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Despite how badass motorcycles are, sometimes they're just not quite right for the situation. For one, they're large, they're noisy, you need to stay fully on them, it's hard to fight hand-to-hand and they can't maneuver well in tight spaces. So for some, roller skates are better.

A person using this is very often a kid or has a childish personality, and are also often a Fragile Speedster. If they're in an especially big hurry they can even add rockets for a little extra boost.

This trope frequently occurs in Humongous Mecha. Logically, they are there to make it easier and faster for the mecha to move across reasonably even ground, but also to help lazy animators. The wheels will either be on the feet, or the feet will transform to reveal wheels. They may even have wheels for feet. Caterpillar tracks are common substitutes for wheels. Spider tanks under 4 meters (roughly 12.5 feet) tall will normally feature wheels on the bottom of their feet.

Sometimes they may also be good at ice-skating and, in rare cases, may actually wear ice skates into non-ice places. Which are usually explained by the wearer having ice powers or having advanced tech built into the skates.

A roller skater could run into trouble if they go off the pavement, since the tiny wheels are more likely to trip on an obstacle or sink into soft ground and get stuck. The latter especially applies to wheels on the feet of bipedal mecha, which would create a lot of ground pressure on a small contact area. However, the work may ignore this problem under the Rule of Cool.

Not to be confused with Wheel o' Feet. A form of Travel Cool. Don't expect roller skaters to use helmets unless the work is explicitly marketed to young children, in which case they're practically required to demonstrate proper helmet use.


