So yeah, about Air Gear. If the folks who made Jet Set Radio had made an anime, it might have been something like this except without the graffiti. We've got kids in roller blade street gangs that fight each other for emblems and parts. It's an anime for you guys out there who are into anything that involves a challenge, especially a violent one that is incredibly dangerous and very likely to get you into a wheelchair as a reward for epic failure. But don't take my word for it (although by reading this you probably are); let's take a look.
Like so much of the anime out there, Air Gear was based on a manga of the same name. It was first published by a mangaka with the writer's handle "Oh! great" in Shonen Weekly. (That is his name, I'm not kidding.) It was taken up by Toei Animation as a TV series and ran for 26 episodes on TV Tokyo in 2006 and in America, it's licensed by Funimation. It even briefly enjoyed a stint on Cartoon Network for a while. The premise is not far removed from a generic sports anime. You've got the main character, Ikki who has entered the world of being a Storm Rider (that's what they call these roller blade gangs) and wants to be the best he can be. He's joined by a group of friends, friendly rivals, and family members in order to help him achieve that goal. That's fine. There are plenty of anime that do perfectly well with that plot, but then you add the extra mythical aspect to the whole thing and it gets a little silly. There's this whole overarching junk about the 8 kings of roller blading that at one point got to the top of this place called Trophaem Tower and took these special wheels called regalia and supposedly they are ordained by these special wheels to rule over the world of roller blades like... kings I guess... hang on a second while I compose myself. *several minutes of uncontrollable laughter* I mean, they treat it so seriously when talking about it, it's like the wheels were granted to them by God or something.
The story starts with Ikki getting beaten up by a local street gang that is also a group of Storm Riders. After stealing a pair of roller blades (oh sorry, I mean Air Treks,) off one of his older sisters/guardians/female roommates (it's not entirely clear what they are to tell the truth) he discovers a Storm Rider emblem in their stuff and accidentally uses it to set off a parts war with the same group. The girls pull his fat out of the fire and he decides to form his own Storm Rider group and go to the top, which takes up the rest of the story. As far as the plot is concerned, much of it is rinse and repeat. They come across another Storm Rider team, they are the underdogs and have a difficult time, but somehow they pull out ahead at the end and earn the respect of the rival team, along with the rival team's emblem, which forces them to disband unless they wagered parts instead. (Seems a bit harsh in my book, but that's how it works.) While there are a couple of points where he has to contend with difficulties like acquiring the consent of the girl who owns his house (who incidentally, is also an AT king.) or deal with the authorities, most of it is rather predictable even up to the point where Simca the Swallow, one of the most powerful local team leaders decides to follow Ikki's Storm Rider team bringing the biggest team in the region under his beck and call.
That wasn't the biggest problem I had with the series. Even though the viewer knows it's all a bunch of bung, the characters take themselves way too seriously. For instance, there are several points where Ringo, the character who is supposed to be Ikki's best female friend/love interest, doesn't want to tell him stuff that might be relevant, just because 'she's afraid she'll have to face him one day' and even though it's probably true, I don't see why it's that big a deal. They're just motorized roller blades. Okay, so she's an AT king too, well, that's really cool and all, but in the grande scheme of things, it probably won't change anything if Ikki knows. If anything, he'd probably respect her even more. Rika, the head of Ikki's household, is also prone to this sort of "not telling him what he doesn't need to know" trope. Her reason was a little more practical, because she's afraid he's going to get himself hurt like her boyfriend did (he's a former AT king in a wheel chair now) even if she contradicts her motives by pounding him into a pulp herself.
Nudity and sexual innuendo abound in some areas of this series, and I was expecting that from the get-go, but, there's also some other points where things happen that have you wondering "Where did that come from?" Like there's a point in one of the challenge sequences where one of Ikki's team members uses his perverted nature as a weapon against his female adversary. This is also the first series I've seen where the characters actually acknowledge an animal or icon used for censorship. There's this little crow that flies around in the series and covers offending body parts and at one point, one Storm rider sets up an agreement with Ikki that the crow is the item he puts on the line in a parts war since he doesn't have an emblem yet at that point in the series. And then there's the stuff that you wish wasn't there. Like the fact that the teacher at the middle school everyone attends acts like she wants to be raped and that this alone seems to be the purpose for her existence. *inches away from the computer screen*
Innuendo and censorship are not the only head-scratchers either. Never mind the laws of physics (I gave up on that in anime years ago), how is it possible that the police would have a special Air Trek unit with fully equipped riot police on roller blades and with helicopters and humvees, and not be the laughing stock of Japan? Adding that the leader of the unit regularly keeps his little brother Akito/Agito (another AT King) caged like an animal through the early part of the series (child abuse!) until Ikki rescues him... yeah, pretty crazy.Come to think of it, there are really way too many AT kings in the neighborhood. It's like it's some kind of royal hub, or something. Regardless, there's a reason Akito/Agito is wearing a straight jacket, as we can definitely add him to the legion of anime characters with Multiple Personality disorder. His mind is separated into that of a homicidal maniac and an innocent little boy (with homosexual tendencies it seems), only kept apart by an eye protector, which determines what personality is active by which eye it covers. He's a piece of work to be sure.
And then there are the costumes some of the other Storm Riders wear. Where do I begin? Like the main characters are okay in this department, but once you get into the rival teams you start bordering on the ridiculous. Many of them remind me of the flunkies of a rejected Batman super villain. They wear things like skull masks or helmets in the shape of animal heads, and even the less creative ones are bizarre. Take the team that Buccha had before he joins Ikki's group for instance. I mean seriously guys, Buddhist break-dancers on roller blades? If I'd wanted to see a bunch of guys with paper bags over their heads get down... never mind, I never wanted to see that. Often the leaders are even more flamboyant. Like the leader of the Rez Boa Dogs who has a helmet shaped like the head of Doberman Pincher, which he often uses to knock out people who cross him, and it gets worse. Once he takes the helmet off, well, see exhibit A below.
Eeek! Now that's a scary hairdo! There's also the matter of the regalia themselves, which apparently have some kind of special powers, that no one really explains. They're just there and they have powers. I don't know if half of my gripes were ever explained in the manga, but they sure as heck ain't here. Although come to think of it, some of those powers are pretty awful. Like Agito's Fang road, the premise of which is 'to carve your road into the bodies' of the people you beat up, or Rika's Thorn road which is designed to force victims into submission.
That doesn't mean the series doesn't have some good points. There are one or two action sequences that are kind of cool, as the characters handle challenges such as rail grinding and getting to the tops of buildings, among other things. There are even a few giggles here and there among the gratuitous violence though I can't say I was particularly howling at anything (aside from the stuff that I assume was supposed to be serious). Also there are several remixes of the opening theme song "Chain" that are used throughout the series at various points that are done pretty well although hearing the same notes again and again might get a little annoying if you try watching the whole series in one sitting.
Overall, I guess it's okay if you're into a bunch of boys overloaded with testosterone trying to carve their way through each other on roller blades while spouting crude humor (oh, and did I mention breaking stuff?), but I don't think I'll be buying the DVD. There's just too much pointless stuff going on, and they don't even bother to get him to the Tower before the series ends. They could have at least done that.
The images utilized in this review are all from Air Gear.
