Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a masterfully crafted show that hosts delicate love stories, vicious battle scenes, ever-present humor, and an art style that rests carefully between playful children’s and modern anime — without the stigmas attached to either one. It is a truly unique show, with a huge number of layers arranged in a way that anyone can watch and appreciate, but some can relate to on an infinite number of deeper levels.

Set in a world defined by a kind of superpower martial arts known as “bending,” Avatar follows the story of a 12-year-old boy, Aang, on his path to fulfill his destiny as the Avatar: the master of all four bending varieties (fire, water, earth, air). Like the Dalai Lama, The Avatar is reborn whenever his predecessor passes away.

A happy-go-lucky air-nomad by birth, Aang spends the early parts of the show readjusting to modern society, as it is revealed that he has been in a half-alive state frozen in an iceberg of his own creation for the last hundred years. Aang’s readjustment is aided by the people who discovered him: a brother and sister from a local water tribe. There’s Katara (a fierce yet friendly little sister and aspiring waterbender) and then Sokka (an accident prone, sarcastic, and hilarious older brother and aspiring warrior). But Aang has reemerged at a difficult time.  Gripped by a desire for power, the once peaceful “Fire Nation” has spent the last hundred years building a massive army and systematically destroying all threats to their power.

Quickly, the status quo becomes clear: the different “bending” groups have become much more than differences in powers. Instead, they have become social definitions, a fact driven home by the intense aggression of the infamous Fire Nation in the years following Aang’s initial disappearance. As Aang comes to terms with his new position in a new society, he must simultaneously battle fiendish Avatar-hunters, namely the Fire Nation-estranged prince Zuko — the epitome of a complex character.  And on top of this, Aang is given an ultimatum: defeat the Fire Nation within a few short months, or society will fall to fire.

Despite all the dark undercurrents, each episode feels light and funny, marked always by the introduction of new characters (who may or may not become significant later), the display of exotic societies and cultures, and the lighthearted demeanors of such characters as Sokka, Aang, and Zuko’s traveling companion, and ex-Fire Nation general, Uncle Iroh.