Avatar the Last Airbender. For years I hemmed and hawed on the idea of it and ultimately decided against it. Because, I talk about anime, and by most definitionsAvatar is not anime. Therefore it’s something I shouldn’t talkabout, since it’s not in my realm of expertise. Sure it’s an animated series, and its styleand content are anime inspired. Heck, its sequel series Korra was even attimes animated by Japanese Studio Pierrot. You know, the guys who animated Tokyo Ghoul? They did seven full episodes of Korra. But! Avatar was a show created by Americans, writtenby Americans, and aired on an American channel for an American audience. The show is American in origin and as suchdoes not qualify as an “anime”. At least, not as far as many westerners generallydefine the term. Now I’m not going to go further into whatdoes and does not qualify as anime. That’s something worthy of its own video. But I am personally of the mind that Avataris not Anime. Yet, I also believe that any fan of animewill enjoy watching Avatar, for the same reasons that they love anime. It might not be anime, but that shouldn’tstop you from watching it like it was one. So ladies, gentlemen and others, my name isArkada and welcome to Glass Reflection, today the 2005 animated series made for Nickelodeon:Avatar the Last Airbender. Let’s Jam. The TL;DR of me talking about Avatar, ignoring the beforeexplained
“WHAT IS ANIME” argument is thus: It is not a perfect series. There are several dips and bends that Avatarmakes as a piece of entertainment. But, it’s one of the best animated seriesfrom North America that I have seen. I would even put it leagues ahead of manyother Japanese animated shows that I have watched. It’s a show that has this balanced blendof comedy, action, and characters. A balance that make it’s episodes absolutejoys to watch. In my review for the Seven Deadly Sins, Isaid that it was a kind of show where each episode went by so fast. Fast enough that you don’t even notice asthe episodes passed you by, because you were just enjoying it so much. Avatar is similar, except for me it went byeven faster. A year ago is when I first watched the series,and when I did, I ended up going through it all at an average of a season a day. I just turned it on and stopped when it feltlike the sun was rising to bring in a new day. When I needed some sleep because I was pastthe point where coffee could help me. Avatar follows the story of the last remainingbender of Air, Aang. In this world, there are special individualswho can bend the four elements of the world. Air, Water, Earth and Fire. While there are many tribes of people dedicatedto each of these four arts, Aang is the last of his tribe.
He is also the mystical Avatar. Because in this world there can only be oneperson at a time who can master all 4 elements, and that person is the Avatar. There’s a lot of mysticism here that makesthe story’s origin compelling. It’s like how the Force and the Jedi workedin the early days of Star Wars. You don’t need to know how the Force worksto think that it’s cool and awesome. Just like here we don’t need any kind ofscientific explanation on why and how bending works. Certainly don’t need an explanation on whyand how the Avatar exists. Because that would be akin to introducingmediclorians to this series. Good thing that never happened, right Korra? Anyway, while we never have scientific explanationsin Avatar, the show had many in-universe explanations for why things work. Also, many of the traditions of the peoplein Avatar were based on actual real life cultures. Bending is an example. The 4 different kinds of bending all havetheir own individual martial art influence. There is much of this series that comes offas a love letter to Asian cultures, anime, and to Hong Kong kung fu films. This makes the show, despite being for children,still have a kind of mature seriousness to it at times. It’s this seriousness that draws peopleinto its story. Similar to why people like me watch Japaneseanimation. For me, I started watching anime back in theday because what I watched from Japan was just so new, so different. Anime drew me in because it had the fluidnature of cartoons. It had the ability to bend reality that liveaction shows could not, but it did so in a serious and real way. Anime never treated me like a child even withthe shows designed for them. Too often in American animation, you get thatfeeling like this was meant only for a child. Like at times it’s talking down to you.
