Those Japanese kids keep blading cool

Okay I’m going to cop a lot of crap from my friends for this post. You see, I have a soft spot for rollerblading. And you kid’s who grew up in the 90′s on Airborne and Mighty Ducks would understand. Back then Rollerblading was the shit. It was fresh, it was stylish, it was aggressive. Hey did you know a young Seth Green and Jack Black was in Airborne? C’mon now you’ve gotta be slightly fascinated in watching it.

Anyway, blading or inlining doesn’t have quite the coolness it once had. You hardly see kids aggressive inlining anymore. Skateparks are only skaters now. The occasional blader you do see, are some kinda fitness freak, who glides around city parks in homoerotic lycra gear.

The blading subculture has become more and more niche. So it’s rare to see anything interesting coming out of it.

Of course – trust the Japanese kids to still be fully into all kinds of obscure subcultures. It’s nice to see somewhere in the world someone is keeping it alive. This DVD titled SOLAR is put together by a Tokyo crew of bladers, and it looks fantastic. The cinematography is spot on, killer tracks by DJ VEGA. And Tokyo/Yokohama is just a perfect fit for the sport – There is just something really cool about someone grinding down a rail to the backdrop of concrete and cherry blossoms.

The fixie explosion we are seeing around the world right now seems heavily influenced by the Japanese scene. Could this mean the Japanese kids are about to bring back a retro blading revival? – probably not. But I can still dream, right?

Anyway this DVD is out now, and you can buy it here, not that any of you would care since I’ll be the only dork buying it. There’s also a second trailer after the jump that you probably won’t watch – so I’ll throw in a bonus video from Airborne for a laugh. So excuse me, I’m going to go blade now.

SOLAR – Trailer 2

Airborne – “Skate Scene” – Check the awesome soundtrack.

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