Air Gear, Vol. 3

エア・ギア [Air Gear] #3

by Oh! Great

BATTLE IN THE SKY!

Itsuki is still getting the hang of his Air Trecks–the super high-tech skates that have helped him fight back against the rival skate gangs making trouble on his turf. But when his two best friends end up in the hospital after losing a battle to Buccha, a notorious gang leader, Itsuki realizes he needs to polish his skills–and fast. Though the other students at Itsuki’s school are finally realizing that the skate wars pose a dangerous threat, only Itsuki is daring enough to take on the cruel and colossally strong Buccha. But the upcoming fight may be the least of his worries after the beautiful Simca brings with a In Itsuki’s quest to rule the skies, the battle with Buccha will be just the beginning!

Genres: Manga, Shonen, Action, Science Fiction, Comics, Sports, Humor

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2003

About the author

Oh! great, whose real name is Ito Ōgure (大暮維人 Ōgure Ito) is a Japanese manga artist most recognized for the manga series Tenjho Tenge and Air Gear. In 2006, he received the Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen for Air Gear. Apart from working with manga, he designed some of the alternate character outfits in the PlayStation 2 version of Namco's 3D fighting game Tekken 5, and a guest character in Soul Calibur IV named Ashlotte.

His pseudonym "Oh! great" is a play on words. His pen name, written in Japanese order, is "Ōgure Ito", which is pronounced similarly to and can be romanized the same as the Japanese rendering of the English words "Oh great," ōgurēto. Furthermore, "Oh" can mean "king" in Japanese, making it possible to read the name as "the great king".

Reviews

[Nehemiah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much booba

[AP · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 DNFing this series, the fanservice got quite excessive at the end of this, aside I stand by this story/plot just feels too repetitive and rather vague/messy. Not going to bother attempting more volumes of this series unlike some other questionable series I'm working through. They have interesting stories and plots despite fanservice/questionable choices unlike what Air Gear has shown me so far.

[dragon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started to like this volume more. Here we have Ikki fighting Buccha and we even get to meet Spitfire, apparently one of the road king holders, introducing us to another concept in the air trek world. We also get a bit more information on the Sleeping Forest, which we knew were Awesome but now it's 10xs better. The later part of the volume does feature a lot of ecchi scenes but they're really funny and make me wonder about Simca's character (I've always thought she was mysterious and could never point her as good or bad)

It doesn't really end with any cliffhangers or anything so a good place to stop for a break (which I will be doing!)

[Matt Gallant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is actually a really decent manga! The story is relatively solid, the characters develop smoothly and the battle/action sequences are well put together.

[Emi えみ Takami 鷹見 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much fan service in this one