Anime never did that for me, and Avatar isa rare American series that does the same thing. Which leads me into being able to talk aboutone of the best things that Avatar has. Life lessons done right. Because ultimately this series is about agroup of children on an adventure. Along the way, they learn things about theworld and about life that every child usually goes through. But how the show handles it is different fromothers. It never comes off as a show that preachesto its audience. Each lesson it teaches is not something that’sfocused on specificly. The characters don't end off each episodetalking about what they learned. Which is astounding when one of the best characters,preaches advice left and right. Uncle Iroh is one of the best characters inanimation, and this includes anime. Iroh is never a focus of the story, neverin the spotlight. But he guides the characters, like his nephewZuko, in a way that's so profound and full of wisdom. Instead of Iroh lecturing the audience bluntly,he teaches characters in ways that helps them. But in doing so he has the audience learnso they don’t make similar mistakes. I know what you are going to say. She’s my sister, and I should be tryingto get along with her. No, she’s crazy and she needs to go down. True, he’s a caricature at times, beingthat old sage sprouting Chinese proverbs. But there are times when his advice is movingand emotional. Here’s a good example of what I mean:What are you doing here? I was just about to ask you the same thing. What do you plan to do now that you have foundthe Avatar’s Bison? Keep it locked in our new apartment? Should I go put on a pot of tea for him? First I have to get it out of here. AND THEN WHAT? You never think these things through! This is exactly what happened when you capturedthe Avatar at the North Poll. You had him, and then you had nowhere to go! In this scene, Iroh is confronting Zuko abouthow he never plans for the future. How he always seems like he’s just goingthrough life by the seat of his pants and never looks at the big picture. But he’s also pleading with him to not continuetrying to please or live up to the expectations of others. Instead to live for himself. In just about a minute he’s able to coverboth these aspects of Zuko’s character. It's masterful, and the show has many momentsof writing like this. But the show is not all life lessons and sageadvice.
It contains plenty of action, even from characterswho you’d least expect it from. Like the other best character that Avatarhas to offer: Toph. Toph is blind. She is a young blind girl who also just happensto be the best earth bender in the world. She has a daredevil-like ability to be a badassand see without eyes. She is also the reason why I watched thisshow to begin with. I kept seeing her scenes posted online andwanted to know her story, what her deal was. Toph is an example of a character introducedto cover diversity and disabilities. Mostly because no one else ever touches thesetopics so it’s wide open for awesome stories to occur. Too often in many cultures, disabilities aresomething that's frowned upon. They are something not normal, something tobe pitied. But Avatar decides to say screw that! Let’s have one of the most powerful bendersbe a little blind girl. Not only that, let's show the world how adisability can make a person stronger! She has moments of weakness, yes: she can’tread. She can’t see any enemy if they attack herfrom the air. Also, in less-than-ideal conditions she’shindered by her environment. But she is far from useless or weak. And she’s not the only one. Early in season one we have a wheelchair boundchild take flight in a glider. Heck, even Zuko has something to a similareffect. Having half his face burnt off is somethingthat in our society would place him in outcast category. But they all have their stories of awesomenessthat make Avatar what it is. I haven’t even talked about the main characterseither. Jeeze. Avatar has this weird kind of entertainmentvalue. While watching it, I could see the flaws. The entire third season was far lower in storyquality than what the previous seasons offered. Despite that, though it was still enjoyable. At that point you have fallen so far in lovewith the characters that the rest rarely matters. On top of which, Avatar is a series that isan example of preplanning and arc building done right. You see, if you look at a show with 3 seasonslike this, what you normally get is a show with three clear and concise arcs. Arcs that each have their own stories, climaxesand conclusions. But they are arcs that are separate from eachother. Here though, that’s not the case. The main goals get defined early on and thatnarrative lasts all the way until the final episode. Sure there are subplots disguised as theirown arcs but the true story of the show is always present. It's always visible, and eventually it concludes. This reminds me of one of my favorite sciencefiction shows ever. Babylon 5. Bab 5 a show that had its entire narrativearc conceived before the first episode was ever written. The result is one long story that has thesame cohesiveness as one a 5th of its length. Avatar feels like that. You know early on how Avatar is going to end. Aang is going to defeat the fire lord andsave the world. But you keep watching because the journeyof Aang from an uppity air bender to a proper avatar is what is compelling about the show. The story of Zuko, fighting against the desireto please his father is what is compelling about the show. The nuances of the villains, from the firelord to his daughter Azula, is what is compelling about this show. Sokka’s failure at romance is what is compellingabout this show. M
first girlfriend turned into the moon. That’s rough buddy. Avatar is a series that I’m disappointedothers have not taken pointers from. It’s a show that takes various elementsthat we’ve all seen before. Plucky young characters pitted against anultimate evil, fighting for freedom and peace. But the show expands so much from those traditionalcliché elements. Its characters are more than just archetypesor embodiments of tropes. Instead they are daughters, they are sons,they are enemies while also being friends. The depth of all the characters is so muchvaster than other shows of its kind. It makes this series SO much more than justsome young kid setting off to fight evil. It’s about the relationships that the charactershave. It's about how they interact, and learn fromone another. How they develop into living, breathing people. If you’ve never watched Avatar before, allowme to recommend a single episode for you. From season two, there is an episode called“Tales from Ba Sing Se”. It’s unique because it's not one story thattakes up 25 minutes, it’s a collection of short stories. Stories about the various characters who arenow living in the Earth Kingdom city of Ba Sing Se. It doesn’t advance the main story of Aangfighting the firelord, nor does it continue any other character's storyline. In fact, most would consider this episodeto be useless filler. But it’s an episode that is less of a progressionfor any of the characters, and more of a summary of what some of them are. It’s an example of what Avatar tries todo with its characters that other shows don't and I highly recommend it. *sigh* I just want to keep talking about thisshow. Because I’ve held off for so long that Icould just sit here and talk for hours. It reminds me of last year for the RWOA whenI reviewed HunterxHunter. I had so much to say, because that show wasso long. But I didn’t want to keep you here all day. So allow me to summarize again. Avatar has much to it that many other Americanshows, and even quite a few Japanese shows lack. It never draws out its content, it never setsup narrative arcs that don’t get developed.