Examples

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    Anime and Manga 
  • 20th Century Boys: The Humongous Mecha must be bipedal according to The Book of Prophecy. The scientist kidnapped to design it emphatically points out that this is completely impractical. His solution is to treads under the hollow feet support the weight of the machine, while the feet only lift up and down.
  • Air Gear: The plot revolves around motorized inline skates called Air Treks, or ATs, and the gang wars among the people who wear them. They are so powerful that one can skate up tall, vertical walls with them. A skilled enough user can achieve Not Quite Flight (most of the cast does end up flying later, but it's not because of the ATs). To give an indication of how far these things can throw you using only momentum and center of gravity adjustment, the current record for longest no ramp (unless you count the starting pad they jump off of, but there is no ramp of the end of it) leap is 35.09 meters. For those who are not on the metric system, and are too lazy to do the conversion, that's 115ft 1.5in. For those who may be having a hard time visualizing that, 35.09 meters is roughly the same height as your average three story building. Yeah.
  • Alien Nine: The Alien Party chases extra-terrestrials around their elementary school on in-line skates. Armed with butterfly nets. And symbiotic aliens as helmets.
  • Anpanman: Roll Cake-chan is a roller-skating girl who loves making roll cakes. Both Anpanman and Baikinman also do this in the intro for the Edutainment specials.
  • The mecha in Armored Trooper VOTOMS use this extensively, and are probably the Trope Codifier for Humongous Mecha having these.
  • Bakusou Kyoudai! Let's & Go!! devotes the entire second season on roller stakes. Every major character wears them as a part of their uniforms.
  • Battle Angel Alita features Motorball, a game where people in skates need to cross a finish line while carrying a heavy ball — if the opponents don't tear you apart first.
  • Black★Rock Shooter: Chariot has large wheels with spikes on their outer sides for her legs which help in her high-speed battle style.
  • Burst Angel: Jango, the Humongous Mecha, has roller skates and a jet engine. They actually have a function, as they're meant for speeding through Tokyo's highways.
  • Cardcaptor Sakura: Sakura skates to school every day and uses them in battle on occasion, with one particularly impressive example when fighting The Fly in the first episode.
  • The lady Phantom Thieves of Cat's Eye use this method to escape the scene of their heists sometimes, and look impossibly cool at it, especially in the anime.
  • The Knightmare Frames in Code Geass use roller wheels called landspinners as their primary method of locomotion (until flight packs get mass-produced). Played the most straight with the Shen-Hu, whose landspinners are actually designated "rollerblade-type" and are formed by a pair of blade-like projections on the feet which form down, as opposed to the wheel being on a separate limb as with all other models.
  • Eyeshield 21: Suzuna loves to wear these, even when cheerleading. Her ice-skating skills are also top-notch, too.
  • Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: The Tachikomas have wheels for feet to allow for high-speed movement. In the first season, the wheels also fold into three-toed feet for climbing up sheer-faced walls, or occasionally, hanging from the ceiling. When the Tachikomas return in the second season, they instead have spheres on their feet that allow them to roll along any smooth surface in total defiance of gravity.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: Ghiaccio has this as part of his powers (albeit with ice skates instead of roller skates). His Stand, White Album, manifests as a suit made of ice complete with built in skates, and he can freeze the path in front of him so that he can skate through it, being able to catch up to even a speeding car.
  • Kaleido Star: In the first episode, Sora Naegino catches a pair of loaner rollerblades to chase after a luggage thief, going awning-hopping to finally track him down. Her rollerblade skating abilities come handy later, when she has to train for a role in Dracula that includes ice-skating. Too bad she loses to May, a top-notch ice skater.
  • Kirby: Right Back at Ya!: Kirby gets rollerblades when he copies the Paint ability from Paint Roller.
  • Lyrical Nanoha: Quint Nakajima and her daughters Subaru and Ginga all use skates with magical rocket boosters on them to get around (as well as having a unique magic skill that can create pathways in midair for them to skate on). They also serve as Empathic Weapons. However, they are more Lightning Bruiser than Fragile Speedster. Nove has a bulkier pair that are even her primary weapons.
  • Examples from Macross:
    • Ever since the original series, the Variable Fighters have pulled this in GERWALK mode, skating around on the jets from their legs (that in fighter mode are their engines) Dom-style.
    • The Alternate Continuity Macross II has its entire series of Destroids equipped with these. Helps especially with the Giant Monster, the largest mecha after the transforming starships.
    • The Prequel Macross Zero has the Destroid Cheyenne and the Octos. The feature not being present on the Destroids of the original series is implied to be because those are far heavier, and the rollers just wouldn't work.
    • Macross Frontier brings it back for Destroids with the Cheyenne II, and introducesthe EX-Gear with the same ability (that in the Non-Serial Movies acquire rocket-powered skates courtesy of the EX-Gear's Jet Pack). The Cheyenne II also show up in Macross Delta.
  • In MegaMan NT Warrior (2002), Lan Hikari has shoes that also function as roller blades, with the roller blades sometimes being needed in later seasons to gain the speed needed to breach a dimensional area in order to cross fuse, though Cross Fusion Mega Man doesn't seem to use them.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Humongous Mecha MS-09 Dom, which uses jets built into its legs to skate along the ground instead of running.
  • Monster Rancher: Genki uses these very often in battle.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Konoka Konoe skates her way to school. This is used to contrast her with her panting, diligently running companions and thus display her easygoing, carefree nature.
  • Paranoia Agent: Lil' Slugger wears rollerblades, though he isn't as good as he is utterly terrifying.
  • Real Drive: Minamo has shoes that sprout rollerblades at opportune moments.
  • RideBack: The titular machines are Cool Bikes that can transform into small-sized mecha with the bike wheels instead of feet, allowing their pilots to cover both Badass Biker and Rollerblade Good depending on situation.
  • SD Gundam Force: Shute has a set of these, with the usual speed boost rockets. He's also added magnets to the wheels, which let him skate on sometimes vertical metal surfaces.
  • Shugo Chara!: After her season 2 power-up, Amulet Heart has a pair of rollerblades. Which can fly.
  • Soul Eater: Giriko has skates made of chainsaws. Seeing as he can change into a chainsaw, it's not a huge stretch to change only his legs.
  • This is taken to an extreme in Super Robot Wars: Original Generation: Divine Wars, in which just about every mecha not capable of atmospheric flight can instead hover-skate over not only the ground, but the water as well.
  • In Superwomen in Love!, Cool Down has retractable ice skates built into her boots, which she uses to skate circles around Rapid Rabbit in their first encounter after she lays a sheet of ice over the ground.
  • Synduality: Noir: The Cradlecoffins use these to move at speed.
  • Transformers: Armada: Hot Shot can lower the wheels around his ankles and roller skate on them.
  • Trigun brings us Rai-Dei the Blade, a samurai who uses Dangerous Forbidden Techniques with his katana against gunslingers. To compensate for his reduced effective range, he wears rocket-powered roller blades. Somehow, Vash manages to keep a straight face while fighting him.

