Avatar: The Last Airbender
Disclaimer:
SPOILERS!!!!
To be honest, this review kinda started as an accident. I never intended to watch this show for a review this week, but my sister who’d been away in Japan for a year-and-a-half came back. Since my usual review system is to watch whatever it is I’m reviewing on my big-screen TV I didn’t want to bother my sister with my nonsense, so I decided to watch something that was watchable on my phone instead. On top of that, I had been reminded earlier last week that I’ve been needing to watch this show on account of all of the praise I’ve heard people give it over the years, so I decided to give it a go. Needless to say, I can see why people love it.
When I was a kid I had a very weak reason for not wanting to watch this show. In fact, it’s kinda embarrassing. I mistook the show for the M. Night Shyamalan film. Ew! Now I thankfully see how layered, well-written, beautifully animated, and charmingly acted it is. For a show that was made for kids it feels much more like it was made for adults first and kids second. Its characters are deep and complex, its worldbuilding simple yet interesting, and its story a wonderful balance between fun, suspenseful, dark, and humorous. Of course it’s no stranger to corny or awkward moments like any other project, but on the whole, it is a very fun ride that I strongly recommend. There’s a lot of show to cover, so I’ll cut this intro here and get right to it.
Let’s see what happens when you blend late 90s anime and late 90s American cartoons in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
“Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Long ago the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he’s ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world.”
Yeah, I know I just took the intro narration from every episode, but can you blame me, it’s the perfect intro to this show as it’s concise, easy to follow, and basically the entire story in six sentences. Two siblings, Katara and Sokka (played by Mae Whitman and Jack De Sena), find a boy named Aang (played by Zach Tyler Eisen) frozen in a block of ice near their home when they’re out hunting. Katara and Sokka are members of the Southern Water Tribe which is located at the South Pole of this world whose specialty is, of course, waterbending. Although, the only waterbender left in the village is Katara as the rest were hunted down by the Fire Nation while her brother Sokka takes after his father and serves as the tribe’s head warrior. Their father left before the show began to face the Fire Nation directly after their mother was killed in an attack on their tribe, and the show does not shy away from this at all. In fact, there’s even an episode that takes place in the third season where Katara finds the man who killed her mother and nearly kills him too. This show can get legit hardcore when it wants to.
But, this isn’t the best representation of her character as a whole, because Katara is actually a wise, motherly type figure in the show amongst our group of rag-tag heroes. Since she lost her mother growing up, she fell into the parental role by default and came into her own, becoming strong and disciplined as a result. This doesn’t mean she’s a total stick in the mud either. While she can be a bit of a stickler for rules, she is still kind, loving, and likable. This also doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how to have fun. On her journey she loosens up, learns many lessons, and also becomes one of the most powerful waterbenders in the world. So much so that she can control the blood in another person’s body and dictate their actions like a puppet master. It’s pretty freaking badass. She’s pretty freaking badass.
Besides Katara, Sokka is the designated comic relief of the show. Wisecracking and charismatic while also sarcastic, he’s easily one of the most outwardly funny characters in the show. Each of the characters have their funny moments, but Sokka is the one cracking jokes the most often. Unlike comic relief characters in modern Disney films, Sokka has more personality outside of just ‘the joker’. He can be sensitive, shy, uptight, calculating, critical, and even prejudiced. Throughout the course of the show though, he does go through his own arc where he learns how to become the best warrior he can and follow in his father’s footsteps, understand things from other people’s point of view, and figure out his rightful place by his friends’ sides.
