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Manga: Air Gear

Fly like a crow.

Shonen manga by Oh! Great, adapted into an anime series, loosely based on inline skating.

The creation of borderline-magical self-propelled inline skates, called "Air Treks" or "A.T.s", have revolutionized skating culture, as teenagers push the limits of the skates to Charles Atlas Superpower levels of Roofhopping and Le Parkour. Ordinary High School Delinquent Itsuki Minami — "Ikki" to his friends — admires the Storm Riders from afar, especially the beautiful Simca. However, the demands of leading his gang (The East Side Guns) and the stress of being the dependent, roommate, and house boy of the beautiful Noyamano sisters keep him busy. One day, a gang turf war goes horribly wrong when the East Side Gunz' rivals recruit the Skull 'Saders, a notorious group of Storm Riders, to beat and humiliate Itsuki — and in his darkest hour, he discovers that his roommates have been leading a secret life that will lead him to the heights of Air Trek — the "Wing Road".

Followed shortly by something even grander... "The Hurricane Road"...

Ikki, Ringo and friends appear in the Massive Multiplayer Crossover game, Sunday VS Magazine Shuuketsu Choujou Daikessen.

You can, for now, watch the all episodes of the anime here.

This series contains examples of:

Acrofatic (Buccha)
A God Am I Sora after obtaining the Sky Regalia
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 Day More 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.
Anyone Can Die ...or not. Sometimes people come back.
AuthorService
Ax Crazy (Nike, Sora's brother)
- Also Agito.
Berserk Button: Harm/kill a girl or an old person in front of Onigiri. I freaking dare you to.
Beta Couple (Kazu and Emily)
Betty and Veronica (Ringo and Simca)
- 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 airbending to shame.
- Gabishi survives getting crushed by an 18 wheeler. Now THAT'S impossible!
Big Bad Sora Takeuchi
Big Eater (Buccha, obviously. He's actually a Double Subversion: Unlike most examples of that trope, he appears to be tremendously fat. However, he's got only about 6% body fat; He looks that way most of the time because blood pools in his stomach from overeating.)
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.
Blue and Orange Morality: Like the other works of Oh! Great Air gear has some of the most bizarre sense of morality and logic you will ever found in the manga world. Seriously, its like catching a glimpse of how the Fair Folk, an Alien or an Eldritch Abomination would look at the world...if its was ruled by anti-gravity skating, softcore porn and stuff
Blow You Away (A common skill frequently used by people on the Wing Road.)
Bleached Underpants (All of Oh! Great's works before Tenjho Tenge were Hentai and even that had copious amounts of explicit sex.)
Body Horror (What Buccha does to Goshogawara Fuumei, AKA Behemoth's Hekatonkeires, in this and the next two pages.
- ...Aaaand Hekatonkeires himself.
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.
Breaking the Fourth Wall (Kazu, during Akito's introduction to the class)
Kazu: Nooo! Not another character who stands out more than meeee.)
Calling Your Attacks (Rika - "Spinning Rika Hoooooold!!")
Can Not Spit It Out (Ringo to Ikki for a good portion of the series, though recently she finally got the courage to do so. Also Emily to Kazu.)
Can't Live Without You: Arthur and Shalott
Captain Ersatz: John Omaha, who bears a striking resemblance to American politician Barack Obama.
- And just happens to have an artificially tragedicized background resembling that of Obama if he hadn't been raised by rich white Americans.
Censor Steam: Censor crows; there are fewer of them on the DVD release.
Chekhov's Gun: 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.
Chris Patton: Ikki in the ADV Films English dub.
Close-Call Haircut: Ringo aka "Croissant Mask" get part of her wig (and a strap of her swimsuit) cut by Agito.
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.
Contemplate Our Navels: 98% of the entire Manga dialogue is asking questions about God, life, morality, society at large and the human condition. The 2% rest are: softcore porn and the power of skating.
Conspicuous CG
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.
Covert Pervert (Ton-chan, who thinks about Hot for Student meets Rape Is Love in too much detail sometimes...)
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 its installed on.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass (Ikki; his race against Natsumi is a classic example.)
- 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.
Culture Police (The Wind.)
Cut Short
Cute Bruiser (Getting in Emily's way can be a VERY bad idea. Ringo's no slouch either.)
Cute Shotaro Boy (Akito)
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.
Deranged Animation (Shows up quite a bit.)
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Kazu did you just beat the Big Bad's Ax Crazy twin brother?! Yes. Yes he did. And somewhere up there in heaven, Spitfire and Aeon Clock are cheering
The Ditz (Mari Tomita)
The Dragon: Nike could count as one...
Drill Sergeant Nasty (Agito when training for the cube battle, as part of his general nastiness.)
Drives Like Crazy: Tomita, their homeroom teacher, drives so poorly that when the team gets out of the car they're all knotted together into one gigantic ball.
Dude Looks Like a Lady: Agito/Akito and Shalott.
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.
Erotic Eating
Even the Guys Want Him (Ikki)
Eyepatch of Power (Agito and Akito switch dominance depending on which eye their eyepatch is placed on.)
Family Relationship Switcheroo It turns out Akito is not Kaito's brother but Kaito's & Gazelle's son
Fanservice (Oh! Great is the undisputed king, or runs very close to it, mostly due to Author Appeal)
