AmbrMerlinus
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Avatar: the Last Airbender (warning: lengthy review)It’s hard for me to describe how much I like “Avatar: the Last Airbender.” The show itself is difficult to summarize and still do justice to; for an American cartoon animated in Korea with the intended audience of seven-year-old boys, it’s surprisingly deep.
“Avatar: the Last Airbender,” to give the lamest and quickest explanation, is about a bald twelve-year-old boy with blue arrow tattoos all over his body and the potential to learn more magic karate than anyone else currently alive on his planet. He has to save the world.
Or, to give a better summary, there is Aang; the main character, the previously mentioned twelve-year-old with what amounts to superpowers. He is the Avatar, the reincarnation of the spirit of the planet itself. He is also the last of the Air Nomads, a race of people who practice the martial art of Airbending, giving them control over (guess which element) air. Anyway, Aang ran away from his home at the Southern Air Temple when he realized that being the Avatar would mean forced separation from his beloved mentor and father-figure Gyatso and exile to the Eastern Air Temple. Well, he didn’t really run away so much as fly away, on the back of his faithful flying bison named Appa.
…Look, it’s fantasy, okay?
Anyway, Aang and Appa fly away from the Southern Air Temple, get caught in a storm over the ocean, and fall screaming into the sea. Once under water, Aang (and presumably Appa) starts to drown. This activates Aang’s Avatar state, the state of being in which his eyes and tattoos glow and the power of all his past lives is called upon. It’s a self-defense mechanism. It allows him to form a bubble of air around Appa and himself under the water and an icy prison around that. And so he (or rather “they;” Appa is included in the little undersea iceberg, after all) sleeps for a hundred years.
Then a girl named Katara from the Southern Water Tribe opens up the iceberg with her waterbending abilities. Zany adventures ensue, because while Aang was sleeping, the Fire Nation decided to take over the world. They exterminated all the Nomads, unleashed a devastating attack on the South Pole (which, in the Avatarverse, is inhabited by the Southern Water Tribe), and began their assault on the Earth Kingdom. Now Aang, accompanied by Katara and her brother Sokka, has to fix all of that. Good luck, Aang.
It’s not so much the plot that gets me (although that’s pretty cool) as it is the characters. They’re astonishingly endearing and real, despite the supernatural world they live in and similarly supernatural abilities they possess. Aang is, like most twelve-year-olds, immature and at times outright obnoxious (though the annoying quality of his behavior is unintentional on his part). Over the course of the show he grows into his destiny, but unlike other fantasy stories, he has to work for everything he learns. Katara has a strong maternal instinct, while at the same time a fierce desire to be a great fighter; consequently, she has within herself a miniature war between gender roles. Sokka has grown greatly over the course of the series from an egotistical misogynist to a capable, intelligent leader. (Plus, he provides excellent comic relief.) There are a multitude of other characters who are all awesome as well. The great thing about Avatar is that even the most minor of characters feel real. You find yourself pointing at the screen and saying, “I know that guy,” because a character reminds you so much of that old man next door, or the kid that sat next to you in high school math, or that one music teacher.
The third and final season of Avatar premiered on September 29th. Of course, by this time the series requires a good knowledge of the past two seasons to understand what's going on. I recommend that you borrow the DVDs from a library, movie rental store, or friend and catch up before watching the new episodes. And as with anything, the episodes can be found online, although I really wouldn't recommend that route because that tends to get illegal.
In conclusion, I would recommend this series to anyone, including my grandmother and my most hardcore of friends.
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Lilith
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Avatar is great. Incredible animation quality for who's been developing it, a damn good story without being completely cliche and more.
Seriously, its actually pretty darn good.
I happen to be pirating Book 3 Chapter 12 (The Western Air Temple) as we speak.
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AmbrMerlinus
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Ach mein Gott, The Western Air Temple! I was a bad little girl and got a hold of it last Saturday. It is marvelous!
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eleison
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Dearest Lilith:
Please refrain from mentioning piracy in this forum. (You never know when the goverment and ninjas are watching)
Sincerely,
C-chan
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Lilith
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Argh matey, I be refraining from mentioning it again, Argh.
*horrible pirate speech, argh*
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AmbrMerlinus
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So, Lils, since you seem to be an Avatar fan, who's your favorite character?
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Lilith
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Toph. Most definitely.
Crazy earth-bending goodness, blind as a bat, crude, sarcastic, all around goodness.
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