Alternative TitlesEnglish: Air Gear Synonyms: AirGear Japanese: エア・ギア
Information
Type: Manga
Volumes: 37
Chapters: 357
Status: Finished
Published: May 16, 2003 to May 23, 2012
StatisticsScore: 8.081 (scored by 12868 users)
Ranked: #7002
Popularity: #24
Members: 22,475
Favorites: 2,457 1 indicates a weighted score
My Info
Popular Tags
action comedy ecchi shounen |
SynopsisItsuki Minami needs no introduction – everybody’s heard of the “Babyface” of the Eastside. He’s the toughest kid at Higashi Junior High School, easy on the eyes but dangerously tough when he needs to be. Plus, Itsuki lives with the mysterious and sexy Noyamano sisters. Life is never dull, but it becomes dangerous when Itsuki leads his school to victory over some vindictive Westside punks with gangster connections. Now he stands to lose his school, his friends, and everything he cares about. But in his darkest hour, the Noyamano girls come to Itsuki’s aid. They can teach him a powerful skill that will save their school from the gangsters’ siege–and introduce Itsuki to a thrilling and terrifying new world.
(Source: Del Rey) |
Related MangaAdaptation: Air Gear Special, Air Gear, Air Gear: Kuro no Hane to Nemuri no Mori - Break on the Sky
Reviews
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Master_M2K
71 of 116 people found this review helpful
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220 of 357 chapters read
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| Overall |
8 |
| Story |
7 |
| Art |
10 |
| Character |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
Air Gear is an exciting Shounen, Sports, Ecchi, Comedy, which takes extreme sports to a whole new level. Nevertheless this is an Oh! Great manga, so expect mind-numbing violence, x-rated fanservice and an over-the-top storyline.
Itsuki Minami (Ikki) is a typical teen delinquent, with no real purpose or goal in life but that soon changes when he discovers the joys and hardship of the popular extreme sport known as “Air Treck”. It’s true that most shounen sports manga have the usual guy, who is somehow introduced into a new sport and then quickly develops into a star. Sure Air Gear follows this idea but there’s a number interesting concepts that give this manga an edge; like the formation of the team, the bonds between them and infinite possibilities of ATs. From then on the story continually develops by adding new elements (e.g. Regalia) to the plot but the deeper the story goes, the more it loses the original essence, it was once known for.
But one thing that never loses its essence, in this manga, is the cluster of clichéd but cool character archetypes. Ikki being the main protagonist is quite the shameless badass, with an outrageous sense of humour. It’s amazing how he and his team progress through this ever-changing story and his team in question aren’t just regular supporting characters, as they each have their own purpose in the story’s progression and some will become instant faves. There are also some other supporting characters that play a major role in the story, whilst others (especially the opponents) are somewhat generic. What’s also very unique about the characters is that most of them represent an animal or beast, giving a little edge to their personality.
To me the best thing about this manga has to be the artwork, with its unique look and cool design that sets it apart from all other shounen manga (except fellow Oh! Great manga). Not only do the characters look cool, with their expressively drawn attitudes but even the SFX text have a great graffiti style designs. The environments are very detailed and it’s easy to see that a lot of creativity has gone into designing the layout.
Overall Air Gear is exactly what you’d expect from an Oh! Great manga: really crude perverse humour, imaginative character designs and extremely ecchi fanservice. But it doesn’t change the fact that this is a hugely entertaining shounen manga to read. Even though the story becomes incredibly confusing later on, with all the Trophaeum Tower & Gravity Children nonsense, the heighten sense of tension and compelling drama you get is incredible. So if you’re looking for a hardcore manga or want more of what the anime had to offer, then this certainly a great read.
^_^ read more
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artist-retired
36 of 80 people found this review helpful
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165 of 357 chapters read
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| Overall |
5 |
| Story |
4 |
| Art |
9 |
| Character |
6 |
| Enjoyment |
5 |
Reading long running series can be quite the daunting task to start on, but you can reap the awards of what long series bring, memorial characters and terrific long stories.
I'm referring to good stories like One Piece, FMA, and anyone who can actually write, Air Gear's award is the boobie prize of absolute disappointment, a benefit of the doubt that was brought about by a good start.
