Alternate Character Reading (Inverted: two characters — twins, actually — are both called Sora Takeuchi, but one's name is written using the kanji for "sky", the other using the kanji for "space".)
America Saves the DayMore recently, newly-elected President Omaha (Obama's Expy), joins in the action toting guns galore. In Emily's body. Because, you know, his real body has to be kept safe.
Animal Motifs (Ikki and crows, Agito and sharks. Several minor characters also adopt them.
Art Evolution: Starting out, Air Gear looks like mid Tenjou Tenge. However, like with any other long running series, Air Gear's art gets better as it goes.
Somewhat more complicated since Kururu's introduction.
Beyond the Impossible: Air Trecks strech the possible to its breaking point but its actually subverted. It is easy to forget that tricks only seemed to be able to grant users flight, in the beginning of the manga. Over two hundred chapters in, and everyone with something roll-capable (including soda cans!) on their feet seems to put airbendingto shame.
Gabishi survives getting crushed by an 18 wheeler. Now THAT'S impossible!
Akito's technique nearly sinks a battle ship. The ship is only saved (mid-sinking) by the kind of technology that was put into the shoes in the first place.
Oh and the real kicker near the end of the series. Clashing the energies of the Sky and Storm Regalias somehow disrupts gravity for a moment on Earth that people and objects temporarily float in the air. I repeat, they defied the laws of physics to that extent.
Big "NO!": Most of the main cast scream "NOOOOOOO!" after Akito kisses Ikki
Black and Gray Morality: Air trek world is a bad, brutal, severely F3ck up place to live. Ikki is the White Knight of the series and he would look kinda psychopathic in any other setting.
Black Comedy Rape: There's Tomita Mari who keeps thinking she's about to get raped by a student, and then there's Emily Adachi, who has a running gag of pretending she's being sexually assaulted when she takes her jacket off. Both of these are played for laughs.
Blow You Away (A common skill frequently used by people on the Wing Road.)
Breakable Weapons: The Wind Regalia prototype Ikki is given by Kururu to aid him in his fight against Ringo breaks after being used twice.Turns out fellow Tool Toul To member Hako switched Regalias behind Kururu's back before she went to give it to Ikki.
And just happens to have an artificially tragedicized background resembling that of Obama if he hadn't been raised by rich white Americans.
When he first appears in the manga (back at the time when Obama was running) he was referred to as a candidate. By his next appearance (after the 2008 election but before Obama was sworn in)), he was referred to as "President Ellect"
The wheels Ikki is given by the owners of the Grand Slum near the end of Chapter 5 Turns out to be the main component of the Wind Regalia
While on the topic of it, While Sora's explaining to Ikki, Agito, and Sleeping Forest what's really been going on this whole time, he mentions that he didn't want the wind regalia to fall into Ikki's hands and Agito asks why. Sora just casually brushes the question off and only says that Ikki would have been much more powerful than him if he had the Regalia in his possession. In more recent chapters, We find out why Sora really didn't want the Wind Regalia falling into Ikki's hands. Turns out it's incorporated with the strength of 21 other regalias he and Nike stole off of other Gravity Children over the years.
The strange place Ikki and Koroji visit briefly in Chapter 5? Turns out to be the Trophauem Tower when Ikki later recognizes it during he and Agito's brief stay at Tool Toul To headquarters in Vol 17
Spitfire and Aeon Clock are mentioned to have been on the same team at some point during the past during Kogarasumaru's battle against Behemoth. Guess who teams up against the Takeuchi bros later on?
The high school's Crying Statue Secret and how it really works allow the rest of the team to hear what Ikki tells Ringo about the Genesis Union in chapter 91 after being revealed tens of chapters earlier.
In recent chapters, the flame regalia since it can tap into skylink and copy other road's tricks. This proves helpful for Kazu in his battle against Nike.
Cluster F-Bomb: Agito, seriously he got quite a mouth on him.
Combat Pragmatist: Ikki. In chapter 309, while Nue is having a heart to heart talk with his father, Ikki takes the opportunity to slug Nue in the face.
Cool Old Guy: Orihara, sort of. He's not that old, and seems like a total hardass, but he went to great lengths to insure that Ton-chan would graduate, and genuinely cares about students like Ikki.
