Cripple Punk Motifs in Tank Chair

Incapacity illustration in popular culture is much and few between, so every time we’ve any, it must be celebrated and scrutinized in equal measure. Disabled audiences have sadly develop into accustomed to a set of drained and dangerous tropes, considered one of which is serving as “Inspiration Porn.” Sequence like A Good World middle being disabled as nothing however fixed distress, with their disabled characters solely there to make these round them notice how a lot simpler their very own life is compared. Persons are so used to this fictional “inspirational” disabled individual that as quickly as an precise disabled individual refuses to push themselves past their limits, they’re seen as a failure. 

Because of this, in 2014 a brand new motion started to problem this: “Cripple Punk.” This counter tradition motion seeks to point out that disabled individuals might be impolite, indignant, messy, and never the proper, struggling angels everybody desires to see us as. While the motion has gained a number of traction in on-line circles, its ideas aren’t current in a number of well-liked media. For a very long time, the one mainstream manga title with components of this ethos was Full Steel Alchemist. However that’s not the case. There’s a brand new Cripple Punk manga on the scene a couple of disabled teen and his sibling taking up a fascist regime: Tank Chair by Manabu Yashiro.

Tank Chair is ready in a post-apocalyptic world, the place the streets are full of violent gangs of mutants who’re saved at bay by children from an murderer college. At first it appears like a narrative replaying acquainted battle shonen tropes. Nonetheless, Tank Chair places its brilliance and individuality upfront: the protagonist is disabled, and it’s what makes him the proper man for the job. Nagi Tahira is one of the best murderer on the academy, and the non-public venture of their mysterious headteacher solely often known as “Sensei.” However when saving his beloved youthful sister Shizuka from a gang, he’s shot a number of occasions, leaving him comatose.

Deserted and written off by everybody else, he’s put right into a crumbling hospital facility and handled like discarded furnishings. But Shizuka realizes she will convey him again to consciousness by channelling murderous intent in direction of him, thus reigniting his enhanced combat or flight reflex. However that is solely a short lived repair. So Shizuka makes it her private venture to seek out the worst of the worst and set her brother on them, within the hopes that by filling his mind with sufficient adrenaline, he’ll be capable to come spherical for good. Nonetheless, there’s no fixing his backbone—however that’s high quality, as a result of why do you want legs when you may have a wheelchair that may rework right into a collection of lethal tanks?

Utilizing a wheelchair as a tank to mow down your enemies is extraordinarily consistent with the messages behind Cripple Punk. The time period was first coined in 2014 by Tyler Trewhella, who posted a photograph of themself on Snapchat, smoking a cigarette while utilizing a strolling stick, and captioned it Cripple Punk. They then posted it on tumblr with the addition “i’m beginning a motion”. At its core, Cripple Punk is about preventing towards social expectations by being loud, opinionated, and never there for others’ leisure. 

Cripple Punk has been round lengthy earlier than it was ever given a reputation, although. The combat for civil rights almost about well being and incapacity has at all times been disruptive in nature. The time period “Nothing About Us With out Us!” has now been adopted by many alternative civil rights actions. Nonetheless, it was first popularized exterior Japanese Europe by South African Incapacity Rights Activists. This well-liked shout, was once heard, to be seen, to be in management, started with disabled individuals. Civil Rights protests for disabled and chronically unwell individuals have at all times revolved round being disruptive, from ACT UP’s Die Ins within the ‘80s to Disabled Individuals’s Direct Motion Community (DAN) activists handcuffing themselves to buses. DAN additionally proved their punk credentials by storming studios, blocking Westminster Bridge, and pouring crimson paint exterior Downing Road to represent the deaths that may happen attributable to welfare cuts. Tank Chair undoubtedly combines all these core beliefs.

The pure visible aesthetic is the obvious Cripple Punk motif. Punk trend has historically had a “Do It Your self” perspective. Customization is vital, with well-liked alterations together with patches, pins, spikes, and deliberate rips and tears. The symbols related to punk are designed to attract consideration to the extra uncomfortable elements of life that want addressing regardless. These embrace topics equivalent to loss of life, sexuality, and civil rights. Cripple Punk takes all this and expands to mobility aids, that are thought of an extension of the physique fairly than an adjunct. Frequent customizations embrace stickers and pins, spray portray over firm logos, and including spikes to handles to stop strangers from dealing with mobility aids or touching their our bodies with out permission.

All of those aesthetics might be discovered all through Tank Chair. Mobility aids are by no means seen as one thing that holds an individual again, however fairly one thing that enhances their life and helps outline their very own aesthetic. Touko’s prosthetic arms permit her to smash individuals’s skulls in, and her respiration tools not solely permits her lungs to operate, but additionally present an additional energy increase when wanted. Dr. Radio’s prosthetic leg is home made and designed to swimsuit her personal private wants. She has additionally used her intelligence and creativity to psychically management animals who can carry out any duties she will’t do herself. This takes the notion of a service animal to a complete new stage, and personally, I’m particularly keen on her service chameleon! These design decisions convey the character of Dr. Radio in such a wise and witty means. The reader can inform immediately that this genius engineer can be accountable for creating Nagi’s diesel punk wheelchairs.