    Comic Books 
  • Carrie Kelly (Catgirl) in The Dark Knight Strikes Again usually appears on skates.
  • Marvel Universe:
    • Several characters, such as Speedfreek and Blue Streak, use jet-propelled skates. Rocket Racer and Night Thrasher use skateboards.
    • In her early Disco days, Dazzler used roller-skates.
    • Whenever Iron Man needs to get around fast and flying is not an option, some of his armor suit boots have roller skate wheels that pop out for some speedy ground transportation. On some occasions, using them also recharges his batteries in the process (this was when IM needed his entire chest plate to stay alive).
    • In her early X-Men appearances, Jubilee was a mall rat who got around on rollerblades. She taught Professor X to rollerblade (his legs happened to be working that evening)... then led him into the lake.
  • Robin (1993): Tim fights a group of teens who rollerblade around the Bristol Township north of Gotham vandalizing things and robbing people by chasing them down on his skateboard.
  • Ramona from Scott Pilgrim has a pair of rollerblades that can melt the snow beneath her feet.
  • In the Sin City graphic novel Family Values, Miho rollerblades her way through the Basin City mafia, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake.
  • There was a short-lived comic called Skateman, about a skating hero, but it predates rollerblades.
  • Duela Dent, back in her heroic Teen Titans days, would occasionally turn her shoes into rollerblades as both the Joker's Daughter and the Harlequin.

    Eastern Animation 

    Fan Works 
  • In Amazing Fantasy, several members of the Rocket Racer Gang, including Himiko Toga, are equipped with rocket-boosted roller skates by Mysterio, giving them blistering speed that they use to commit rampant assault and robbery. She ditches them while making her escape from Peter.
  • Wings of Rebellion: Crow summons wheels on his boots, making rollerblades out of them, when he wants to move around quickly through Mementos and the Monamobile is unavailable.

    Films — Animated 
  • GoGo from Big Hero 6 uses these like an Olympic athlete.
  • In Monsters vs. Aliens, Ginormica uses cars as roller skates to escape from the alien robot. Later she uses the same trick with hoverboards. And in the video game her car-skating becomes the whole shtick of her levels.
  • In Robots, Cappy kicks down wheels embedded in her feet and "rollerderbies" a few bad guys to help Rodney and Bigweld escape, then later in the underground battle with Madame Gasket (voiced by Jim Broadbent) she uses them again.
  • We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story has a scene in which Rex uses a pickup truck as a skateboard to escape the police. He also grinds down the wire of the Brooklyn Bridge.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The climax of Birds of Prey (2020) has Harley Quinn fighting Roman's men on roller skates. She ditches the skates before confronting Roman on the pier.
  • One of the first action set pieces from Coolie Killer has the titular hero assaulted by rollerblading mooks in his apartment, some which he defeats, and have to flee through the corridor outside while being chased by those mooks. The hero managed to subdue them briefly by turning a janitor’s trolley in the corridor around where mooks unable to stop themselves in time ends up crashing into the trolley, but just for a short while.
  • The Triplets from Dogma, being roller-hockey themed mooks.
  • The titular kids in Hackers get around on blades, and the Plague uses a skateboard.
  • In Inspector Gadget (1999), Gadget's shoes can inexplicably turn into rollerblades with tiny gas-powered motors attached. Inspector Gadget 2 ditches this for an even more implausible scooter, which comes out of Gadget's shoe.
  • Subverted in Jackass: The Movie, which has them trying rocket-skates which sent the guy flat on his ass after a couple feet, showing that the rocket powered skates aren't quite Truth in Television yet.
  • The Postman Fights Back has a fight scene on a frozen lake where the heroes are ambushed by a number of bandits on ice skates.
  • In the wake of the rollerblade fad, the Corey Haim vehicle Prayer Of The Rollerboys features a dystopic, near-future LA where the toughest gang on the streets is a bunch of teenage white supremacists who ride rollerblades into their rumbles.
  • Return to Oz features a threatening gang of "wheelers" who have rollers for hands and feet and cackle maniacally.
  • Rollerball centers on a Blood Sport featuring both skaters and people on motorcycles.
  • Exaggerated in Roller Blade: Almost everybody is going around in roller skates, with absolutely zero explanation as to why they can't just walk. It also seems that they summon their power from it, when Hunter (Sister Fortune) awakes with the nuns without her skates, she immediately panics (but they're just cleaned) and Marshall Goodman wants his son to learn skating because of reasons. There are also characters who use skateboards (like the punks) and even moments where people don't skate at all (like Marshall Goodman's son or Hunter at one point), but this doesn't go well for them most of the time.
  • Splitting Heirs: Henry is first seen on rollerblades and will be seen with them once in a while throughout the movie.
  • Transformers Film Series:
    • In Transformers (2007), Bonecrusher transforms into his robot form and proceeds to rollerblade down the highway after the heroes, only to be blocked by Optimus Prime when he turns around to do the same.
    • In Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, Sideswipe literally has wheels for feet. Damn, he's good...
  • The Warriors: The leader of the Punks who corners the Warriors in the public toilet on Union Station rolls about on skates, though this doesn't give him any advantage in the close quarter Bathroom Brawl that follows.
  • Whip It is about a misfit who discovers that she has a hidden talent when she joins a Roller Derby league.