Don't forget the school Headmaster, the oldest character in the series and awesome enough to Declare Ikki the Storm King of the Hurricane Road.
Crippling Overspecialization: The Fang Regalia can be seen to have this as using it deprives the user the ability to jump with the A-T it's installed on.
Onigiri: Perverted delinquent with a usual battle level of 34, when pissed off, has a battle level of 362, almost three times more than that of Ikki, the Storm King.
Defeat Means Friendship (How Ikki came to befriend Buccha. Similarly, despite his harsh treatment of her, Natsumi of the Sabel Tigers developed a crush on Ikki after her loss at his hands. Inuyama of the Rez-Boa Dogs and the entirety of team Behemoth eventually warmed up to him, too, especially after Simca named him king.)
Depraved Homosexual: Arthur and Shalott. Arthur is a masochist who pelvic thrusts against his male opponent Agito and nibbles on his ear while fighting him. He also has flamboyant mannerisms, speaks in a polite manner, and frequently releases heart marks whenever he's reveling in the feeling of pain. Shalott is a loli who wears a frilly looking dress and has an Unsettling Gender Reveal with Agito, revealing that he's actually a girly-looking guy who is in a BDSM type relationship with Arthur. The end of chapter 279 has him pin Agito to the ground and straddle him, saying after he tortures him then Agito can "lick it" if he wants.
Early-Bird Cameo (The first episode of the anime squeezes in a cameo by Spitfire, Agito and the Wind SWAT team, and other characters.)
Enemy Scan: The R.E.A.D. software installed cellphones allows people to check the stats of nearby A-T riders. These include their power level, class and the number of tricks they have performed.
Agito (The Smart Guy. He's definitely the smartest and the most perceptive. Buccha comes a close second since he also an expert on Air Treks.)
Onigiri (The Chick; doubles as The Big Guy when fighting hot girls anything remotely female.)
Emily (The Sixth Ranger. Unless she's needed for a six-man battle, she's mostly a substitute if someone else is injured/busy. Though lately she been featured more as a serious combatant.)
Foe Yay: Arthur and Shalott have some of this with Agito.
Full Potential Upgrade: Regalia are considered this, with all the repair work that is needed for normal skates.
Gecko Ending: The anime is 26 episodes but only cover one half of the manga and ends with Ikki taking a challenge of trying to jump over some of his friends (The Devil 40 Challenge) It ends with him managing to succeed after a few tries.
Gentle Giant (Buccha as long as you aren't going against Kogarasumaru.)
Genre Savvy: A running gag in her first appearance, has Tomita Mari constantly suspecting a male character planning to rape her. Considering the amount of hentai featuring male students nonchelantly violating their female teachers as well as the title artist's former work, this is kind of justified. She couldn't know that she was thankfully in another genre.
Hair Colors (Ringo's hair has been every shade of reddish-pink under the sun, while Kururu's is either blonde or lilac, depending on who you talk to. Simca's is pink.)
Kururu and her absolute wealth of bobby pins. Can be considered a subversion since they are not so much for decorating her hair as for keeping her otherwise messy hair at least somewhat in order.
Ringo and her ribbons.
Half-Identical Twins (Kilik and Simca. Justified because they are test tube babies who share all genes except the gender-determining chromosome.)
Heroic BSOD A lot of characters experience this throughout the series and there are a few notable examples. Ikki has one when Sora is revealed to be the Big Bad. During the ongoing battle between Ikki and Sora, nearly everyone experiences this when Sora reveals that he has NEVER turned on his Air Trecks in all of his previous battles and only deciding to do so now that he believes that Ikki is a Worthy Opponent.
Hostage Situation (In the latest chapters, Sora kidnaps his (quite likely by now) former girlfriend Rika (who's pregnant with HIS kid) and put her into a death trap in a bid to force Sleeping Forest from fighting his team on Sleeping Forest's home turf. Then he gets her Brainwashed and Crazy and sends her out to attack Sleeping Forest. It actually took quite the gambit from Kilik to get Rika restrained without harming her and her baby.)
Ho Yay (Akito's relationship with Ikki is this all over. Akito kisses Ikki full on the mouth, for crying out loud.)
Don't forget Ikki and Kazu's relationship.
