Air Gear by Oh! Great

[Carnevil]

Who wants to bet me either Ringo or Ikki sacrifice themselves to save Rika? My bet is on Ringo doing something and right before the regalia explodes she'll say she admired Rika and with that little smile, then BOOM!!!

I love how the ultimate end battle turns into "You lose because I'm going to blow up two people you love" What OG couldn't have gone with the equally cliche'd "I poisoned you during the battle now your strength is fading."

Sora has turned out to be one of the worst end villains in the history of manga/comics.

[Brandnewkid]

Null Wind and Astral Magus are the same thing, so . . . Why the name change?

[Carnevil]

Null Wind and Astral Magus are the same thing, so . . . Why the name change?

Because this is Air Gear and tricks aren't legitimate unless they have some cool name (that doesn't describe them in the least) attached to them. Infinite Tremor Ensnaring Suffocation, Infinite turquoise Sonia, Numberless Grapple, Grand Fang Firebird, etc etc.

[DragonOsman2]

Actually, their names make sense if you look at the "shadows". The Sonia Road's "Infinite Chain - Turquoise Sonia" seems to have roses with an infinite chain of thorny wines being used by a female knight in turquoise armor; the Wing Road's "Moonstruck Numberless Grappler" has multiple reapers coming to attack with grappling attacks, and Kazu and Agito's combo "Grand Fang Firebird" really did look like a giant, flaming bird. They go together well.

And "Null Wind" wasn't the Trick's official name. They were using "Storm," but I guess that wasn't really the official name of the Trick, either. It's "Astral Magus".

Ringo or Ikki, neither of them is going to die unless OG wants to turn this into a Tragic Love Story. There's nothing in this manga, so far, that makes it seem anything like a Tragic Love Story. The both of them are the main focus, theirs is the main romance. If one of them dies, the manga will need a "Tragedy" tag. It already has the "Romance" tag on it, too. Rika dying is more likely than Ringo or Ikki dying. And if Ikki and Ringo can recover fast enough (emotionally, I mean), it'll also give them some more character development.

[Brandnewkid]

Because this is Air Gear and tricks aren't legitimate unless they have some cool name (that doesn't describe them in the least) attached to them. Infinite Tremor Ensnaring Suffocation, Infinite turquoise Sonia, Numberless Grapple, Grand Fang Firebird, etc etc.

Those names do loosely describe them though.

Infinite Tremor Ensaring Suffocation: Loosely refers to the "petrifying effect."

Infinite Turquoise Sonia: Mistranslation, "Sonia" is actually "Thornier."

Numberless Grappler: Refers to the countless number of "reapers" that grab on the wind when Ikki/Sora use the trick (wait, isn't this the name of the Regalia?)

Grand Fang Firebird: It's a phoenix created via the Fang Road and Kazu's flames.

[Carnevil]

Chinese scan of 353.

http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1515487990

[Epic_Rider]

Seems to be some interesting developments this chapter.

I don't need to read Japanese to know what was on that piece of paper. Just when I think I can't hate Sora any more...

Also, I knew there was a reason OG avoided drawing Ikki's AT clearly the whole fight, but I did not expect the last page. Looking forward to next week.

[DragonOsman2]

Sonia is a name. A girls' name. In "Engurisu," yeah, you could say that "thornier" is pronounced as "sonia," but the name of the Thorn Queen's Road is still "Sonia Road". That's how it's always been written in the manga in the English translation. And, really, does "Turquoise Thornier" make any sense to you? It's "Turquoise Sonia".

As for the name of the Wind Regalia core, it's actually "Moonstruck Drop Bagram". According to Greek Mythology, the sky was made from moon drops, as Dr. Minami said to Sora when he gave him the newer Bagram (after combining into it those other 20 Regalia cores Sora had stolen from the Gravity Children he'd killed), hence the name of the Regalia and Infinity Atmosphere signature Trick.

Also, the only Road that has the same name as it's Regalia is the Flame Road. All of the others are written as having it are done for aesthetic purposes or something. Interchangeable. The Storm King's Road is the Hurricane Road, the Thorn Queen's Road is the Sonia Road, the Wind King's Road is the Wing Road, etc.

[suarhnir]

Seems to be some interesting developments this chapter.

I don't need to read Japanese to know what was on that piece of paper. Just when I think I can't hate Sora any more...

Also, I knew there was a reason OG avoided drawing Ikki's AT clearly the whole fight, but I did not expect the last page. Looking forward to next week.

oyos

well f***... ringo was wearing the regalia the entire time. and it isn't japanese, it is chinese from that teiba forum. if you see nothing but kanji, then it is chinese.

ah, but the loophole to use the storm regalia has been realized... it was ikki's rule for sora or ikki to not activate their regalias, but it turns out that neither of them were wearing the sky or storm regalia to begin with. at least we'll be able to see the storm regalia in action now. **its due to long 'plot twists' like this that i hesitate on assuming certain ideas, like ringo having a genuine thorn regalia - but it turns out true that she didn't have a genuine thorn regalia but instead the storm regalia which was disguised in kiric's design of the sub thorn regalia (or was at least in a 'thorn mode' until now).

on the sora-rika side, you would think that seeing sora rip the pregnancy results would be more of a heartbreaking moment for rika. she was still herself before the brain charger was awoken in her, yet she still behaved as though he didn't do that and had some faith in sora...