    Literature 
  • Adrian Mole: Inverted with Adrian in Growing Pains, when Nigel sets him up on a roller skating blind date with Sharon Botts. Despite practising with his skates as much as he can beforehand, he is not good at skating at all, unlike Sharon, who whizzes around and does the splits. Needless to say, the date is not a success.
  • One of the main characters of Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller is Soq, a gender-neutral street kid working as a messenger for the underworld who uses this trope to race around the City on the Water, a job that's both illegal and dangerous.
  • InCryptid: Antimony is a derby girl, so it's natural she's good with skates. They're one of the only things she takes with her when she's on the run from the Covenant.
  • In Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, Claire's movement is frequently described as skating, though she actually wears ground-repelling shoe inserts.
  • In Starship Troopers, the Marauder suits can glide on wheels in the feet. However, most of the MI prefer not to use them because of the rocky terrain they usually have to cross.
  • Subverted in World War Z when a mercenary tells how he saw a kid on roller blades wielding a hockey stick with a cleaver at the end of it. He was grabbed at the ankle (making him fall), and then dragged into a gutter. And then called a "dumbass". By Paris Hilton.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Ace Lightning: Random Virus is a Cyborg whose legs have been replaced with large black caterpillar tracks one might see on tanks. This gives Random the least amount of mobility among the three Lightning Knights.
  • Discussed in one Countdown With Keith Olbermann "Worst Person in the World" segment. The "worser" person comments on China's Olympic Torch woes and suggests getting faster runners, while Keith suggests giving them rocket-powered roller Skates because that would be even better.
  • Father Dougal Mcguire from Father Ted has to give up rollerblading as a vice for Lent in one episode.
  • Mr. Bean: A Comic Relief special episode "Torvill and Bean" has Mr Bean in the audience of Torvill and Dean on ice skates. When he finds he is sitting on the wrong side of the arena, he takes a short cut across the ice, in his regular shoes. When he discovers he has left his programme on the other side, he hangs on to a line of skaters, and swipes the programme as he passes. Later, he steals Dean's skates, and surprises Torvill by turning up in Dean's place, performing all kinds of improbable stunts.
  • One episode of MythBusters has Jamie, in the course of building a hovercraft, zooming across the shop in skates wearing a homemade Jet Pack made from several leaf-blowers grafted together.
  • The Quantum Ranger's power-up armor in Power Rangers Time Force has rollerblades.
  • Rollergames was a 1989 television series that tried to turn the sports of roller derby into a theatrical show. It only lasted one season, but it had several tie-in products, including a Pinball table from Williams Electronics and an arcade game and an NES game, both developed by Konami.
  • In Tomica Hero Rescue Force, the late-series Humongous Mecha Rescue Max is made from the parts of two large rescue vehicles, and thus even with "legs", it's inevitable that it's going to have to skate around on wheels. The rockets only come out when it's time for the Finishing Move.