It actually has narrative arcs which sometimesdo not occur in TV animation in the West. It is a series filled with individual stories,paced quite well. Stories that develop its characters in a waythat doesn't make it obvious that it's even doing it. My qualms with the show are few, the thirdseason being one as in my mind it never matched the quality of season two, which was the bestby far. The intro to the show, Katara’s speech aboutthe world and Aang gets tiring when you marathon the series. And, I just wish that the show had at leastone more season to flesh out the remaining backstories of characters. Ones that got teased to us but never got expandedupon. Legend of Korra, while nice, couldn't do thatbecause that takes place so many years after the fact. It may not be Anime, and I won’t try toargue why people should consider it one. But it’s the best non-Japanese animatedseries that I have watched. As such, I am proud to present it with a GlassReflection Rating of Certified Frosty. A rating I reserve for only the best of thebest, and those shows too important to ignore. With Avatar, I think it more than covers bothof those requirements. If you have never watched it, you are missingso much. And I highly recommend you remedy that atyour earliest opportunity. At the time of this video, Avatar the LastAirbender is available from Nickelodeon on DVD. For legal streaming, I’ve heard it’s availableon Nickelodeon’s website. But that’s inaccessible from Canada, soI can't confirm. It’s also on Netflix, but only if you livein the UK. To be honest though, the DVD’s are cheapas dirt with most places running each season at only $20 each. Plus, the DVD’s just aren’t hard to find. I’m not going to give alternate anime recommendationsthis time around. Because, Avatar itself is just one big giantrecommendation for people who like similar series. For people who just watch anime in general,so it’s hard to compare Japanese anime to it. So I’m not going to try. Just go watch Avatar. DO IT. DO IT! And finally I’d like to thank all my patrons,including Joshua Garcia Jocelyn Atkins , Rurika Adachi, Calhounboy, Viktor Ekmark, and NicolaiGrey without whom I would not be able to produce these videos to the same extent that I wouldlike. And that’s it from me. Thank you gentle viewers for watching. Until next time, Stay Frosty.
“WHAT IS ANIME” argument is thus: It is not a perfect series. There are several dips and bends that Avatarmakes as a piece of entertainment. But, it’s one of the best animated seriesfrom North America that I have seen. I would even put it leagues ahead of manyother Japanese animated shows that I have watched. It’s a show that has this balanced blendof comedy, action, and characters. A balance that make it’s episodes absolutejoys to watch. In my review for the Seven Deadly Sins, Isaid that it was a kind of show where each episode went by so fast. Fast enough that you don’t even notice asthe episodes passed you by, because you were just enjoying it so much. Avatar is similar, except for me it went byeven faster. A year ago is when I first watched the series,and when I did, I ended up going through it all at an average of a season a day. I just turned it on and stopped when it feltlike the sun was rising to bring in a new day. When I needed some sleep because I was pastthe point where coffee could help me. Avatar follows the story of the last remainingbender of Air, Aang. In this world, there are special individualswho can bend the four elements of the world. Air, Water, Earth and Fire. While there are many tribes of people dedicatedto each of these four arts, Aang is the last of his tribe.
