Flying Circus

Flying Circus is an aerial sport in which two players utilize Grav Shoes and compete over who can obtain the most points within 10 minutes.

A fairly new sport, it is quickly rising in popularity.

Characteristics

• It is a mixed-gender sport, and do not have a separate competition for males and females
• Once the game starts, timeouts are not allowed
• It is an outdoor sport
• The venue is outdoor, and above bodies of water several feet high
• It is usually played with 4 buoys (10 minutes time limit)
  • It can be played with 2 buoys (5 minutes time limit)

Field Regulations

• The playing field consists of four buoys in the air, all placed to form a square. Each buoy are connected by a line, which are numbered after their perspective buoy.
• To play, a pair of Grav Shoes built for competitive play is required. In official regulated matches, players are required to wear a Flying Circus suit, which are designed for flight usage. These suits have floatation devices in the case that Grav Shoes malfunction.

Flying Circus Course

Layout of the field

Playing Regulations

Matches are played one-on-one, and the player with more points wins. At the first tie, the match will enter a 10 minute overtime period, and five additional minutes will be added to the game. If there is still a tie after the five minutes, the next person to score will be declared the winner. There are two ways to score:

• Tag a buoy. Players move clockwise and can stop or move backwards as long as they don't pass the previous buoy. After passing the first buoy, the ahead player cannot touch the next buoy until the behind player has caught up to them. Behind players can skip buoys and move on to the next.
• Initiate combat through a dogfight. This consists of scrambling to touch the other player on the back through close-quarters combat during the match. This is one of the greatest ways in Flying Circus to display one's skills. When players make contact, both sides are repelled off one another, which is through the anti-gravity technology built into the Grav Shoes.

Ways to score

Scoring through tagging a buoy

When the player takes a shortcut

Violations

Like every sport, there are things that players cannot do, or else it results in a foul.

• Players cannot by any circumstance touch their opponent at the very start of the match before the first buoy has been tagged.
• Any technique that abuses the repellent force that the Grav Shoes expel when players players touch each other is illegal and grounds for disqualification, and can even result in being banned from tournaments. These illegal techniques are considered dangerous and can result in the victimized player getting injured.
  • This includes a pincer technique, which consists of using both arms or legs to bounce the opponent back and forth.
  • Slamming the opponent by the repellent force into a buoy also counts under here.

Positions

• Skywalker: Refers to all Flying Circus players. These players are all divided into different types of players based on their flying style.
  • All-Rounder: A balanced class capable of both speed and combat equally. They have no particular weaknesses and can easily adapt to situations.
  • Fighter: A class dedicated to dogfighting. They are extremely agile at close quarters combat, with the primary aim of scoring through tagging opponent's backs. They can reach top speeds immediately from the start, but their overall speed lacks behind Speeders.
  • Speeder: A class dedicated in high-speed movement. They aim to avoid dogfighting and score through tagging buoys. They have poor handling, but they can reach overall speeds that are undoubtedly faster than anyone.
• Second: Seconds are non-players who give advice to active-players through a headset. Their most fundamental task is to help their active Skywalkers track their opponents, as it is easy to lose them in an open three-dimensional space. Seconds did not exist when the sport was first invented, leading to matches turning completely one-sided. In order to combat that issue, Seconds were introduced to the sport.

All-Rounder Class

Fighter Class

Speeder-Class

Visual Aids

• Contrails: A light trail added at the end of a grav shoes to help audiences track the location of a player
  • Contrail colors usually match the shoes' color
  • Contrails are a couple of hundred meters long
  • No known players with the same contrail color have played against each other
• Score trigger: A triangle-shaped light appearing on a player's back to tell the audiences that a player has scored
  • The color of the triangle depends on the contrail color of the player. If a player with red contrails scored, a red triangle will appear on the opponent's back

Special Moves

Main Article: Special Moves

Known Players

Kunahama Academy FC

Kunahama Academy's FC team consists of:

• Asuka Kurashina Active All-Rounder
• Mashiro Arisaka Active Speeder
• Misaki Tobisawa Active Fighter
• Masaya Hinata Active Second/Unknown in the anime (All-Rounder in the visual novel)
• Shion Aoyagi Inactive Speeder/Former Captain
• Madoka Aoyagi Active Manager/Captain

Takafuji Academy FC

Takafuji Academy's FC team consists of:

• Kazunari Shindo Inactive All-Rounder/Captain (Active in the visual novel)
• Reiko Satoin Active All-Rounder/Vice President
• Rika Ichinose Active speeder

Kairyou Academy FC

Kairyou Academy's FC team consists of:

• Saki Inui Active Speeder
• Irina Avalon Active Second

Shitou Suisan FC

Shitou Suisan's FC team consists of:

• Arika Okoze Active Speeder
• Mayu Ganeko Active

Dougaura Kougyou Academy FC

Dougaura Kougyou Academy's FC team consists of:

• Kasumi Kurobuchi Active

Professional

• Aoi Kagami (Japan) Inactive (Active All-Rounder in the visual novel(Asuka's route - True Ending))
• Lumikki Johansson (Finland) Active
• Eric Chapman (England) Active
• Gerhand Greiner (Germany) Active

Trivia

• In the visual novel Asuka was curious if anyone was able to see under her skirt while she was flying. Masaya explained that it is impossible to see it because of the angle of everyone's flight.
  • Masaya made an analogy on women wearing skirts:
    • "If you're behind a woman wearing a skirt while walking on a staircase, you think it would be easy to see under her skirt, but you'll soon find out it's impossible because of the angle".
• In the visual novel, Masaya explained that one of the old FC rules allowed any part of the body to be touched to score a point. This made the Fighter position extremely unbalanced and the Speeder position to be overwhelmingly weak, so they made it that only touches on the back scored a point.
• More than half of the Takafuji students (around 70%) are Fighters. It was implied in the visual novel that Fighters have a slight edge over Speeders.
• In the visual novel, Masaya said that it is easier to win in international FC than in Kunashima.