Air Trecks: The New Craze That's Sweeping the Nation!

Roller blades that make you fly? Sure, why not! Another brilliant idea from Japan, the land of tentacles, godzilla, and robots. That was actually not sarcasm; said roller blades are very cool. They're called Air Trecks, and they are the main tool of the trade in the manga Air Gear. It's a colorful if not somewhat vulgar series, and has brought me lots of laughs thus far.

The main character, Itsuki "Ikki" Minami, and his strange crow.
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Ikki Minami is your average middle school student, except for the fact that he protects the school from a vicious gang. The series opens as he is outnumbered and embarrassingly defeated. When he returns home to his adoptive sisters Ringo, Shiraume, Mikan, and Rika Noyamano, he is reminded of how helpless he was. Then he discovers something interesting. He sees a girl flying above him on what look like roller blades. He asks his sisters about them but they offer him little information. So he goes and looks for himself. Finding out they're called Air Trecks, he makes it his mission to purchase some. Unsuccessfully, he returns home, only to find Ringo with a pair ready for him. He's out to assemble an Air Treck team and rise to the top.

I can't speculate too much on this one because I'm only a third of the way through it, but the characters are interesting, the art is gorgeous, and the story is engaging. There's a LOT of humor throughout the series, although it's usually vulgar (in the form of foul language or nudity for example), so it's not for everybody. The story is relatively easy to follow, and each character has something interesting about them. Overall, so far, I'm satisfied with this series.

Ogure, Ito. Air Gear. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Kodansha. Print.