has type B blood, has the astrological sign Leo, and, in the first series she sports flaming red hair with blue eyes. In the sequel series New Dominion she is shown with more auburn colored hair and light brown eyes. She is also a Japanese Buddhist who still lives with her parents and obnoxious younger brother. She bears a slight resemblance to Deunan Knute, the heroine of Shirow's Appleseed series. There is also an uncanny resemblance to another character of a completely different anime, Noa Izumi of Patlabor.

[edit] Tank Police

Originally Leona was part of New Port City's famed Osaka Women's Motorcycle Police Unit, but was transferred to the Tank Police for unknown reasons. As the first woman to ever join the Tank Police, Leona was met with some apprehensiveness, primarily from the overly macho squad leader Charles Britain (AKA: Brenten), and initially Leona herself had difficulty accepting the rather brutal tactics of the Tank Police, a feeling shared by Al, who became her partner and was also a relative newcomer to the Tank Police at the time. While chasing the criminal Buaku, Leona wrecked Britain's personal favorite tank, the Tiger Special, causing a lot of property damage in the process, which angered Britain royally and he tried to have her transferred to Child Welfare.

Determined to prove herself, Leona, with inspiration from Chaplain and help from Al, took the remains of Britain's tank and rebuilt it as a mini-tank that she personally named Bonaparte. The brilliance of Bonaparte's design was proven when the other tanks were KOed by bio-plastic plates that expanded into large (penis-shaped) blockers, and the steel exterior of Bonaparte held up in battle, highly resistant to fire and damage while also being very quick and mobile. Britain decided to put the earlier offense behind him and accepted Leona as a member of the Tank Police, and from there she embraced the Tank Police's methods with a zeal that even Britain found staggering, transforming herself into a hardened ūber-bitch and one of the unit's finest, most effective officers.

Another thing she embraced a bit TOO passionately was a concept Britain taught her early on - love your tank above all else, no matter what. For Leona, Bonaparte is her pride and joy, often showering love and affection on it similar to that of a parent to a child or a pet owner. Her love for Bonaparte is so strong she absolutely freaks out if the mini-tank sustains any damage (even though it was built to take abuse), including minor scratches and dents, or if anyone should mock the tank's value or disregard any minor damage, the latter which Al also found out the hard way.

But even before joining the Tank Police, Leona had a strange affinity for metal, which made her "all tingly", often to the amusement of her then-partner, Charon Isihira (Isihara would later be strangled to death in an undercover assignment in New Dominion). Leona is perfectly capable of operating Bonaparte by herself, but she and her partner Al usually work as a team, with Al driving the tank and Leona working its cannon and other weapons.

There have actually been two Bonapartes - the first one, which was forged from Britain's Tiger Special, was destroyed in an encounter with Buaku's gang after they stole a super tank. Leona was devastated by the destruction of the first Bonaparte, but when Buaku and his gang escaped, the city built her a new one, with any specifications she wanted and a few additional features.

[edit] Characterization

Leona lacks patience, as evidenced by her tendency to smash coffee makers. She even chooses to carry an Ingram MAC-10 sub-machine gun as her side arm because of its firing rate. She also has a bad temper and often uses brute force when dealing with criminals or obnoxious protesters that throw cans at Bonaparte, which usually gets her in trouble with the Chief. At the same time, Leona tries to keep an ear out for civilian suffering, such as when she decided to do a little investigation on a dangerous but popular sport called Smart-Ball after learning of all the deaths it caused.

Leona does not have much of a love life and possibly doesn't want one, since Bonaparte gets most of her affectionate attention. Because of her blind love of Bonaparte, Leona fails to see that her much calmer and more laid back partner Al has feelings for her; he even asked her out to dinner once, but they never got around to it. They're friends as well as co-workers, but Al would like to be more, despite their extremely different personalities, only Leona doesn't see that, or at least, she doesn't seem to see it most of the time. In the Manga, Leona is more receptive to Al's affections, but Bonaparte still comes first.

Still, Leona was touched when she learned that Al had fed clean oxygen into her gas mask to keep her from dying of bacterial poisoning and later when he took a bullet to save her from Colsman's aid Kataoka (the villains of New Dominion), which could have cost him his life. She was genuinely upset, even frightened, when she thought Al had been killed, but fortunately for both of them, he recovered. Leona once came very close to kissing Al in the garage, but the alarm went off, ruining the moment. Only time will tell if they ever develop a deeper relationship.