I bet there's a Facebook quiz I can take to find out what kind of bender I would be...

This past summer I fell in love with Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender.  TV spots for M. Night Shyamalan's film adaptation of the show were dominating the airwaves at the time, and my curiosity was peaked.  The movie looked lackluster, but I heard the cartoon was a hit.  I caught a couple episodes one night while they ran a promotional marathon on Nick.

It was a summer of transition for me; I was between places, between jobs, between relationships.  In the kind of emotional state that makes a man cling to a children's show like a toddler to his blankie.  After only a couple episodes, I made a conscious decision to become hopelessly addicted.  Which, in the age of Netflix Instant View, is very easy to do.  You just have to keep clicking 'next episode'.

Despite the stupor that inevitably accompanies a TV series marathon, I couldn't help but notice that Avatar brilliantly blends Japanese and American cartoon styles.  Here's just a few of the reasons I loved it:

1. Each episode stands alone.  Every episdoe focuses on a different character, or relationship.  Each has it's own villian or conflict.  Often, jumping into the middle of an Anime series can be like rolling through a foggy swamp in a wheelchair at nighttime.  Emphasis is concentrated on the arc of the series, rather than the arc of the 22 minute episode.  It takes devotion/obsession to maintain an interest in shows like these (that, or a really long 'on-the-last-episode' montage).

In the most addictive series, each episode has its own story arc.  Even if you don't know all the characters and their ultimate goals, the drama is intuitive.  A good example: The first season of Lost.  Each installment utilized flashbacks to weave together a character's past with a crisis on the island that he/she was uniquely situated to handle/fuck up.  Jack can't save Boone - flashback to scenes showing Jack's maniacal impulsion to fix everything.  Viola.  Drama. No excuse for the time-traveling nonsense of the later seasons though.

MY POINT IS...Avatar has a decidedly Western structure, which makes it accessible to kids that don't dress up for Comicon.

2. My Wu-Tang versus your Shoalin!  Anybody who's seen some old kung-fu films loves a showdown between styles.  Varieties of martial arts are regional - a principle beautifully illustrated by Avatar's elemental kung-fu styles.  The best part?  None of them are overtly lame, like Heart, from Captain Planet.  Even Water, which sounds suspiciously flimsy from the offset, is pretty gnarly.  What kind of bender would you like to be?

MY POINT IS...If you find yourself weighing the pros and cons of earth, air, fire, and water, then Avatar succeeded in creating distinct and engaging fighting styles/powers.

3. Action-gasm.  In the beginning, Aang can do some pretty cool acrobatics.  By the end of the series, he makes Cirque de Soleil look like an ant farm.  

Lots of shows have trouble ramping up the action progressively over a long run.  Either they start out too huge, or in the case of live-action, they can't afford the climax a good action show needs.  Take DragonBall Z, for instance.  I love the series (for a number of complicated reasons I might get into another time) but when Piccolo blew up the moon in the first saga, I thought to myself, "Wow, these guys have set the bar pretty high."  And sure enough, by the end of the series, when Goku would power up to Super Saiyan 3 and whatever planet he was on was at risk of being destroyed by the gale force winds flying out of his hair, I would think, "So what? Everybody can do that nowadays."
Also, the first series of Heroes got me pretty amped up for what I think was the crappiest season finale of any show ever.  Seriously.  Save some of your budget for the end, people.

MY POINT IS...In the last few episodes of Avatar, Aang and the Firelord fly around by shooting 50-foot jets of fire out of their feet.  Radical.

4. Bizzare Combo-animals.  No good fantasy world is complete without some cute animal companions and/or strange exotic beasts.  Star Wars had Ewoks.  LOTR had wargs.  I'm trying to think of other examples, but really I just love the Saber-Tooth-Moose-Lion.  I want one.  
From left to right: otter-penguins, boar-Q-pine, flying-bison, lion-turtle, flying-lemur, buzzard-wasps, badger-moles, saber-tooth-moose-lion, catagator (catfish-alligator)


Okay, so those are few reasons why I really enjoyed Avatar: The Last Airbender, and why I wouldn't be unhappy if I just so happened to get the complete series on DVD for Christmas.  Just kidding.  No, I'm not.  Seriously.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (animated series):  9.5 Rupees (out of 10)

Coming up sometime soon, I'll tell you why M. Night Shymalamalama's movie adaptation of Avatar was the worst film of the decade.  I just wanted to you know, in case you saw the movie but not the cartoon, the cartoon is still worth watching.