He is also the mystical Avatar. Because in this world there can only be oneperson at a time who can master all 4 elements, and that person is the Avatar. There’s a lot of mysticism here that makesthe story’s origin compelling. It’s like how the Force and the Jedi workedin the early days of Star Wars. You don’t need to know how the Force worksto think that it’s cool and awesome. Just like here we don’t need any kind ofscientific explanation on why and how bending works. Certainly don’t need an explanation on whyand how the Avatar exists. Because that would be akin to introducingmediclorians to this series. Good thing that never happened, right Korra? Anyway, while we never have scientific explanationsin Avatar, the show had many in-universe explanations for why things work. Also, many of the traditions of the peoplein Avatar were based on actual real life cultures. Bending is an example. The 4 different kinds of bending all havetheir own individual martial art influence. There is much of this series that comes offas a love letter to Asian cultures, anime, and to Hong Kong kung fu films. This makes the show, despite being for children,still have a kind of mature seriousness to it at times. It’s this seriousness that draws peopleinto its story. Similar to why people like me watch Japaneseanimation. For me, I started watching anime back in theday because what I watched from Japan was just so new, so different. Anime drew me in because it had the fluidnature of cartoons. It had the ability to bend reality that liveaction shows could not, but it did so in a serious and real way. Anime never treated me like a child even withthe shows designed for them. Too often in American animation, you get thatfeeling like this was meant only for a child. Like at times it’s talking down to you.
Anime never did that for me, and Avatar isa rare American series that does the same thing. Which leads me into being able to talk aboutone of the best things that Avatar has. Life lessons done right. Because ultimately this series is about agroup of children on an adventure. Along the way, they learn things about theworld and about life that every child usually goes through. But how the show handles it is different fromothers. It never comes off as a show that preachesto its audience. Each lesson it teaches is not something that’sfocused on specificly. The characters don't end off each episodetalking about what they learned. Which is astounding when one of the best characters,preaches advice left and right. Uncle Iroh is one of the best characters inanimation, and this includes anime. Iroh is never a focus of the story, neverin the spotlight. But he guides the characters, like his nephewZuko, in a way that's so profound and full of wisdom. Instead of Iroh lecturing the audience bluntly,he teaches characters in ways that helps them. But in doing so he has the audience learnso they don’t make similar mistakes. I know what you are going to say. She’s my sister, and I should be tryingto get along with her. No, she’s crazy and she needs to go down. True, he’s a caricature at times, beingthat old sage sprouting Chinese proverbs. But there are times when his advice is movingand emotional. Here’s a good example of what I mean:What are you doing here? I was just about to ask you the same thing. What do you plan to do now that you have foundthe Avatar’s Bison? Keep it locked in our new apartment? Should I go put on a pot of tea for him? First I have to get it out of here. AND THEN WHAT? You never think these things through! This is exactly what happened when you capturedthe Avatar at the North Poll. You had him, and then you had nowhere to go! In this scene, Iroh is confronting Zuko abouthow he never plans for the future. How he always seems like he’s just goingthrough life by the seat of his pants and never looks at the big picture. But he’s also pleading with him to not continuetrying to please or live up to the expectations of others. Instead to live for himself. In just about a minute he’s able to coverboth these aspects of Zuko’s character. It's masterful, and the show has many momentsof writing like this. But the show is not all life lessons and sageadvice.
It contains plenty of action, even from characterswho you’d least expect it from. Like the other best character that Avatarhas to offer: Toph. Toph is blind. She is a young blind girl who also just happensto be the best earth bender in the world. She has a daredevil-like ability to be a badassand see without eyes. She is also the reason why I watched thisshow to begin with. I kept seeing her scenes posted online andwanted to know her story, what her deal was. Toph is an example of a character introducedto cover diversity and disabilities. Mostly because no one else ever touches thesetopics so it’s wide open for awesome stories to occur. Too often in many cultures, disabilities aresomething that's frowned upon. They are something not normal, something tobe pitied. But Avatar decides to say screw that! Let’s have one of the most powerful bendersbe a little blind girl. Not only that, let's show the world how adisability can make a person stronger! She has moments of weakness, yes: she can’tread. She can’t see any enemy if they attack herfrom the air. Also, in less-than-ideal conditions she’shindered by her environment. But she is far from useless or weak. And she’s not the only one. Early in season one we have a wheelchair boundchild take flight in a glider. Heck, even Zuko has something to a similareffect. Having half his face burnt off is somethingthat in our society would place him in outcast category. But they all have their stories of awesomenessthat make Avatar what it is. I haven’t even talked about the main characterseither. Jeeze. Avatar has this weird kind of entertainmentvalue. While watching it, I could see the flaws. The entire third season was far lower in storyquality than what the previous seasons offered. Despite that, though it was still