Manga
Written and illustrated by Oh! Great, Air Gear was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine from November 6, 2002,[3] to May 23, 2012.[4][5] Kodansha collected its 357 individual chapters into 37 volumes, published under its Shōnen Magazine Comics imprint, from May 16, 2003,[6] to July 17, 2012.[7] A one-shot chapter was published in the magazine on December 22, 2015.[8]
The manga was licensed for release in North America by Del Rey Manga and the first volume was released on July 25, 2006.[9] They published the first 17 volumes. Kodansha USA published the rest of the series under the Kodansha Comics imprint after Del Rey's shut down.[10]
Anime
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]
Original video animation
In July 2010, it was announced that a new Air Gear original video animation (OVA) would be released alongside the limited edition of the manga's 30th volume.[21] Animation studio Satelight animated the OVA instead of Toei with Shinji Ishihira as director, Atsushi Maekawa as script writer, Osamu Horiuchi as character designer and Stanislas Brunet as mechanical design. Nobuhiko Okamoto plays Ikki, Haruka Tomatsu plays Ringo, and Yukari Fukui plays Kururu.
The first OVA was released on November 17, 2010, and adapted the confrontation between Ikki and Ringo from volume 16 of the manga. The second OVA was released on March 17 and the final third OVA was released on June 17, 2011. The latter two OVAs adapt the legendary battle between Kogarasumaru and Sleeping Forest from volumes 24 and 25 of the manga.
Musical
Air Gear was adapted into a musical called Musical Air Gear,[22] which made its debut on January 7, 2007, and ran until January 21, 2007. The musical is loosely adapted from the manga and all female roles are eliminated from the plot. The cast featured Kenta Kamakari, KENN, and Kenjiro Tsuda reprising their roles from the anime respectively as Ikki, Kazu, and Spitfire with Masaki Kaji (who had also starred with Kenta and KENN in the Prince of Tennis musicals), Run&Gun, etc. as their co-stars.[23] In the musical, team Kogarasumaru opposes team Bacchus, whose names all come from works of Shakespeare. (Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth and Puck).
Due to the success and popularity of the musical's first run, the musical had a rerun in May, 2007 titled, Musical Air Gear vs. Bacchus Super Range Remix (ミュージカル｢エア·ギア｣vs.バッカス Super Range Remix) with the entire cast, except for Kenta Kamakari due to illness, reprising their roles. Ryuji Kamiyama (originally Romeo) replaced Kamakari, subsequently Kosuke Yonehara (originally Hamlet) took over the role of Romeo and a new actor was brought in to play Hamlet.
In April, 2010 there was a third run of the musical, It was titled 'Musical Air Gear vs. Bacchus Top Gear Remix.' Many cast members reprise their roles, Kenta Kamakari returning as Ikki. Remarkably, Agito's actor was replaced by a younger actor and the original actor now played the part of Juliet.