Face Heel Turn ( Sora in the manga. Turns out he was plotting on making a bid for the Sky King by stringing Ikki along)
Femme Fatale (Simca is interested in Ikki — or at least in his potential.)
Fingerless Gloves: Members of Team Kogarasumaru wear these.
Five-Man Band
- Ikki - The Hero (though he starts out among the least skillful of the group.)
- Kazu - The Lancer (An extreme version, who lives in Ikki's shadow and admits to being "a nobody".)
- Buccha (The Big Guy.)
- 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.
Funny Schizophrenia
Gang of Hats
Glasses Pull: Yoshitune the Rumble King takes off his glasses when he stops fooling around and gets serious.
Gonk (Onigiri)
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.
- Wrong Genre Savvy
Gratuitous English (Every manga fan in the English speaking world should have raised an eyebrow when Oh!Great decided to name an American aircraft carrier after the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken. And that's ignoring the fact that it was named by a caricature of America's first black president.)
Greg Ayres (Onigiri)
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.)
Hair Decorations:
- 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.)
Hellish Pupils (Agito)
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.
Heroic Sociopath (Agito)
Heel Face Turn (Buccha, Agito/Akito)
Heel Face Revolving Door Aeon Clock in the manga.
Hillary Haag (Ume)
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?
- Arthur and Shalott.
- There's so much, it even has its own page!
Idiot Crows
Idiot Hero (Ikki)
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.)
In the Name of the Moon (Ringo as "Crescent Mask")
Japanese Delinquents (Most of Ikki's team; from another point of view, most of the cast in general.)
KENN (Kazu)
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.
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...)
Luci Christian (Ringo)
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.
Masami Kikuchi (Onigiri)
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.
Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher (Ton-Chan)
Mitsuru Miyamoto (Sora Takeuchi)
Monica Rial (Simca)
Mushroom Samba (Ikki & Ume)
The Musical: Yes, really.
No Celebrities Were Harmed (President...Omaha?)
The Other Darrin: The later OVAs of the series have a completely new voice cast than the one from the television series. Case in point:
- Ikki: Kenta Kamakari to Nobuhiko Okamoto
- Simca: Rie Tanaka to Ayako Kawasumi
- Ringo: Mariya Ise to Haruka Tomatsu
- Kazu: KENN to Miyu Irino
- Onigiri: Masami Kikuchi to Shintarou Oohata
- Buccha: Hitoshi Bifu to Kenta Miyake
- Agito: Kokoro Kikuchi to Ryoko Shiraishi
- Emily: Shouko Isshi to Yu Kobayashi
- Sora: Mitsuru Miyamoto to Kenichi Suzumura
- Spitfire: Kenjiro Tsuda to Tomokazu Seki
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.
Panty Shot (Ringo, among others)
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.)
Power Glows
Power Levels
Pretty Freeloaders (The Noyamano sisters, aka Sleeping Forest — although Ikki's the freeloader there. And Akito, later.)
Professional Wrestling (Rika, the eldest Noyamano sister, works as a masked wrestler. She and the other sisters practice moves on Ikki as a form of Megaton Punch.)
Rape as Comedy 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.
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")
Rie Tanaka (Simca)
Rollerblade Good
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.
Scary Shiny Glasses (Ringo)
Sensei-chan: Ton-chan - of the Hot for Student variety.
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...)
Shout Out (Anime and Manga)
- "That's" clearly "Negima"
- Forget Shout Out. He completely rips out the first chapter of Negima!. Then again, Oh Great and Ken Akamatsu are said to be known friends in real life.
- Om of the Sleeping Forest has an attack called "Bubblegum Crisis".
Sixth Ranger (Agito/Akito; ~~Ringo~~ ~~School Swimsuit Mask~~ The Masked Croissant)
Spiritual Successor (Air Gear homages and is otherwise inspired by Jet Set Radio in several ways. Exhibit A: The background instrumental "NOT Hummin' BUT Vibin'", which is clearly The Jimmy Hart Version of "Hummin' the Bassline" from Jet Set Radio.)
- 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.
- Talking To Themself: Happens occasionally between Agito, Akito and Lind
Straight Gay (Aeon Clock)
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.
Technology Porn
Theme Naming (The Noyamano girls all are named after different types of fruit. Also Team Sleipnir is named after figures in Norse mythology.)
Threshold Guardians
Time Master Aeon Clock. To be fair, any rider of the Flame Road can use the Time trick, but Aeon does it best.
Took a Level in Badass: Onigiri...so, so much.
- 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...
Too Kinky to Torture: Arthur
Tournament Arc
Trash of the Titans: Buccha's apartment has to be seen to be believed.
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.)
Unlucky Childhood Friend (Ringo).
- 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.
Unsettling Gender Reveal (Akito)
- Chapter 279 has Shalott do this to Agito, revealing that she's actually a guy.
Victorious Child Hood Friend As of chapter 328, Ringo. Finally.
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.
What the Hell, Hero? (Subverted by Ringo's deliberate attack on Simca. Initially it appears to be a cold blooded attempt to Murder the Hypotenuse , but later it's revealed that she was putting the Migratory Bird out of action so she wouldn't hurt or kill herself trying to participate in the war for the Sky Regalia since Simca really doesn't have any combat skills.)
Wrench Wench (Kururu)
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.
- Sora Takeuchi's three dogs are named ''Stone. Cold.'' And ''Stunner.''
Scary Black Man (Buccha before his Heel Face Turn)