    Music 
  • The unnamed girl who's the focus of the music video of the Dire Straits song Skateaway.
  • The music video for Halestorm's It's Not You features two flat track Roller Derby teams, with Lzzy occasionally also skating.
  • Spice Girls: In their live shows in 1998, there was a sequence involving Geri on roller skates; this only lasted until she left the band the same year, with the other girls reportedly glad this sequence was no longer there. Geri also wrote in her autobiography that the manager of a luxury hotel had to deal with complaints when she and Mel B rollerbladed through the corridors: girls will be girls.

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech has rules for adding treads to the feet of mechs. There are only a few canon designs who sport them, all construction vehicles (with one that's fully armed and armored for combat, it's classified as construction equipment as a form of Loophole Abuse), but it provides a few useful effects, primarily reduced penalties for damage to the legs as long as the treads are intact and the ability to drive across rough terrain without the risk of falling over. They're just too heavy and impractical for use outside of specialized designs, which is why they're not seen on more machines.
  • In the d20 Modern sourcebook Cyberscape, you can get retractable roller blades as a cybernetic implant, allowing you to improve your move speed quite a bit.
  • Gorkamorka has the unofficial BladerZ mob from the fan-driven Gubbinz magazine that consists of a number of Boyz and a Nob wearing BladeZ BootZ. These wheeled BootZ give the model a movement bonus and the ability to hang onto the back of a vehicle, but mean that they're unable to climb ladders or mount vehicles.
  • The mecha of Heavy Gear run with retractable roller skates for high-speed movement over flatter ground. No rockets, and usually doesn't say much about the pilot's personality — they're just around to make transportation easier. Carried over to the video games. Heavier models instead have caterpillar treads built into their feet in place of wheels, but they work just the same.
  • Mage: The Ascension has rocket-powered rollerblades that can run up walls... and along ceilings... and reach 200 MPH in 20 feet. Failing the rather difficult athletics rolls with them spells painful disaster.
  • One of the cyberbits you can put on in Shadowrun (at least its third edition) is, basically, in-line Gadget skates.

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE: Onua Nuva can use his Quake Breakers as all-terrain treads. Umbra also wears rollerblades that let him move at the speed of light.