enjoyable. At that point you have fallen so far in lovewith the characters that the rest rarely matters. On top of which, Avatar is a series that isan example of preplanning and arc building done right. You see, if you look at a show with 3 seasonslike this, what you normally get is a show with three clear and concise arcs. Arcs that each have their own stories, climaxesand conclusions. But they are arcs that are separate from eachother. Here though, that’s not the case. The main goals get defined early on and thatnarrative lasts all the way until the final episode. Sure there are subplots disguised as theirown arcs but the true story of the show is always present. It's always visible, and eventually it concludes. This reminds me of one of my favorite sciencefiction shows ever. Babylon 5. Bab 5 a show that had its entire narrativearc conceived before the first episode was ever written. The result is one long story that has thesame cohesiveness as one a 5th of its length. Avatar feels like that. You know early on how Avatar is going to end. Aang is going to defeat the fire lord andsave the world. But you keep watching because the journeyof Aang from an uppity air bender to a proper avatar is what is compelling about the show. The story of Zuko, fighting against the desireto please his father is what is compelling about the show. The nuances of the villains, from the firelord to his daughter Azula, is what is compelling about this show. Sokka’s failure at romance is what is compellingabout this show. M
first girlfriend turned into the moon. That’s rough buddy. Avatar is a series that I’m disappointedothers have not taken pointers from. It’s a show that takes various elementsthat we’ve all seen before. Plucky young characters pitted against anultimate evil, fighting for freedom and peace. But the show expands so much from those traditionalcliché elements. Its characters are more than just archetypesor embodiments of tropes. Instead they are daughters, they are sons,they are enemies while also being friends. The depth of all the characters is so muchvaster than other shows of its kind. It makes this series SO much more than justsome young kid setting off to fight evil. It’s about the relationships that the charactershave. It's about how they interact, and learn fromone another. How they develop into living, breathing people. If you’ve never watched Avatar before, allowme to recommend a single episode for you. From season two, there is an episode called“Tales from Ba Sing Se”. It’s unique because it's not one story thattakes up 25 minutes, it’s a collection of short stories. Stories about the various characters who arenow living in the Earth Kingdom city of Ba Sing Se. It doesn’t advance the main story of Aangfighting the firelord, nor does it continue any other character's storyline. In fact, most would consider this episodeto be useless filler. But it’s an episode that is less of a progressionfor any of the characters, and more of a summary of what some of them are. It’s an example of what Avatar tries todo with its characters that other shows don't and I highly recommend it. *sigh* I just want to keep talking about thisshow. Because I’ve held off for so long that Icould just sit here and talk for hours. It reminds me of last year for the RWOA whenI reviewed HunterxHunter. I had so much to say, because that show wasso long. But I didn’t want to keep you here all day. So allow me to summarize again. Avatar has much to it that many other Americanshows, and even quite a few Japanese shows lack. It never draws out its content, it never setsup narrative arcs that don’t get developed.
It actually has narrative arcs which sometimesdo not occur in TV animation in the West. It is a series filled with individual stories,paced quite well. Stories that develop its characters in a waythat doesn't make it obvious that it's even doing it. My qualms with the show are few, the thirdseason being one as in my mind it never matched the quality of season two, which was the bestby far. The intro to the show, Katara’s speech aboutthe world and Aang gets tiring when you marathon the series. And, I just wish that the show had at leastone more season to flesh out the remaining backstories of characters. Ones that got teased to us but never got expandedupon. Legend of Korra, while nice, couldn't do thatbecause that takes place so many years after the fact. It may not be Anime, and I won’t try toargue why people should consider it one. But it’s the best non-Japanese animatedseries that I have watched. As such, I am proud to present it with a GlassReflection Rating of Certified Frosty. A rating I reserve for only the best of thebest, and those shows too important to ignore. With Avatar, I think it more than covers bothof those requirements. If you have never watched it, you are missingso much. And I highly recommend you remedy that atyour earliest opportunity. At the time of this video, Avatar the LastAirbender is available from Nickelodeon on DVD. For legal streaming, I’ve heard it’s availableon Nickelodeon’s website. But that’s inaccessible from Canada, soI can't confirm. It’s also on Netflix, but only if you livein the UK. To be honest though, the DVD’s are cheapas dirt with most places running each season at only $20 each. Plus, the DVD’s just aren’t hard to find. I’m not going to give alternate anime recommendationsthis time around. Because, Avatar itself is just one big giantrecommendation for people who like similar series. For people who just watch anime in general,so it’s hard to compare Japanese anime to it. So I’m not going to try. Just go watch Avatar. DO IT. DO IT! And finally I’d like to thank all my patrons,including Joshua Garcia Jocelyn Atkins , Rurika Adachi, Calhounboy, Viktor Ekmark, and NicolaiGrey without whom I would not be able to produce these videos to the same extent that I wouldlike. And that’s it from me. Thank you gentle viewers for watching. Until next time, Stay Frosty.