[Brandnewkid]

Sonia is a name. A girls' name. In "Engurisu," yeah, you could say that "thornier" is pronounced as "sonia," but the name of the Thorn Queen's Road is still "Sonia Road". That's how it's always been written in the manga in the English translation. And, really, does "Turquoise Thornier" make any sense to you? It's "Turquoise Sonia".

Get off your high horse. I never said Sonia isn't a name. I'm well aware that it is a name. The name of the Road in the manga series Air Gear by Ogure Ito, however, is actually "Thornier Road." It can even be "Thornia Road" if you wanna get creative. The scanlations just never realized it, so the whole fandom just stuck with "Sonia." The word "Sonia" has nothing to do with the road or thorn theme. Does "Turquoise Sonia" make sense to you? Maybe it does, because you don't realize that "Sonia" is a mistranslation. Oh!Great used "Thornier" because he's not an expert at English, but to anyone with a decent sense of Japanese-to-English translation it's clear that it's supposed to be "Thornier." The Thornier Road is the Road of Thorns; it comes from the Japanese phrase Ibara no Michi, which means "A road of thorns," referring to a path of struggles and pain, much like the road in question.

You can use whatever you want, but I'm letting you know that "Sonia" is a mistranslation. The scanlations actually have quite a few mistranslations from the original Japanese version (quite a few lines of dialogue and jokes are messed up or omitted entirely), but I wouldn't want to criticize their work, as I'm grateful for the scans of the early half of the series.

Also, it seems I was wrong about Numberless Grappler. I thought the "Grappler" referred to the "reapers" shown when Ikki does the Trick. However, I forgot that in the Japanese version the Trick has an alternate Japanese name: Namonaki Kyōsō Kakutōshi-domo - Nameless Fighters' Frenzy. It actually does refer to grapplers, that is, in the martial arts sense.

[Drylick]

I think Ikki was using the Storm Regalia before that one on one against Sora. Ikki, as Sora said, is very detail-oriented. He switched his regalia when the two of them were running alone. Sensing that the fight could resort to an ugly situation, Ikki gave the regalia to Ringo when Sora and Rika were hiding beneath the walls so that Ringo could activate the regalia in dire situation since the condition of the fight is not to activate Ikki's and Sora's regalia.

But then, I can't understand Chinese so I'm still not sure. It's just my presumption since I could see that Ikki was wearing the Storm Regalia here: http://www.mangareader.net/air-gear/335/2

So I assume that they switched regalias on Chapter 340.

The Null Wind trick nullifies the wind in a huge span of area for a limited amount of time right? And when the wind starts blowing again, the activated Storm Regalia would definitely steal the show. Like the previous chapter says, "the calm before the Storm." And that "storm" would be brought forth by the Storm Regalia. Makes sense. Sora's wind would be no match against an activated Storm Regalia.

And I also assume that Ikki would control the regalia even if Ringo is wearing it. I mean, the "wind" produced by the Storm Regalia would be optimized by none other than Ikki. Ringo can't control the wind. Ikki can. So Ikki just planned Ringo to activate the regalia, and Ikki would control it nonetheless.

Just my presumption.

[suarhnir]

Oyos

Well, like we have seen many times, o!g has been horrible in the consistency department anyways. I don't know how you could get the storm regalia to look like what ikki had on at the start to suddenly looking like what ringo had on from even before that. O!g may brush it off one of two ways:

1. The core is more compact and easily interchangeable to another set of a-ts and thus was handed off to ringo when they were separate from sora and rika

2. Ikki had a pseudo regalia that merely looked like a regalia but later transformed into normal a-ts and ringo had it from the very beginning.

I doubt ikki can remotely control the regalia though... That seems way too farfetched. I think ringo activated it herself after being instructed to do so from kururu.

[suarhnir]

Oyos

So what has the "official" english translations from del rey call it? It would be expected that they would have a decent japanese-to-english ability... Quite honestly, rising road is easier to figure out but not exactly as obviously related to thunder as flame to flame road.

[king_crimson-]

dunno about the english version, but the italian calls it "sonia" road, too. And considering that the translator in charge of AG is really really good at her job, it's most likely correct

[DragonOsman2]

The Reapers came from the debris that was knocked up from the powerful gusts of wind. I think I remember that old guy saying that the real damage from the Trick was done by the Reapers, the wind didn't cause that much damage. The rest of the damage to the rooftops and other surroundings was done by Ringo trying to destroy the Reapers and save Ikki. But yeah, thanks for the translation help. If I'd known you understood Japanese, I'd have been a bit less disrespectful.