Air Gear plays like one big advertisement for a pair of skates that, as far as I know, don't actually exist. That sounds like a bad thing, but it's not. You get to see a regular dude like me (albeit a tad younger) pull off slick moves while skating at high speeds through the city at night. Come on, admit it, who hasn't dreamed of doing that? Oh yeah, and there's a hot babe who keeps beckoning him to keep racing. I don't need any further motivation, thank you! OK, as you can probably tell, Air Gear isn't exactly Shakespeare. But it doesn't aim to be; all it shoots for is a fast-paced, "turn your brain off" shounen show, and it succeeds.
 Basic plot: Ikki, a high school delinquent, lives with four girls: Ringo, Mikan, Rika, and Shiramune (don't worry, it's not a harem anime) who secretly belong to a group called Sleeping Forest. They challenge other gangs to races with their Air Trecks, a state-of-the-art brand of inline skates. Ikki becomes interested in this underground sport, especially after he sees mysterious, graceful beauty Simca riding across the rooftops, and especially after a humiliating defeat by a deadly gang in episode 1. Ikki's able to exact revenge on the gang, but more and more opponents from different gangs keep lining up, wanting to challenge this new contender. He starts his own Air Treck team with buddies Kazu and Onigiri. Meanwhile, Ringo trains Ikki but gets jealous when Ikki seems to have his eyes on Simca instead.
If there's one thing that sets Air Gear apart from many shounen shows, it's the premise. Yes, it's the typical "underdog challenges other stronger opponents and gradually gains amazing abilities", but instead of featuring hand-to-hand combat it has everyone racing each other on futuristic rollerskates/rollerblades. So the emphasis is more on fast action and ever-changing backdrops, which automatically raises it above some episodes of Naruto, where they'll often spend eight or nine episodes in a row in the same arena/colosseum. Maybe it's not fair to compare those two series; then again, they are both shounen shows. The racing premise also helps to make the ringside commentary different, too, even if in essence they're thinking/talking about the same stuff ("I can't believe how strong Ikki is already!").
The plot progresses fairly quickly, which also helps. Ikki lands in hot water right away in episode 1, and in episode 2 he begins basic training with Ringo. Episodes 3 and 4 pit him against new opponents. This quick pace keeps the episodes moving so that they don't seem to hang on one thing for too long. This isn't a shounen series swimming in multi-parters.
 Let's talk visuals. A common complaint about adaptations of Oh! great's manga properties is that anime can't do the original illustrations justice, due to the differences between the two mediums. Yes, manga does tend to allow for far more detailed designs, especially character design. Now, I've glanced at the manga (available from DelRey), and much like Oh! great's work it does have very complex illustrations. But the anime still has eye-catching, memorable designs, even if they're far simpler. Simca and Ringo, in particular, are quite pleasing to the eye, and not just for the obvious reasons.
Backgrounds are a mixed bag. The city glow is just beautiful, and some of the sunset shots (as in episode 2, when Ringo trains Ikki) look gorgeous too. And often there will be 2D characters mixed with scrolling 3D backgrounds, and the results usually look good. On the other hand, much of the racing is done in plain-looking alleyways, which don't have nearly as much visual flair as the rooftops. Also, most of these races take place at night, and the use of a blue-ish color palette does tend to get a bit repetitive at times.
In terms of animation, I have to hand it to Toei, which found a way to get around budget limitations by creating numerous situations where the characters don't have to move. After all, the characters are skating, so half the time they basically glide around, which eliminates the need for lots of complicated movement. (Why do you think Gumby glided everywhere instead of walking?) But Toei has also animated the wind rippling the skaters' clothing, which masks the limited animation fairly well and also shows off their high speeds; they also have all those tricks they pull off in the race, which look cool.
 One thing I love about this series is its soundtrack. It's an enjoyable mix of techno and rock (often with scat voices) which puts me into the mood and evokes a "cool" atmosphere. The end credits, which consist of live action footage (the camera skates through the city) to a J-rock/techno song, reminded me of FLCL, and that's definitely a good thing.
The video quality is fairly good, though there are moments of pixelation/video compression. The English dub does tend to sound like an ADV hit parade at times. Luci Christian and Chris Patton basically reprise their vocal performances in Full Metal Panic; Hillary Haag sounds like a lot of the other cute characters she has played; and Monica Rial is still very recognizable, though decidedly more sultry than most of the other series I've seen her in. But I rather enjoyed the various accents that certain VAs give the characters. A restaurant owner has been given a Russian accent; the foe in episode 2 sounds like Elvis; and Jay Hickman (as Spitfire) speaks with an Australian accent. In fact, I couldn't even tell Hickman was playing the character, as he sounded decidedly different from Watanabe in Excel Saga. The dub also had quite a few successful comic deliveries, such as Ikki's response to Simca's cleavage-bearing hug: "I liked my present. Both of them."
Special features are slim, to put it kindly: a clean open/close and trailers. That would be tolerable if ADV had included a booklet, but no such luck. I'm not sure whether this is because Toei didn't give any special material to ADV, whether such material didn't even exist on the R2 DVDs, or whether ADV wasn't sure how big the market would be for this title. Whatever the reason, it's disappointing.
 I should also mention that this DVD presents the uncut version of the series. To conform to broadcast standards, crows were placed over "offending" areas when it first played on Japanese TV. This meant that viewers had to buy the DVDs in order to see the good bits. Since I'm against censorship, I'm thankful ADV was able to get ahold of the DVD version. But aside from a few moments here and there—episode 1 contains a bath scene, and later on we get a brief shot of Simca in a backless apron—Air Gear is relatively free of fanservice in these first four episodes, so those suffering from fanservice-phobia shouldn't avoid this title for that reason.
Air Gear is no masterpiece. You won't find deep stuff in it, and it carries the same technical limitations as many other TV-budget anime series. However, that doesn't mean you should pass it up. The skating premise makes it fairly original, and the anime is just plain fun. And hey, any show that makes me want a pair of those amazing skates to glide around town in deserves some credit.
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