Air Gear

I've made it pretty clear that I absolutely love the standard shonen series. Well here's one I recently picked up that breaks normal conventions of the genre demographic as a whole. Out of the currently released 242 chapters, I have read up to 79 and I think I can already say this will become one of my favorite series of all time.

Air Gear takes place in a world where a fictional form of in-line skating known as "Air Trek" has taken the world by storm, and not just metaphorically. A.T. users are known as "storm riders".

The main character, Ikki, becomes a strom rider after seeing A.T.'s ability to grant those that wish it to fly. From that point on, Ikki enters a world of races, tricks, and of course, one on one fights. It isn't long before the "kings" (8 A class storm riders that stand at the top of their respective road) acknowledge Ikki as a prime candidate for the title of "sky king", one that can travel the wing road without fear of his wings getting clipped.

Air Gear is definitely not your typical shonen series (at least not a type I've seen often). There is a large amount of perverse humor, which I know isn't anything new, but the presentation and personality of the characters is not something you see often in an action oriented shonen series. To put it simply, the main group of characters are perverted assholes. While other shonen series incorporate a large amount of cheesiness and hold back on what characters of that age should be saying, the characters of Air Gear push the boundaries of what can and can't be shown for this demographic. They won't hesitate to give someone the middle finger or take a shit in public. The only other shonen series I can think of that pushes boundaries like that while maintaining an action setting is Flame of Recca.

The action is top notch. While it isn't a straight up fighting series, it does have one on one fights as a sub-group of the main form of battle. Of the fights I've read, the main group has one usually by unconventional means. The fight that stands out the most is Onigiri vs Gorgon Shell. Despite being completely outclassed, Onigiri eventually uses his body odor to cause Gorgon Shell to become delirious, taking off all her clothes and disqualifying herself in the process. However, the fights between Ikki and the arc antagonists have all been pretty standard, but that doesn't make it any less badass.

One huge problem I have is how completely outclassed Ikki is, yet always finds a way to win. Despite being F class, he has taken down enemies in the A class, even a former king (albeit with the help of another former king, but that's beside the point). There's a serious inconsistency in the power level discrepancy, and if A classes can be taken down so easily, who's to say someone will steal Ikki's thrown when he makes it that high? Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed everyone of his fights and few things are more gratifying than seeing the look on the enemy's face when they lose to a noob. It's just not really good from a story telling standpoint, despite being very entertaining.

Another problem is how much the enemies levels jump around. Ikki goes from fighting an E class match with an E class rider to a B class match with A class riders to a D class match with A class riders. It seems like Ikki has already jumped to a level that the main antagonist can be faced with.

To make matters worse, there have been some devices introduced to make Ikki even stronger than it seems. Early in the series, he is forced to wear very heavy weights around his whole body to prove to the former thorn queen that he should indeed be a storm rider. I had completely forgotten about that until it is reintroduced later to show Ikki blocking a punch from a man that can destroy steel with his bare hands. If he was doing crazy tricks and attacks while wearing that, he should've had no problem winning if he just took that shit off. He was fighting A class riders and still managed to win while wearing extremely heavy weights, something that seemed impossible the day of the match.

Despite the inconsistencies, this has been one hell of a ride. Ogure Ito is very talented. I should probably start reading Tenjo Tenge. Well, I guess I'll save that for another post. Now I'm off to completely catch up to Air Gear.