Does anyone want to mention the scene where Akito strips from the waist down and offers(quiet happily, in this troper's opinion)to take Ikki's place for Aeon?
Incendiary Exponent: The Flame Regalia, provided the user can use it properly.
Innocent Fanservice Girl (Gazelle, as seen in a flashback, doesn't seem to see anything wrong with hanging upside down in a oversized shirt and no bra. Kaito has to hold her shirt up for her.)
Instant-Win Condition (The "Balloon" class of AT battle: it doesn't matter if no-one is left standing on your team, so long as the "chaser" gets the balloon, as seen in the Kogarasumaru vs Past Sleeping Forest battle — Kogarasumaru, as expected, gets utterly slaughtered, but they still win because they get the balloon.)
Kill The Cutie: Nike twists the head of Sharome all the way around in chapter 289. Sadder when you remember Sharome was trying her best to protect Rika from being brainwashed by attempting to become the new Thorn Queen of Genesis even though she wasn't a Gravity Child and was weaker than Onigiri.
possibly averted a few soldiers find and save a dying girl whose neck was nearly broken in chapter 326. Likely this is Sharome........may go along with beyond the impossible.
Last-Second Chance: Offered to Nike when his backstory is learned. He refuses it utterly.
Love Epiphany (Team Kogarasumaru insists that Ringo and Ikki are made for each other, but Ikki begs to differ, as his heart belongs to Simca. To settle the question Onigiri asks Ikki to close his eyes and try to visualize the face of the girl he likes. Cue two-page spread of Kururu Sumeragi. To say Ikki is shocked would be an understatement.)
Subverted later, though. As of chapter 327, Kururu is not the one whom Ikki will "tune" with (is quite close to having sex, and performed more often than not by official couple}}s), since she's actually holding the ship they're in together. After he thanks Kururu gently for her hard work, Ikki actually asks Ringo to tune in with him. So Kururu hasn't necessarily won, and Ringo still may have a chance with Ikki...)
Manipulative Bastard: Sora Takeuchi. Initially, he's portrayed as a mentor/brother figure to Ikki and helped train him to use the Wind Regalia. In reality, he was just using poor Ikki so that he could reclaim the Wind Regalia.
Sora (again) takes this to a whole new level after executing his grand-master plan to obtain the Sky Regalia. Not only did his cowardly and villainous personality turn out to be false (allowing Kilik to drop his guard and be led into thinking that Sora was a shallow and self-centered person), his original defeat against Kilik during the collapse of the Old Sleeping Forest was planned from the beginning as he only needed to collect the missing codes of the remaining Regalias that was required to unlock the full potential of the Sky Regalia. He succeeds. Now he's the Sky King, thereby succeeding in fulfilling his own made-up prophecy. Afterwards he gives a speech telling the whole world he did all of this to solve all world issues and 'save' all of the 'good defects' (aka humans), in which he claims to be 99% of the world's population (with the 1% being hinted at as the Gravity Children, most notably Kilik). How does the vast majority of the world react to this? They applaud him for his actions.
Mass Oh Crap Everyone watching the final match between Ikki and Sora has an Oh Crap moment when Sora reveals that he has never once turned on his Air Treks in battle until now. Oh Crap indeed.
Mind Screw: Oh Great¡ is the lord and master of this trend in the Manga world... the fact that is unintentional doesn't rob an inch of credit. If anything, it make it better.
Netorare Genre: Alluded to when Hako refers to Ringo as "NTR # 1" and accuses her of cockblocking as they both squabble to become Ikki's link turner. Ikki chooses Ringo anyway.
Only Sane Man: Agito often fills this role - pretty peculiar considering he's one of the more unstable members of the cast.
Paper-Thin Disguise (School Swimsuit Mask The Masked Croissant (Croissant Mask in the dub), created by Ringo in order to assist Ikki's team without abandoning her team, the Sleeping Forest. Few important characters are fooled.)
Poor Communication Kills: When Rika, the oldest sibling, finds out Ikki is doing Air Treks. She forbids him from doing it claiming he's not good at it. As it turns out she was just scared for him due to her past with Sora and fearing an accident would seriously hurt or kill Ikki. Of course Ikki just gets more determined to prove her wrong where she more or less forced to come clean with her reasons.