STORY: Oh Great! Isn't that quite the name to give yourself? Especially since you're definitely not so great at a lot of aspects, except artwork. It must really scream confidence to those who pick up Air Gear (Or Tenjo Tenge, but I'm not reviewing that), expecting something great, well I wouldn't blame them, Air Gear does start out pretty decent, good even, but fumbles around later and finally falls.
Air Gear is dumb, really dumb, that one kid in first grade who is sent to the corner in class and has to wear a dunce hat everyday kind of dumb. But like the teacher having to watch over that kid, you grow fond of the kid's antics, even if you know what to expect from him, that's the charm of that rascal in the works. But the kid eventually grows up into a complete dumbass, and he's not only the kind of dumbass who does stuff only jackasses would do, but also the kind of pretentious ass that can only pretend to be what he is obviously not, smart.
That's what my experience with Air Gear has been like, and that's what the story amounts to, a smooth landscape that hides the grand canyon of falls. The story of Air Gear starts off pretty simple, Itsuki "Ikki" "Babyface" Minami, the strongest kid at his junior high school, is an orphan who lives with four sisters and is practicably a brother to them, the Noyamanos, Ringo, the series main female character and actually the most likable character, Mikan, the tomboyish and second oldest sister, Ume, the youngest and quirkiest of the sisters, and Rika, the oldest and bread winner of the family. But one day Ikki however fights the wrong crowd, and is slaugthered by a gang of roller skaters called Storm Riders, and from then on, Ikki is introduced to the world of Air Treks. Air Treks are super roller skates that let's you jump into the sky as if you're flying, enabling you to perform tricks that are otherwise, impossible without them (And magical BS, which I'll get to in a little bit).
The story is basically a sports battle shonen ecchi manga series with quite the strange concept, that starts off as good as anyone would hope for coming from the mastermind behind Tenjo Tenge (And just to clarify, I'm using the word mastermind very loosely, that word is too great for oh great). A lot of the early battles in the series are very entertaining, which the battles are actually various sports events (Mixed in with typical shonen style fights of course) that are quite interesting, and involves the main to use strategy (In terms of shonen strategy fights, it's up there with early Naruto). From racing and relay runs to standard 1 on 1fighting and survival king of the hill matches, this is one thing Air Gear continues as one of it's only constant qualities.
Other "qualities" however, might as well have never been considered as quality. Specifically, the story telling. As I figuratively explained earlier, The story does nothing but goes down a downward slope after sometime, from fun foolishness with the main cast, Including Ikki, and the rest of his storm rider team, the whipping boy and fastest member, Kazu, the fat pervert, Onigiri, Oh Great's interpretation of Bleach's Chad, Buccha, and the fucking split personalities boy who says fuck all the fucking time that it is his catch-phase, Akito/Agito. Other characters includes a couple of groupies that become useful over time, a cock tease, and several countless roller skaters.
The story was basically about a group of boys wanting to become the best roller skaters in Japan, that becomes a cheap pretentious mess. From killing off characters that had no importance to the overall story to just improve another character's air trek skills, to throwing in pointless characters, to over exaggerating the power of the roller blades to ridiculous proportions e.g. roller skates determine the fate of the world.
And from then on the series loses all of it's fun, I mean, it's ridiculous, specific roller skates with magical powers and only naked girls can repair them? It's fucking retarded to put it bluntly, they're nothing more than cheap devices to make ridiculous powers and cheap fan service, but Air Gear takes a simple concept and over inflates it with story telling that's obviously over oh great's ability.
It's a shame that this series grow too serious, and that it looses any redeeming qualities other than...
ART: The artwork, this is the one thing Oh Great does to earn his pretentious name. Incredible detail on everything, the character designs are borderline realistic, bodily proportions are over exaggerated at times (Muscles, titties, and other lustful body parts), but everything looks great, especially the personified shadows of the characters, with great detail on these creatures ranging from vicious beasts to goddesses and hellish armies.
However, at times, when the story does it thing, text boxes and word bubbles fill too much of the pages, and becomes almost as messy as the story is.
But the word great should only be implied here when speaking of Air Gear.
OVERALL:
The Good:
+ A dumb fun story with a unique concept that mixes shonen and sports elements.
+ Good comedy if low brow and ecchi jokes are your thing.
+ Great artwork that deserves the word great.
The Bad:
- Dumb story become a convoluted mess later on that goes way above the head of the author.
