Air Gear

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Name: Air Gear (エア・ギア Ea Gia)
Abbreviation(s):
Creator: Ito "Oh Great" Ōgure
Date(s): 2003 (manga), 2006 (anime)
Medium: manga, anime
Country of Origin: Japan
External Links: Official Manga Site, Official Anime Site
Air Gear on Wikipedia
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Air Gear is a shounen manga series written and illustrated by Ito Ogure (whose name is often stylized as Oh!Great). An anime adaptation aired in 2006.

Fandom

Air Gear was popular in both Japan and Western countries, with dubs in multiple languages. The series had a lot of female fans despite being an ecchi series.[note 1] In 2003, Akito and Agito Wanijima topped Weekly Shonen Jump's character popularity contest, despite their very recent introduction in the series, due to a large number of votes from female readers. Ringo placed second, with Ikki in third place.[1] By volume 15, there was a big sway towards Kazu and Aeon, based on fan letters to the series. [2]

Several hentai doujinshi have been created for Air Gear, including a few harem-style with Ikki and all his love interests from the series (typically all the female love interests and Akito).

English-speaking fandom typically sprung up around the anime in 2006.

Due to the series' many LGBT characters, the fandom gained a dedicated slash shipping fanbase, with Akito/Agito as the most prevalent ship.

Air Gear also won the 31st Kodansha Manga Award for the shōnen category in 2006.

Reaction to Series

It's often debated what decisions in the manga were most likely to be the original plan and what was shaped by editing, popularity, and the general culture of the industry. English-speaking fandom lamented Oh! Great's decision to have Emily body-swap with John Omaha for what would have been her most prevalent role in the series, and some question Aeon's return.

The problem with the manga artist Oh! Great While although a great artist, if Air Gear and Tenjho Tenge are any indication, he's not the best at writing a story, anyone have anything to say about this?

Darker

If there's anything Bakuman taught me, it's that mangaka, no matter how popular, rarely have much if any input on how and where his story's supposed to go. A lot of plot arcs and plots and characteriation is determined by popularity polls, for example.

Olof Jönsson

Simply put, the style of the manga changed, that's what happened. But that isn't to say that the manga is bad, like what someone said earlier, it just changed from when we started reading. Now I say this is a legitimate reason to be upset with the series since this tone shift happened around the time the important stuff had begun so it's now like if you want to find out how this awesome scifi story ends, you must watch this horror movie in found footage format with only vague remnants of the scifi genera left. Both can be good styles, but if you you don't like found footage or horror and are only watching the movie for the scifi, you'll more than likely feel lied to to some degree. Even if this is a common practice for the author, that doesn't make it particularly wise or acceptable if it's not pulled off right. I never heard of Oh! Great until I saw Air Gear on the fav list of mangareader and batoto here. It's easy for some to point at his earlier works and say it's to be expected, but it's easier still to point to the top rated manga list and note that Air Gear is no longer there as well.

Ruut

I check in with air gear still from time to time, and go, "Yep. Still have no clue what the fuck is going on." As soon as that body switch happened I noped the hell out.

Rasu-kun

They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Many people felt that relegating Emily to being Omaha's body was a waste of a character that was just getting interesting.

TVTropes

Now air gear is my favorite series, but you gotta admit that at points it jumps the shark. Obamaly is one of those moments. And you gotta wonder, how much of that was the author's vision, and how much was it the editor pushing for it to be more interesting so that it rises in the polls. A lot of the plot and decisions in the story have been shaped by the genre, the medium, the editor, deadlines, and the fact that it was a steady paycheck for the author. If the author was given infinite time, infinite money, and full creative control so that he could write it solely based on his artistic vision the story might be completely different, it might be longer, it might be shorter. Or it might have turned into a total dumpster fire like George Lucas' Star Wars prequels.

Damascus_wow

A significant amount of conversation in fandom surrounds the legitimacy of the science in Air Gear. While it's accepted many things in the manga are simply impossible, even with Oh! Great's explanation, some fans have spent time on the possibility of recreating the technology of the air trecks.

[1] To me, this guy just created the 1 prototype alone, imagine what could be done with a team and a pretty decent budget.

oldo_cat

I've looked into building them many times. if you use the standard electric skateboard motor (c2794 iirc) if you use one per foot you have enough power to go around 15mph~ batteries are the issue, as they always were. you're lucky to get more than 10 minutes or runtime (calculated at full power). it almost makes sense to have a backup of batteries. if I had the funding I'm sure I could make a working prototype. batteries is the issue, but 5~ years ago the battery technology simply wasn't there. so if we wait another 5-10 years, we may be able to have (relatively) affordable air treks that roughly approximate the form of the series.

Cryogeniczz

Notably, Thundrblade made reference to Air Gear in a promo for their development testing.


Shipping

Due to the harem style of Ikki's love interests, it is common for fans to refer to all of them as the "Ikki Bowl" when talking about the competition of who he would end up with.

Fanworks

Fanart

Fanfics

Meta

Resources

References

  1. ^ citation needed
  1. ^ Oh! Great 2016, Air Gear Omnibus Volume 2, Kodansha Comics
  2. ^ Oh! Great 2016, Air Gear Omnibus Volume 5, Kodansha Comics
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