And of course, there’s also Aang, who is naturally, the Avatar. In terms of the show, he’s the one who is destined to master the four bending disciplines, defeat the leader of the Fire Nation, Fire Lord Ozai (played by Mark Hamill), and save the world. I know, tale as old as time, but I think the show makes it work well in this context. Aang is accompanied by his best friend Appa the Flying Bison (played by Dee Bradley Baker) who was frozen in the same iceberg Aang was. While Appa can be funny and cute in his own way, he’s mostly a quick escape generator. Other than that, I was actually a bit surprised by how much character Aang has. When I first started watching I thought he would succumb to the dreaded main-character syndrome which causes characters to be bland and uninteresting, but Aang is truly bursting with personality. He’s energetic, fun-loving, free-spirited, yet still serious, emotional, and down-to-earth when he needs to be. It’s his story that really keeps you invested and you’re with him for every step of the journey.
But with a show like this, we need a villain. Yes of course our big baddie is Fire Lord Ozai, but for the majority of this show, Aang and his team are being hunted down by Ozai’s son, Prince Zuko (played by Dante Basco). Zuko is a troubled character desperately trying to earn back his honor which he lost at the hands of his father. Ozai banished his son from the Fire Nation and burned half of his face off for speaking out of turn. Pretty heavy. While on his mission to recover the Avatar and get daddy’s love, Zuko is flanked by his uncle General Iroh (played by Mako) who offers him sage wisdom and tries to help him navigate the narrow line Zuko finds himself on between good and evil. Eventually Zuko, with the help of his uncle Iroh, chooses the path of good and helps Aang and his friends to defeat his father, but that isn’t until the third and final season. The show does a great job of making Zuko’s transformation from evil to good believable and realistic by depicting him doing several evil and good things (since he’s also the renegade named ‘The Blue Spirit’ secretly helping the Avatar), tearing himself apart mentally over which path he should choose, making us feel for his and his uncle’s relationship, and showing how little his former enemies are willing to trust him once he decides to switch sides.
The show also has a special way of showing how the hero Aang and the villain Zuko are similar by tying their motivations together. We find out in the show that once Aang discovered that he was the Avatar 100 years prior to when the show takes place, he couldn’t take the pressure and decides to run away with Appa which is when he eventually gets lost at sea and trapped in the iceberg. Aang still feels a lot of guilt about that part of his past, and we find out that ultimately he and Zuko are fighting for the same reason: redemption. Zuko wants to redeem himself to his father by capturing the Avatar and restoring his honor, and Aang wants to redeem himself to the world by mastering the four elements and restoring peace. Another interesting little tidbit further hammering home that Aang and Zuko are two sides of the same coin is the first letter of their names. A and Z, the first and last letters of the alphabet. Maybe a bit silly, but still kinda cool to me.
For a show that’s as long as it is, it doesn’t feel like it has any filler either. Some moments in Avatar: The Last Airbender come close to feeling like filler, but the vast majority of the episodes feel well crafted and intentional to the story. To give the show a bit more tension and to keep things moving forward, it presents the idea of this comet called ‘Sozin’s Comet’ named after the Fire Lord who discovered it. When it travels across the planet, it endows firebenders with unfathomable power that can allow the Fire Lord to destroy the world. As a result, the show always has every episode moving some aspect of the story forward, even if it is just character development, to prevent the Fire Lord from carrying out his evil plans. Even some characters that may seem like throwaway characters in the moment eventually come back into the story in meaningful ways to impact the outcome of the battle with the Fire Lord which is really cool. Imagine if the same thing happened in something like Bleach where all of the Bounts that survived came back in the Arrancar Arc to either help the protagonists or join forces with the antagonists. It would actually feel like those characters had a reason for existing.
Eventually, after a long game of cat-and-mouse between Zuko and our heroes, we end season one at the North Pole where the Northern Water Tribe resides, Katara and Aang have honed their waterbending skills, and Sokka’s new girlfriend Princess Yue (played by Johanna Braddy) sacrifices herself to restore the source of the waterbenders’ power, the Moon Spirit. Which is a fish. For some reason. Yeah, this is one of the few moments when the show doesn’t explain what really should be explained. It is a pretty emotional moment when Yue dies though, because despite only being together for a few episodes, Sokka and Yue have a totally believable chemistry together and you want to see them happy. Not only that, but Yue’s death has a lasting effect on Sokka throughout the rest of the show and even hurts some of his prospective relationships down the line which makes their lost love so much more impactful.
