Avatar: The Last Airbender

[timepiececlock]

It's the seaon finale. It's only 1/3 over and already I'm in love with it.

EDIT: @$*)(#$*)(#@&(*%&#!###!!!!!!!!!!!!

"You rise with the moon. I rise with the sun."

EDIT 2: "You're like my sister." It's positively ridiculous how much I'm loving this season finale. All of it. Sokka. Katara. Zuko. Aang.

EDIT: #@*%#*@#!!!!!!!!!!!!CONTINUTITY! ROLE REVERSAL! ##)%&#@*%&&##@^))!!!!!

EDIT: Huh. Someone on the writing staff's a Miyazaki fan, I see. This episode was riddled with visual allusions to Mononoke Hime and Spirited Away (no-face!).

EDIT: Sokka. Sokka Sokka Sokka. ::hugs him:: It'll be okay.



Whew. So... how many people did Aang kill in tonight's finale? I need some avatar icons.

I'm now a Sokka/Yue shipper. Why must I keep shipping doomed ships?




The whole Sokka/Yue romance, especially the end, felt almost Arthurian to me. He's Lancelot to her Gwenevere. And even though they admit they're love they can't be together in the end... because she becomes the Lady of the Lake. And it's a noble sacrifice and now she's an immortal moon goddess Selene and he's the peasant Endymion and... I totally lost the metaphor and started jumping mythologies here but OMG POOR SOKKA AND YUE!

Zuko's sister is the prodigy? People have been speculating that she grew up in his shadow resenting him, but it turns out he grew up resenting her. What a fantastic turn-around. And now we have a new parallel-- gifted bender Zula compared to gifted bender Katara.

Speaking of Zuko... Zhoa is dead now, and Zuko's identity as the Blue Spirit is a secret again.

memlu: "Holy shit, Zuko is fucking hardcore. I mean, I know this isn't new information here, but oh my God."

Word.

He's like Bruce Wayne in Batman begins. He's like an ANBU ninja and the Terminator all rolled into one. He's a freaking machine.

The Zuko/Katara fight was kick-ass and sexy and whoa. Can we have entire episodes where they try to kill each other with fire and ice and poetic insults?

The parting conversation between Zuko and Iroh in the beginning broke my heart. "Ever since my son..." "I know." Iroh! Zuko!

And "I'm tired."

The face-stealing monster's voice was creepy. That was a great bit of voice casting.

OMG SOKKA. ::hugs Sokka so hard:: All my love, kid. All my love. I can't imagine you were my least favorite character in the beginning.

Comments

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to ask - do you think I'd like that series?

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

YES.

I wasn't sure what to think for the first 2 episodes. But then it got better...and better... and now I'd be heartbroken if it goes any less than the 60 episodes we're apparently promised.

It's somewhat kiddish the way Naruto is kiddish or Gargoyles is kiddish: you can tell the parts they put in for the younger audience, but at the same time there's definitely an element of sophistication in the storyline that aims at teenagers. And since I'm totally used to watching that kind of age group show from anime anyway... dammit this *is* like an anime. But it's also missing a lot of cultural things that occasionally bug me about anime (sometimes I also love those things, though). This is... anime made for an American audience.

And OMG it's getting good. I would compare it to the fantasy novels I read whole shelves of in high school. It's... epic style plotty. It's got a strong female main character and all its characters are ethnically and culturally diverse, which is a nice change. It's cute and fun and then it suddenly goes all mystical and ninja-like and dramatic.

And sometimes it's got thematic elements that I'm outright surprised to see addressed openly and consistantly on a generic kid's program like Nickelodeon: mass genocide, global politics, child abandonment, war.

Plus, the people who make this are totally otakus. It's not just the art, it's everything: this show is a love letter to Eastern and Pacific-islander cultures and all the philosophy therein.

I want you to watch it and squee with me. Now's a good time, since the first season finale (episodes 19 and 20) aired tonight, so you'll have time to catch up before new eps air.

The continuity is awesome. Little details appear in dialogue one episode, as a passing-by prop three episodes later, and then again as dialogue 5 episodes after that. We see people in the background of shots that get formally introduced much later.

And you can make great crossover icons with it!


::pushes you:: Go, young padawan.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I joined the comm. I have so much other crap I need to watch, I probably won't get to it for a while. Thanks for the overview, though. Just by looking at general descriptions on websites, it didn't seem like something that would interest me.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I just added a bunch of spoilery stuff to my post above, so best avoid it.

I think you'd enjoy it. I was pretty leery at first too, but I just started downloading episodes and then... well, now here I am twenty eps later all a-squee and happy and heartbroken over the season finale. I want to hug all my traumatized characters.

[v-voltaire.livejournal.com]

I dislike Yue/Sokka because Yue just never felt like a character in her own right. There just wasn't anything new or interesting about her. I would have loved to have a scene with her that didn't scream "plot device!" or "isn't this all so tragic?!" She has a pretty character design and a lovely voice actrses, but other than that she's pretty much a blank slate.

With Suki there was a development of a relationship, from mild antagonism to a shared respect to some sort of affection. With Yue it just started out at love so there was nowhere to go with it except "but I can never be with you."

Then again, it just might be that her death was so telegraphed from the start that I never bothered to get attached.


Actually, I think Miyazaki and the Avatar people just read the same books on Japanese mythology. ^_^