    Video Games 
  • Daisy in Agents of Mayhem wears skates as part of her uniform, since she's a former roller-derby player. Her special power gives her a sudden boost to speed and durability and causes her to automatically body-check any enemy she skates into.
  • Lilica Felchenerow from Arcana Heart sports such a pair and uses them in many of her attacks.
  • Azure Striker Gunvolt: In his transformed form, Viper has spur-like wheels attached to his legs that he uses not only to move around but also to attack.
  • As a Spiritual Successor to the below Jet Set Radio, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk includes rollerblades as an option for characters to get around and do tricks in.
  • While most of the characters use some sort of vehicle or just run on foot, Chocobo of Chocobo Racing is given a pair of rollerblades called the Jet-Blades in order to run the courses, and she's often faster than her competition. (Partially because her Dash special move functions as a Haste spell.)
  • The Ridepod gets them as a leg upgrade in Dark Chronicle. They improve overall speed and mobility while using it, making them an important invention early into the game.
  • Grace from Fighting Vipers is equipped with a pair of roller blades.
  • In Final Fantasy VII Remake, Enhanced Shock Troopers in the Shinra HQ rollerblade around, which makes landing solid hits on them with melee attacks a real pain in the neck.
  • Front Mission 4 has this in its intro video in a most certainly badass way. This is also something that can be upgraded onto humanoid leg parts, allowing equipped wanzers to move in straight lines (such as down streets) much farther than they could walk. They can't actually turn while using these though, unlike in the cutscenes.
  • Jet Set/Grind Radio has all the playable characters in skates. Including the unlockable characters of the last boss, the last boss' human form, and the heroes' dog.
  • The King of Fighters: Kula Diamond usually doesn't show it but she can create blades of ice under her boots in her "run" animation. Some of her kick attacks also use it.
  • One of the new characters added in Lethal League Blaze is Jet, who true to her inspiration wears a pair of skates in battle.
  • Cube from Live A Live is a robot with roller skates as its feet.
  • Mega Man:
    • Top Man from Mega Man 3 has roller blades on his feet. He uses them to move fast across the room while spinning and shooting spinning tops at Mega Man. Unfortunately, this means that when you get his weapon, you don't get the tops — you get his ability to do a 360. And since Mega Man doesn't have roller blades, he can only use said ability in the air. At least it's useful for getting rid of those annoying enemies that bump you into pits while you are jumping merrily around. It also kills the final boss in one hit.
    • Mega Man himself gets some in Mega Man Legends. Except that they do away with wheels entirely and use jets.
    • In the second Mega Man ZX game, Argoyle and Ugoyle have wheels for legs that they can use for combined speedy moves. When you gain their forms and use them, you can dash indefinitely with those wheels, as opposed to normal limited-distance dash of previous Mega Man games.
    • Lan Hikari from Mega Man Battle Network loves rollerblading so much that he even rollerblades indoors. He can switch between walking or skating.
  • Metal Gear:
  • A variant in Overwatch: Lucio wears a pair of glowing blades that let him wall-run.
  • Persona 4 Golden: In lieu of the motorbikes that the rest of the team (except Kanji, who uses a bicycle) uses for transportation, Teddie uses a pair of roller skates. For his Cavalry Attack, he pirouettes skates-first onto an enemy, then jumps off and poses.
  • Pokémon X and Y feature rollerblades as a form of transportation for the player and has Gym Leader, Korrina, being a big user of them. They're much faster than the Running Shoes (which you now start the game with) and since they're controlled with the Circle Pad, they also let you break free of the Invisible Grid for the first time in a main-series Pokémon game.
  • Clara from Power Instinct has the ability to turn into an age-progressed version of herself decked out in an odd, Stripperiffic costume and rollerblades. One of the games makes this special form of hers a dedicated, selectable character.
  • The protagonist of Rapid Reload is an expert on rollerblades, with one notable level having him pursuing mooks in a Minecart Madness level while on skates.
  • In Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure, when Raphael/Phantom R is escaping from Louvre, he is chased by the police force's "famed Paris Rollerskate Brigade".
  • Wumela from the Richman series wears roller skates in 6 and its expansion.
  • The game Roller Champions is about a sport that seems to be a mix of inline speed skating and the basketball-like Aztec sport known as ollamaliztli.
  • In Saints Row: The Third, the Decker specialists are gothic school girls with Tron Lines and roller skates that allow them to almost Flash Step around the battlefield.
  • Skylanders: SWAP Force has Roller Brawl, a spitfire of a girl and vampire roller derby champion, who joins the Skylanders when she draws the unwanted attention of the series' Big Bad. For extra awesomeness, her roller skates don't have wheels, they have circular saws.
  • Smite's Ne Zha skates around on his chakrams.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Shadow the Hedgehog doesn't need a Wheel o' Feet to prove that he's fast... he's got hover skates.
    • Sonic Riders features hover skates as a variety of Extreme Gear. Naturally, Shadow's default Extreme Gear in the first game is a Skate-type gear.
    • In Sonic Frontiers, the Titan fought on Chaos Island, KNIGHT, has four legs with wheel-like structures, letting it zoom around and run circles in its arena.
  • Steel Battalion: Line of Contact changed 5th gear into a wheel mode. Fast and smooth on level terrain, but worse for climbing and much harder on the balancer during turns, increasing the likelihood of the VT tipping over if the pilot isn't careful.
  • Two characters in the Street Fighter franchise wear rollerskates.
    • Yang from Street Fighter III, is often seen wearing a pair, usually in cut-scenes, but never in actual combat.
    • Area, a Mad Scientist girl introduced in Street Fighter EX 2 Plus, wears a pair in battle along with a big gauntlet (actually an invention of her father).
  • Super Mario Bros. Wonder has Rolla Koopas, a variant of Koopa Troopas that wear these and can move faster and jump across pits. Wiggler in this game also wears some pairs of these.
  • Ratsel Feinschmecker's Aussenseiter of Super Robot Wars is a Humongous Mecha with large wheels attached to its feet that allow it to skate along the ground to make fast attacks.
  • Inverted in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, in which bladers are whiny brats who are to be thoroughly embarrassed by the skateboarders.