Then at the end of the first season we’re introduced to the series’ greatest secondary threat after Zuko, his sister: Princess Azula (played by Grey DeLisle). This birch…is completely f***ing insane. And I kinda love her for that. I’d even go so far as to say she’s a better Disney villain than every modern Disney twist villain in existence. She’s crafty, she’s manipulative, she’s cold, she’s heartless (even to her own brother), and gives me the creeps every time she’s on screen. So many times while I was watching this show I found myself thinking ‘Please let this be the episode she gets her ass beat’ and it doesn’t happen. Azula survives, escapes, and lives to fight another day for two whole seasons making the build up and payoff to her eventual defeat at the end of the third season both satisfying and uncomfortable at the same time. I really thought I’d be happier seeing her chained to a sewer grate absolutely humiliated, but she found a way to make it weird.
“My own mother thought I was a monster.” [Pause] “She was right of course, but it still hurt.” - Azula
We also are introduced to her entourage which includes the circus performer Ty Lee (played by Olivia Hack) and the consistently disinterested Mai (played by Cricket Leigh). Both of these girls have their own unique skill sets and personalities which helps them stand out even if they're not on screen for very long during an episode, and helps us to identify with them as well. Only in the third season do we start to delve into the backstories of these two, even if it is just a bit, but it does make us feel for them more. We also discover that Mai and Zuko had a bit of a relationship together and his constant flip-flopping between sides only complicates their relationship further. Between Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai, I personally thought Mai was the least interesting of the three, but when I found this out about her, I grew to like her a bit more. Also her completely apathetic mood towards everything makes her and Zuko a perfect fit for each other, which also makes their partnership all the more believable considering their personalities are so similar.
Then worse comes to worst when Aang and his friends run out of time since Sozin’s Comet finally arrives and Fire Lord Ozai becomes imbued with the powers of a fire god and starts to destroy the world. What makes this moment even more impactful is that the Fire Lord actually was never seen in this show until the beginning of season three. Up until then he had been kept in the shadows, never showing his face, which helped build him up as this gigantic obstacle for our heroes to overcome, which he is. Then as soon as he was revealed, while he wasn’t deformed or distorted like a monster, he was still imposing, clearly strong, and intimidating. We’re also finally made aware of his plan which is that he wants to destroy the other three nations of the world (Water, Earth, and Air) as it’s his firmly held belief that the world can only be at peace under the rule of Fire, which only he can deliver to them. He also can’t help but smile unsettlingly as he reduces everything in his path to ashes which only makes him even creepier.
As the final battle between him and Aang begins, the tension is set to maximum from the very beginning with so many elements all working against Aang in this one moment. Aang has been able to work with all four elements up until now, but he hasn’t mastered all of them. Aang has a powerful Avatar form that he’s unable to activate after one of his run-ins with Azula at the end of season two. Also I’ve already mentioned how Sozin’s Comet is buffing Ozai to hacker levels, so it looks like Aang and his friends are very much screwed from the start. During this four part mega-climax to this series, I was constantly on the edge of my seat wondering if our characters would make it out okay. Oddly enough for a kid’s show, it has a surprisingly high body count which kept me thinking that the characters I’ve grown to love up until now are all on the chopping block.
Unsurprisingly though, each of them do make it to see the ending, even the extraneous characters, and the day is saved since Ozai unknowingly reactivates Aang’s Avatar form by smacking him into a rock at just the right angle. Kinda forced, but it does lead to a great finale. Aang, through some of the best bending animation in the show, uses all four elements to nearly destroy Ozai. It’s also been a big thing up until this point about Aang not wanting to kill anyone, so he ends up sparing Ozai, but instead takes his bending away through a process that was only made aware to him a few episodes prior by a giant lion turtle. That sounds really stupid when I say it like that, but…no I got nothing.