- Cheap ecchi, and even cheaper plot advancements.
- Completely ridiculous plot devices, and all the magical bs roller skates can apparently do.
- Terrible mood swings.
Sigh... As easy as it is to drop Air Gear, I consider myself to be at the point of no return, but let this review be a warning to those wanting to invest into this mess of a series. Oh Great must actually be a sarcastic name, or should be used in an annoyed reply like, "Oh great... another chapter of air gear to read, woo whoo..." read more
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Same manga-ka! Lots of ecchi moments.
both are by oh great! similar type of comedy and art bolth main characters are delinquents but tenjho tenge is way more explict
the same author. but a couple of time better. at least until Vol 20, after that the story starts to spiral out of control. Toward the end i got the feeling that the author wanted to apply abandoned ideas that he once had for tenjou tenge to Air Gear.
Story
Same beginning the main is seduced by a vouluptous girl to plunge into her world of action
while Tenjou is virtually about Natsume and Takayanagi family, air gear is about more characters with different backgrounds. Oh great learned his lessons from Tenjou tenge. This time the story really focused on the main character( Ikki) and and there is no boring flashback.
Character
Have your ever wondered what Kurei, Kagesada and Bunshici are doing and whonder what their motives are? in air gear characters lke Onigiri, yayoi and emily are more developed , they have their own reasons and not just there to help.
Art
You won't be dissapointed , the art is very smooth, the girls are so sexy and look very proportional that it will make you wonder are they really handrawn or CGI.
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minus the extreme ecchiness and the fact that fire candy has a lot more adult scenes if you like one your most likely gonna like the other.
Fire Candy and Air Gear revolve around one thing, motor powered inline skate teams. The strong leadership style of Ryoki matches that of Ikki. Fire Candy while not as long as Air Gear does have some of the eroticism that Oh! Great brings.
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Related Clubs♣ FREEDOM club ♣, *Twins*, -The Order-, acx, Agito & Akito, Agito Wanijima Fc, Air Gear, Air Gear Fans club, Air gear Rp, Air Gear RP, Anime & Manga Recommendation, Anime > Real Life Club, Anime Alliance P2P Network, Anime art that r0cks!!, Anime Dreamers, Anime Lovers!, BlackWing's Fanclub, Brasil Discussões, Claim an Athlete, Claim one eyed chara, Del Rey, Delinquent Heaven, Ecchi Squad, Eleventy Billionth Club, Fan Fiction Guild, FIRE POWER, girl power, Goggles!, Himiko's Fanclub (Himiko's Card Workshop), Hottest anime characters!, Itsuki Minami Fanclub, IZUMI64's World ~俺様の世界~, Kogarasumaru , Kururu Sumeragi, long @ss shonen club, Long Black/Dark Haired Guys, MAL Adopt a Pet!, MAL anonymous, MAL Welcoming Club, Manga > Anime, Manga Marketplace, Mangabreaker, megame8senpai feat. tokyo29, megami8senpai fan club, Mole=Moe, NEO, Nice Shades ~ The Sunglasses Fanclub, OtAku-sb's Anime FC, otakus that waste there life away , Parts War, PINK, Ponytail/Pigtail Fan Club, Purple and Blue Haired Characters, PUT AKITO BACK ON THE CHARACTERS LIST., Random Anime & Manga Club, russian shounenfags!, Shonen Beam, Shounen Manga, Simca , Ringo , Kururu, Simca Fan Club, Sleeping Forest, Split Personality Fan Club, Sports (Anime) Fans, sweet anime lovers , Takeuchi Brothers ~ Sora & Nike FC, Team Kogarasumaru, The 1st Wanijima, Lind Club, The Holy Sanctum of Sumeragi Kururu, The Oh! Great Fan Club, The Sunday vs. Magazine Fan Club, The Twin Factor, The Ultimate Absolute Ukes (U.A.U), thenightmaresofalice, Tina-chan Land!, To Be Continued: The Anime/Manga Connection, We love Mikura Kazuma <3, X Games Asia, Yakuza fan club, [Anime Vibe] TEMPORARILY RE-OPEN, [Facial Hair]Sexy[/Facial Hair], [S.C] School Claiming., ~ONII-SAN... Big Brothers club~, ~Slit Cat-like Eyes Club~
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External LinksOfficial Site, MangaUpdates, Wikipedia
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