Yashiro’s wheelchair designs are all primarily based on actual life chairs. Nagi’s hospital chair is a really customary, low cost design that requires being pushed and can’t be self propelled. It’s only used when he has misplaced consciousness and is unable to maneuver. His common preventing chair seems to be primarily based round a wheelchair rugby chair, designed to take various hits, with a strengthened bumper for smashing into individuals. The tires are extra like these of a monster truck than a chair, however the Boudica-esque wheel spikes are an absolute dream. Most wheelchair customers must accept rolling over somebody’s foot if they need them to get out the way in which quick, however with scythes on our wheels? We’d be unbeatable. Different variations embrace the Mark VI which is predicated on a racing wheelchair, and the Mark VII which appears like a monster truck model of Stephan Farfler’s design for the first ever self propelled wheelchair. Because the collection goes on, increasingly artistic wheelchair designs come to life.

These all look extremely cool. Sometimes, all through the historical past of fictional disabled illustration, when somebody not concerned in the neighborhood attracts a wheelchair, they bounce straight to a cliché hospital one with no thought to storytelling. If Barbara Gordon has Batman bank-rolling her, and is an all mighty genius who can use a submarine like a jungle fitness center to smash within the heads of her enemies with escrima sticks, why does her chair not replicate any of that? When Date The whole lot introduced us the character Mac, I ought to have associated them probably the most. Firstly, we’ve the identical identify. We’re each brief haired, they/them, autistic-coded, wheelchair customers with a love for smutty fanfic. It ought to have been as simple to establish with this character as it’s to establish with my reflection. Nonetheless, the hideous and unrealistic wheelchair design meant I used to be repeatedly distracted and unable to seek out myself in them in any respect. I wasn’t alone both. So many different followers have been so disgusted by this inconsiderate design, that they demanded it to be modified to replicate actuality. 

While all of Nagi’s chairs are very clearly fantasy creations, the care that Yashiro took in grounding every design in actuality and practicality exhibits a stage of respect that disabled narratives typically lack. Yashiro’s epic designs are a part of the primary attraction of the collection. Tank Chair supplies the type of disabled energy fantasy that has beforehand solely existed within the minds of disabled individuals, and has by no means been so superbly realized in a comic book revealed within the mainstream.

What makes this collection really feel probably the most progressive although—and the completely most Cripple Punk factor about it—isn’t the blades or the spikes or the service chameleons. It’s that it explicitly states that being disabled is a good factor. I used to be particularly happy to see that Nagi particularly sees his incapacity as a bonus, since his incapacity got here from a traumatic harm. While it’s true that the beginning of the collection is about discovering a remedy, they’re primarily looking for a means for him to have the ability to stay aware so he can spend extra time with these he loves. When confronted on the subject by an antagonist, he explicitly tells him that “This physique… isn’t so unhealthy. I really feel interpersonal bonds extra strongly than ever.”

Too typically, being disabled is seen as one thing that should be overcome, and that overcoming this problem makes you admirable. Like I mentioned, it’s inspiration porn. But what Nagi states right here is that his incapacity isn’t one thing that has made him weaker or ruined his life. It has enhanced it. He’s nearer to these he loves, he has been in a position to develop extra abilities, and the relationships he types now are stronger than they may ever have been in any other case. He’s not there to encourage these round him to do higher or be higher, they’re those who’re inspiring him. By refusing to show Nagi into yet one more piece of inspiration porn, Yashiro has embraced the very essence of Cripple Punk.

While inspiration porn normally depends on a singular token disabled individual, absolutely remoted from the remainder of the disabled neighborhood, Tank Chair tells a special story. Yashiro has created a full, vibrant forged of disabled characters, who all work together, encourage and even despise one another. There’s sufficient disabled individuals on this to type the primary ever para-power ranger line up. Their tales are related by means of the post-apocalyptic setting, however their personalities and circumstances are all fully completely different.

For instance, Dr. Radio misplaced her leg fleeing from attackers and Touko has an present respiratory illness made worse by poverty. Even characters who on the floor appear to be able-bodied, are riddled with psychological well being situations. Survivor’s guilt is probably the most distinguished, as could be sensible in an apocalypse setting. The characters take care of these points by speaking to one another, and discovering solace in those that share their expertise. Inspiration porn is about seeing your self as higher off due to one other’s perceived struggling; Tank Chair is about sharing your burdens with one another and dealing in tandem with your folks, and even your enemies. Neighborhood is a key a part of Cripple Punk, and it’s a key a part of this collection.

Tank Chair is a revolution in disabled illustration. There isn’t only one disabled individual within the collection, nor individuals with the identical incapacity. Regardless of being set in a post-apocalypse world with everybody having to actually combat for his or her life, this collection is stuffed to the brim with disabled pleasure! These characters are completely satisfied, they snort, they gossip, they suppose their coronary heart skipping a beat across the cute boy means he’s their mortal enemy and should be killed on the spot. In 2025, Superman mentioned that the actual punk rock factor to do is to see the magnificence in individuals, and provide belief when no one else will. Tank Chair proposes a special definition. Essentially the most punk rock factor you are able to do is to see the wonder and energy inside your self when no one else will. It’s trusting your self to make the suitable resolution by yourself. It’s about having large spikes in your wheelchair to mow down your enemies. And if spikes aren’t accessible, rolling over their toes should do.