But it looks awesome!
After that, each of our characters get their proper send-off before the conclusion. Zuko gets crowned Fire Lord, Katara and Aang get together, Sokka and his warrior girlfriend Suki (played by Jennie Kwan), who I didn’t get to mention until now because this show has so many layers that I can’t go over all of it in a review like this, get together, Iroh retires with other characters I couldn’t delve into in this short review, and everyone lives happily ever after until M. Night Shyamalan says “I know what this story needs: crap!”
It was honestly staggering to me how much I enjoyed this series, and just thinking about it still gets me excited for what kids show creators can give us in the future as far as story, character, and animation is concerned. So far we’ve seen many people innovate with shows such as Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, The Owl House, Amphibia, Star Versus the Forces of Evil, Regular Show, Adventure Time, and many more, and I’m sure there’ll be more to come, but I can’t help but wonder if this show was one of the turning points in kids animation history. Not to deny that there were brilliant kids shows that came before this series including several Disney Afternoon and Fox Kids shows such as Gargoyles, X-Men, and Batman: The Animated Series just to name a few. What I mean though is that I think Avatar was the turning point for kids shows in the 2000s to start experimenting with storytelling and drama to create a new wave of complexity for a new generation. We see nowadays so many kids shows having deep character studies, simple yet breathtaking animation, and several layers of worldbuilding which are all present in Avatar as well.
As you may have noticed if you’ve seen the show, there were clearly a lot of things from the story that I cut out in this review to keep it easily digestible for the sake of a blog post. So much so that I didn’t even get to mention Toph Beifong (played by Michaela Jill Murphy), one of the major players introduced in season two who is also one of the most beloved of them all amongst fans! She’s also just really awesome since she’s a master earthbender who ends up teaching Aang and travelling with his group despite being born blind. In fact, it’s because of her blindness that she’s as good at earthbending as she is, since she uses the vibrations in the ground to not only connect herself to her surroundings allowing her to ‘see’, but also further immerse herself in her style of bending which makes her practically unbeatable.
There are so many other aspects of this show that I could go into more detail about such as the Avatar’s reincarnation process and past Avatars such as Avatar Roku and Avatar Kyoshi, Aang’s long lost friend Bumi and his connection to Iroh through the Order of the White Lotus, the village that took inspiration from former Avatar Kyoshi and uses her legacy to continue honoring her with the Warriors of Kyoshi whom Sokka’s aforementioned girlfriend Suki is a member of, Commander/Admiral Zhao of the Fire Nation who also served as a secondary antagonist during season one, Sokka and Katara’s father who returns in season two to help his children and Aang on their quest, and so much more, but I just don’t have time.
If you want to talk more about this show, I would be happy to do so, because quite frankly, there is a lot to talk about. Also, it’s totally worth talking about. I’m certainly glad that shows like this exist and continue to inspire people to this day, and hopefully they inspire you as well. If you haven’t seen this show yet, HOW DARE YOU!!! You clearly saw that there were spoilers in this review and you read it anyway! Shame! (It’s okay, just joking) Even if you haven’t seen the show yet, like I said before, there’s still a lot in this review I didn’t talk about and still a lot to discover, and I promise you, it’s worth it if you have the time. When you get back I will happily discuss this show with you, and we can all enjoy some ripe cabbages together.
While I do really love this show, I can’t say it’s flawless, although it does do a wonderful job of knowing just how much suspension of disbelief its audience is willing to give it for the sake of making the story work. It does rely on some storytelling tactics (deus ex machina specifically) a bit too much, but if you are able to look past that, you will still find a show with endless creativity and passion for artistry in the end. Because of that I can’t rate this show perfectly, but I will still give it a 4.5/5 Tophs since it is very close to perfect storytelling and I still feel guilty for not talking about Toph earlier.
(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)
(Each of them are owned by their respective copyright holders which are not me)
(I am just a humble blogger who talks about movies/shows, I do not make them)
(Yet)