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 
  • Carla in Dumbing of Age is always on roller skates, although she eventually accepted that the rules against skating in the hallways actually applied to her.
  • Thog from The Order of the Stick has his beloved rocket skates.
  • The Rock Cocks: Emily Roller never takes her skates off.

    Western Animation 
  • The Bots Master: Three of the best fighters within the robot cast, the Street BOYZZ duo and Ninjzz, move around on retractable roller skates built into their feet.
  • Loogie from Get Ed has a pair of jet-propelled skates. While he may or may not qualify completely for Fragile Speedster status, he's certainly the most... eccentric... team member, talking to his sock puppet catfish Dr. Pinch.
  • Inspector Gadget is equipped with a pair of Gadget Skates.
  • Rhodey makes fun of Tony for the idea of putting roller blades on the Iron Man suit in Iron Man: Armored Adventures. Later in the season, he does just that.
  • Kim Possible travels on rocket skates often enough.
  • In Miraculous Ladybug, Alix Kubdel and her supervillain self Timebreaker use roller skates. As Alix, they are normal skates, but as Timebreaker, they grant her Super-Speed and allow her to time travel, provided she's charged them with other people's life force.
  • Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023): One of Lunella's primary forms of movement, in and out of her superhero costume. Since her family owns a rollerskating ring in this iteration, she incorporates her skills fighting off Faceless Mooks, monsters, and tech-based villains on a pair of roller skates.
  • One of the toys that Boris bought out with his enormous supply of counterfeit box tops in the Box Top Badman arc of Rocky and Bullwinkle was atomic roller skates.
  • Static Shock: Gear invents rocket skates that can fly.
  • Maxwell from Stone Protectors got these as a superpower, along with being able to climb. Out of the Five-Man Band he really got heart-level powers.
  • Streex of Street Sharks is a tiger shark with roller blades.
  • Red Riding Hood/Wonder Red from Super Why! wears rollerskates both normally and transformed, but they become much faster rollerblades when transformed.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • Transformers:
    • In Beast Wars, Megatron's Transmetal form's beast mode is a roller-skating VTOL T-rex.
    • Beast Machines gives the "wheels as feet" to Rattrap. It's pretty much a hindrance to him, though. Vehicon General Thrust has a mono-wheel setup similar to Claptrap.
    • In Transformers: Animated, Bumblebee and Optimus Prime both have one of their wheels on each of their robot modes that they have been occasionally shown to move around on. On the other hand, Prowl has his vehicle mode's wheels in his knees and can use them to ride up walls. Optimus and Prowl only ever pull this trick once; Bumblebee uses his skates a lot more, given that he's the Fragile Speedster.
  • Wayside character Maurecia's entire personality is this.
  • Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner: Wile E. Coyote uses rocket skates in his very first appearance. Needless to say, it does not end well.
  • Work It Out Wombats!: In "Cafe Chaos", Louisa decides to get things done faster by using roller-skates, and she teaches Zeke how to roller-skate as well.
  • Spyke from X-Men: Evolution was never far from his skateboard until he was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.

    Real Life 
  • Roller Derby. However, the Fragile Speedster bit is usually hugely, hugely averted (jammers and pivots tend to be Lightning Bruisers, with blockers being a mix of Lightning Bruisers and Mighty Glaciers). All modern roller derby rule sets explicitly forbid the use of rollerblades for competing skaters — only quad skates are permitted on the track (though referees are permitted to use rollerblades per WFTDA rules, referees train with the league, requiring them to own quads).
  • A Libyan fighter shows us what a drive by on rollerblades would look like.

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