Published in the U.S. by Del Rey
Slugline: Gangbanger Itsuki starts to discover the magic of Air Treck and his four female roomies as a way to beat the big, bad gang in town.
There are many sound, well-known laws of physics surrownding flight and human beings. This book ignores all of them. It's easier to think of the Air Treck rollerblades (yes, rollerblades) as magic flying talismans because no amount of mumbo jumbo is going to convince me that rollerblades can give you that kind of altitude without blowing out your knees and/or leaving you with serious road rash. I don't care if you weigh 50 pounds and are made of rubber, as Japanese teens seen to be.
That said, these kids live in a fantasy world of no grownups, no responsibilities and no reality checks. Itsuki's motivations are no deeper than a puddle of testosterone, with the occasional heroic moment, and his cronies are all too eager to adore him. The four girls, like most bestowers of power, aren't inclined to tell him much about the magic rollerblades in an attempt to make them more mysterious. And the bad guys all come out of a cookie cutter, your usual gang of terrorizing sexual molesters -- which is not why Itsuki wants to beat them, by the way. He just wants revenge for his own ass-kicking.
So it's hard to take this story seriously or sympathize with anybody. There's a grand total of three interesting moments that keep this from being a Dishonorable Mention blurb.
- Miranda
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