Razor Wind: Agito and anyone else on the Fang Road relies on this as their primary mode of attack.
Red Baron: (Ikki's the "Babyface" of East Side High, while Buccha was the "Heel"; Simca's "Tsubame (The Swallow)"; also several "<Blank> Kings". Natsumi Iriya was "The Brown Bloody Sword")
Ruleof Cool: Emily gets her body hijacked by American President Barack Obama's Expy. Why? Oh!Great wanted to use America's outrageous weapons cache to help his plot. That, and it suddenly made Emily more important than a vaguely-cool, has-potential hot girl who wears A Ts and likes Kazu a whole lot. Yeah.
Samus Is a Girl (Natsumi from the Sabel Tigers, Not so much in the anime adaptation, since her voice was a giveaway. Also, Om.)
Also Gazelle, who is only revealed to be a girl in a flashback.
Serious Business: ATs/Riding. People are willing to commit crimes, up to and including murder, to win rollerblading competitions, which oftentimes play out more like gang wars than actual competitions. Special police forces exist for the sole purpose of policing riders. Among the higher level riders, the battles look less like standard roller blading, and more like an all-out death match where the participants just happen to be wearing roller blades. The Kogarasumaru vs. Slepnir fight took place on top of flying jets. Perhaps most serious of all; thanks to the technology used to create A Ts being integrated into virtually everything else, the Sky Regalia would allow the possessor to control virtually any technology, up to and including all the world's nuclear weapons.
The Seven Mysteries (When Kogarasumaru gets the keys to the Super Multi-Purpose Classroom, they find out that all of the mysteries for their school are somehow related... except for the haunted public restroom...)
Dontores, one of the members of the Sleeping Forest is a black man holding a boombox ( which turns out to be his Rumble Regalia) on his shoulder, just like Combo from Jet Set Radio.
Split Personality (Agito/Akito, and in the manga a third one, Lind, who is a copy of their mother Gazelle.
Split Personality Makeover: Which eye his eyepatch is on; they also have different shaped pupils and very different voices. In the manga, Lind has a completely different hairstyle and cross-shaped pupils.
Split Personality Merge: Subverted in terms of Agito and Akito because while they can merge personalities, Agito is the dominate personality.
Take Our Word for It: The raid on the Stormrider meeting in the first anime episode is represented by panning still illustrations captioned "Running Riders" and "Pursuing Officers" — and thereafter by the "Riders" caption running from the "Officers" caption.
Also Kazu. Starting out, he wasn't nothing compared to Ikki or Agito. If Kogarasumaru's battle against Sabel Tigers, Their rematch against Animal House, Kazu's battle with Ikki, and and his battle against Nike are any indication...
Ugly Guy, Hot Wife (Resident Gonk Onigiri briefly dates a beautiful girl with a fat fetish who later dumps him for the even gonkier Bucca. After she then dumps him it becomes sort of a Running Gag that every time we see her she's dating somebody even more obese than the last guy.)
Averted. In chapter 328, Ringo finally declares her love for Ikki, and it's revealed that Ikki and Kururu's relationship is one more geared towards mutual respect and rivalry in personal growth. It could also be that Kururu is leaving the triangle. The chapter's tagline describes Kururu as Ikki's number one rival and Ringo as Ikki's number one partner.
Video Wills Spitfire had one of these. After he dies, Ikki and the gang huddle up and watch the tape he had left behind. It helps Ikki get back on his feet after he learns of Sora's true colors.
Wham Chapter (Chapter 157. Who is the Magnificent Bastard who's the cause of all that has happened so far? Sora Takeuchi. Wham!)
Chapters 292-300 were an entire flashback dedicated to shedding some light on Kaito and Gazelle's past. To make a long story short, it turns out Kaito isn't Agito/Akito's abusive brother, he's their dad. And apparently, that third personality of theirs, Lind, isn't male. It's their mom.
Both the reader and the character have a Heroic BSOD at that one. A hilarious one.
Wrestler in All of Us (Growing up in a family that are all huge professional wrestling fans Ikki is no stranger to using wrestling moves in most of his fights.
The series ended in 2012 after ten years of serialization with a total of 357 chapters.
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