Avatar: the last airbender

The Common Room Other Animation
#1

A fantastic cartoon given to us by the yanks, while being very close to the anime style of Japan- Avatar has it all. Young love, growing up, war and how complicated it can sometimes be, the fact that good and evil are not as cut and dry as we might think just to name a few.

In a world where the four “elements”- air, water, earth, and fire can be ‘bended’ at will by luckily gifted people- there is also an Avatar, the one person constantly reincarnated into each nation, who can bend all four, and has the job of maintaing peace and order.

Aang the main character and the Avatar, after running away, a scared and terrified young boy terrified of losing everything, he accidently freezes himself in an iceberg for 100 years (it’s better than what it sounds), during this time, war has ravaged his world as he unknowingly has slept on. He wakes up, being only twelve years old, faced with the terrible news- he is the last airbender, all of the rest of his people massacred by the Fire Nation decades ago, and he is the last hope for the world.

What grabbed me first about this cartoon and showed me its potnetial was one called 'The Blue Spirit"- their thirteenth episode. Perhaps some would call that unlucky- far from it!

While Aang’s (the Avatar’s) love for Katara is very important, as is Zuko’s (the banished Prince of the Fire Nation and descendent of the one who killed Aang’s people) relationship with his Uncle, as well as many other relationships on the show being incredible, it is Aang’s and Zuko’s relationship which is a joy to watch. Avatar is in a sense their story.

While the main antagonist (Zuko) was shown to having another side an episode earlier, it is THIS episode which pretty much symbolises a major part of the show- the fact that Zuko and Aang (the main character, protagonist, and my personal favourite), how well much better they fight and work together on the same side rather than on opposing sides (albeit it, while Zuko had selfish reasons at the time). Aang’s line about his unsubtle hint that he wants to be friends, and the silent yet heartbreaking rejection on Zuko’s part showed me what Avatar could be. The show pretty much symbolises a major component of the show- it is about two boys, their struggles, their similarities, their differences and the fact that while the world may take one look at them and state that they MUST hate each other that they MUST be enemies, that destiny itself has other ideas. They are Aang and Zuko- the Yin and Yang on Avatar.

And honestly, I think Avatar is an extrordianry achievment in storytelling. While there are some aspects I did not like in season 3 and some things I would have tightened, overall it was a fantastic story showing how things are only sometimes black and white, especially in war and the individual people who fight in it.

#2

Sad to say, I never caught on to Avatar. I was more into the cartoony stuff like Spongebob, Rugrats, Rocko’s Modern Life, Invader ZIM, etc. (the kind of stuff I always pictured when I think of Nicktoons). Avatar looked more like Nick trying to copy anime, and I had seen too many of today’s cartoons do that sort of thing.

#3

You really should try and watch it. I first I thought it was just a another generic kids anime but then I actually got round to watching a couple of episodes and now I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the best shows on TV, and not just kids TV either.

Much of the first series isn’t fantastic though, there’s a lot of time wasting filler nonsense in their, but by series 2 the shows really grown the beard and is dealing with some pretty serious material. There are a few gems in series 1, episodes which revolve around character developement rather than wacky hijinks are always very impressive, and even the non-serious episodes tend to conceal a chekov’s gun or gunmen which isn’t revealed till later seasons.

The writing is solid, the animation is great, the voice acting really sells a lot of the emotional scenes.

So series 1 is your basic light kiddy-fare with some surprising episodes/moments thrown in, special mention goes to the show developing the villains as much more than just being evil for the sake of it, there are real motivations and developement there. Season 1 you can really just watch from episode 16 or so onwards, although the first couple are good for world setting and characters. And make sure you catch both ‘The Storm’ and ‘The Blue Spirit’ 'cause those are great. Also ‘The Warriors of Kyoshi’, ‘The King of Omashu’ and ‘Jet’ introduce characters who come back later but otherwise your not missing out on much.

Series 2 however is balls to the wall awesome, there’s not really a missed beat anywhere in this season, it introduces a slew of great characters, much character development all round, is much more arc-based and the finale is possibly the greatest wham episode I’ve ever seen.

Series 3 ties everything off nicely and is also all kinds of great.

I really can’t recommend this series enough.

#4

Although some of season one and three could have been better- overall I loved this show.

(In other news- finally have season 3 on DVD! Yay!)

For instance, [spoil]Combustion Man shouldn’t exist at all, and I felt Ozai was somewhat lacking as an antagonist really in the end. Plus I didn’t care for. [/spoil]…spiritbending/Avatar state BOTH in the finale and the turtle just coming in at the end instead of earlier perhaps. …Azula was better in terms of producing fear in general, Mai and Ty Lee and their interactions were entertaining as opposites and Iroh and Zuko had the whole ‘grey’ thing going for them for most of the show.

But overall, Avatar: TLA was a FANTASTIC show and I urge people to give it a shot. It is FAR more than simply being some cheap anime knock off- in fact it blows most animes out of the water from the simple fact it has a clear beginning and end and story, and the characters are very engaging.

Aang is an adorable kid, at times he was immature but he grew, and he really came into his own for me in the season one finale. And I love the fact Aang and Zuko as mentioned were clearly the Yin and Yang of the show. True, I could have done with seeing more of their friendship but still that’s probably me being greedy :laughing:

#5

Personally I loved the [spoil]Chakrabending[/spoil] in the finalé, to me it made perfect sense drawing from the eastern themes the rest of the show is themed on, where there is a [spoil]5th element, spirit/energy.[/spoil]

The [spoil]lion-turtle[/spoil] thing was a bit less relevant but it did have it’s foreshadowing in ‘the library’ and ‘sokka’s master’, and once again it draws from mythology.

[spoil]Combustion man[/spoil] was nice as a mysterious antagonist but I wish they had explained him more. Then again by the time he is [spoil]killed[/spoil] things are drawing to a head and there isn’t really time for the story to stop and explain an ultimately plot-irrelevant character. He’s there to drive our story on and nothing else.

I found Ozai to be a pretty great antagonist, can’t say much for his wardrobe though, and I think Azula was more threatening on a personal level like when she was going to straight up [spoil]stab Sokka[/spoil] in the invasion, that was chilling.

All in all this show is one of my favourites, this and Pixar are the two things that really turned me back on to animation as an art form. It’s also hilarious noticing all the stuff they got under the censorship radar too!