Air Gear (Japanese: エア・ギア, Hepburn: Ea Gia) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Oh! great, serialized in Kodansha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine from November 2002 to May 2012, with its chapters collected in thirty-seven tankōbon volumes. Air Gear revolves around the life of Itsuki Minami "Ikki or Crow", also known as "Baby Face", "Lil (and Little) Crow", and his friends. The story follows their use of Air Gear, an in-universe invention derived from inline skates. Initial sections of the plot carries out the introduction of characters that eventually join Ikki. As the story progresses, it focuses on their roles as Storm Riders and their quest to be on the top of the Trophaeum Tower. The pinnacle that all Storm Riders hope to reach.

Air Gear was adapted into a twenty-five episode anime television series by Toei Animation, which aired on TV Tokyo from April to September 2006. A 3-episode original video animation (OVA), titled Air Gear: Break on the Sky, produced by Satelight, was released from November 2010 to June 2011.

Air Gear had over 18 million copies in circulation as of August 2020. It won the 31st Kodansha Manga Award for the shōnen category in 2006.

Plot
Main article: List of Air Gear characters
A new fad by the name of "Air Treks" (a futuristic evolution of aggressive skating) has swept the nation's youth and all over gangs are being formed that compete in various events using their A-Ts. Ikki is a middle-school boy who is the toughest street-fighting punk on the east side of town and part of the gang "The East-Side Gunz". He lives with four adopted gorgeous sisters who took him in when he was a kid. But what Ikki doesn't know is that the girls are part of one of the most infamous A-T gangs, "Sleeping Forest". It does not take long before Ikki finds out about the world of Air Treks and is propelled into a fate he had not foreseen, learning about his past and making a number of storm riding allies on the way.

The manga was licensed for release in North America by Del Rey Manga and the first volume was released on July 25, 2006.[9] Kodansha USA published the series under the Kodansha Comics imprint after Del Rey's shut down.[10] On December 25, 2015 writer and creator Oh! Great released a second epilogue chapter also celebrating the most recent character popularity poll. In times following and in the chapter itself Oh Great! has made it known he hopes to continue creating chapter content for the series.

Anime
See also: List of Air Gear episodes
An anime adaptation covering 12 volumes of the manga was produced by Toei Animation, Marvelous and Avex Entertainment and directed by Hajime Kamegaki, with Chiaki J. Konaka handling series composition and writing episode scripts, Masayuki Satō designing the characters and skankfunk, Wall5 Project and Masaki Sakamoto composing the music. ADV Films announced over the October 20, 2006 weekend at Oni-Con that they had licensed the anime for release in the United States;[11] the anime in its entirety reportedly cost $780,000.[12] Though few of the actual artists and inside creators of Air Gear were actually there. The few that were there included Loa Mitsoyagi (Ikki), Ian Miller (Agito), Jason Remmings (Kazuma), and the ADV representing team. The first volume was released on February 6, 2007.[13] ADV released the uncensored Japanese home video version, rather than the broadcast version. On January 3, 2007, IGN released a special sneak peek of Episode 1 of the English dub.[14] In 2008, Air Gear became one of over 30 ADV titles transferred to Funimation.[15] In Australia and New Zealand, the series is licensed by Madman Entertainment.[16]