James Bond Literary Wikia
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James Bond Literary Wikia
Tiger Tanaka
Tiger Tanaka
Name: Tiger Tanaka
Eye colour: Brown
Hair colour: Black
Affiliation: Koan-Chosa-Kyoku
Nationality: Japan Japanese
Occupation: Head of the Koan-Chosa-Kyoku
First appearance: You Only Live Twice
Last appearance: The Man with the Red Tattoo

Tiger Tanaka is the head of the Japanese Secret Service, the Koan-Chosa-Kyoku, in the novel You Only Live Twice. He takes his nickname from being born in the year of the tiger.

History[]

You Only Live Twice[]

Tiger studied PPE at Oxford and spied on Britain for Japan before the war. He joined the Kempeitai (the Japanese Gestapo), before resigning and bribed his way to be trained to be a kami-kaze, but never completed the mission due to the surrender of Japan. Being a believer in demokrasu, he became the head of the Japanese Secret Service during the American occupation of Japan. Tanaka is a womanizer who has nearly been married three times but was talked out of them by his Australian associate, Dikko Henderson. Tiger is stoically bitter about the influence of American culture in his country, decrying it as the price of defeat.

Introduced to James Bond by Dikko, the two negotiate for British access to the Japanese intelligence feed on the Soviet Union. In exchange for the data, Tanaka compels Bond to undertake the assassination of a foreign botanist named Doctor Shatterhand, who is later revealed to be Ernst Stavro Blofeld in disguise. Tanaka personally takes charge of Bond's training for the mission, instructing him in Japanese customs and enrolling him in a ninja training school. He then leaves Bond on an island near the castle with Ama diver, Kissy Suzuki.

After Bond completes his mission, killing Shatterhand and destroying his Garden of Death, Tiger visits the island in search of him, not knowing that he is living there with Kissy in a state of amnesia.

The Man with the Red Tattoo[]

The character is also featured in the Raymond Benson novel The Man with the Red Tattoo, in which he has retired from the Japanese Secret Service but still retains authority as a director emeritus. He has also developed heart disease, and suffers a heart attack shortly before the climax of the novel, but survives.

Background[]

Tanaka's physical description and personality are based on the Japanese writer Torao "Tiger" Saito, whom Fleming met in Tokyo while researching the Far East for a series of travel articles, later published as Thrilling Cities. Many of the descriptions of Japanese customs in You Only Live Twice come from Fleming's conversations with Saito.

Tiger is the last in a series of mission specific allies, who aid Bond in his adventures, such as Quarrel, Darko Kerim, Enrico Colombo and Marc-Ange Draco.

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