Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book III: Fire

The second season of Avatar ended on a downer: the city of Ba Sing Se has fallen to the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom is under enemy occupation and organised resistance to the Fire Nation has been reduced to a few guerrilla bands. However, the Avatar, Aang, and his companions are still at large and in possession of vital information: in a few short weeks there will be a solar eclipse, during which time the Fire Nation will be vulnerable to attack. A few weeks after that, Sozin's Comet will return, and the powers of the firebenders will be at their height. The Avatar must face and defeat Fire Lord Ozai during the eclipse if the world is to be saved.
The board is set for a grand showdown, but our heroes still need to prepare for the final confrontation. The early part of Season 3 has our heroes infiltrating the Fire Nation, having arranged a meeting place with some of their allies. One of the benefits of Ba Sing Se's isolationism during the war was that many of its armies were left to operate autonomously, and they have enough military force left to help with an assault on the Fire Nation's capital. However, the early part of Season 3 is surprisingly focused on stand-alone episodes as it treads water waiting for the eclipse. Luckily, few arc-heavy shows do stand-alones as well as Avatar, and episodes centering on Sokka's desire to find a mentor of his own or Katara trying to save a village from pollution caused by a Fire Nation factory are more effective than they might sound, with each adding an element of character growth or humour to the series' tapestry.

After a few stand-aloneish episodes, the arc reasserts itself. We learn vital backstory about the relationship between Sozin and Roku, the previous Avatar, and Katara discovers a powerful but deadly new form of waterbending. There is still time for the show's humour, however, as with the episode where Aang cannot rest before the invasion and starts having bizarre hallucinations (such as one where Momu and Appa gain the power of speech and fight a deadly sword duel whilst being cheered on by sheep). The invasion finally comes, but obviously the fact it takes place ten episodes before the end of the series is a sign that things are not going to turn out well. From this point, the former dynamics of the show reassert themselves, with Azula and her compatriots hunting down the Avatar and Zuko's torn loyalties again leading him down a different path. The second half of the season is more tense and more urgent, as the 'good guys' are reduced to little more than just our heroes and the imminent arrival of the comet inspires the Fire Lord to embark on a plan of mass destruction and genocide beyond anything we've seen before in this show. Events culminate in a massive showdown, unexpected (but cleverly foreshadowed) allies emerge and old mysteries are solved as the story reaches its epic conclusion.

The third and final season of Avatar draws the storyline to an action-packed conclusion which is extremely satisfying, with enough twists and turns to avoid being predictable. As usual, the character development is exemplery, the writing entertaining and the voice acting accomplished. Criticisms? Well, there is an element of deus ex machina in the finale, although closer examination reveals it was set up earlier (a fairly obscure reference in Season 2's The Library, though), and there are a few loose ends, with some characters' fates left murky or unresolved. With the promised Avatar spin-off series apparently going to be set in a different time period focusing on a different incarnation of the Avatar, it's unclear if these questions will be answered. But if not, they at least give the fans something to debate and argue over in the future.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book III: Fire (****½) will be released on DVD in the USA on 16 September 2008 (individual volumes are available now), although once again no word of an official UK release, although a Region 1 import will be available.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book II: Earth

The second season of Avatar picks up where the first left off. The Northern Water Tribe has successfully defended itself against a Fire Nation invasion, with the help of the Avatar, Aang. With Katara having mastered Waterbending and now capable of teaching Aang, Team Avatar (as Sokka dubs the group) heads south into the Earth Kingdom to find Aang someone to teach him Earthbending. Meanwhile, Prince Zuko and his uncle, General Iroh, have been exiled and outcast by the Fire Lord, who has sent his daughter Azula to hunt down them and the Avatar. To this end she recruits two fellow female warriors to succeed where her brother failed.

Season 2 starts off with our heroes on a high after their victory over the Fire Nation and their securing of the Northern Water Tribe as allies. Their luck seems to hold up, with the Fire Nation apparently keener on tracking down the 'traitors' Zuko and Iroh than pursuing the Avatar, and they soon meet Toph, a blind girl who 'sees' through Earthbending and is the teacher Aang needs. However, no sooner has Toph joined the group then things start to fall apart: a valued member of the team disappears without a trace, the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se comes under attack by the Fire Nation and political intrigue within the Earth Kingdom weakens the allied forces as the Fire Nation advances.

Avatar's second season (or 'Book', in the show's own parlance) is a splendid follow-up to the first. It's the middle part of the trilogy, but if it adheres to an existing format, thankfully it's the original Star Wars trilogy: Earth is The Empire Strikes Back of this story, putting our heroes through the wringer emotionally, physically and mentally, and ending on a surprisingly downbeat note. The notion of 'mentorship' is investigated thoroughly, with Aang's mastery of bending now in the hands of two people barely older than himself, whilst Zuko's relationship with Iroh goes through some tough times. In fact, it's the internal war between Zuko's dual natures over his soul which forms the most satisfying through-line of the series, and Zuko's painting as a young man tortured by his own past with his own strengths and weaknesses rather than as a simplistic bad guy, or a bad guy who turns to good, is a surprisingly mature theme for what is apparently a kid's show.

Many individual episodes are of note, although Tales of Ba Sing Se is especially noteworthy. With our heroes forced to stay in the Earth Kingdom capital for a protracted stay, this episode doesn't feature a major crisis but instead follows them on several minor plot strands, from Sokka getting into a haiku-off with some poets ("That's one too many syllables!") to Aang establishing a zoo to an especially splendid instalment in which Iroh pays tribute to his late son. It's an extremely accomplished episode, as is Appa's Lost Days, in which the most under-explored member of the team gets his very own episode. However, there are far less stand-alones this season, with every episode linking into the main story arc and minor characters from the first season returning with more concrete roles.

With its second season, Avatar continues to impress, exploring themes of redemption, honour and extreme property damage in a consistently intelligent and amusing manner.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book II: Earth (****½) is available on DVD in the USA, but has not been officially released in the UK yet. Import Region 1 copies can be found on Amazon.co.uk. Season 3 returns to Nickelodeon for its final five episodes (also the final five episodes of the series) in mid-July.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book I: Water

Whilst I've always quite liked the aesthetic qualities of Japanese anime, I must confess I've always found the plots to be nigh-on incomprehensible (based as many are on Japanese cultural tropes which have no analogue in the West), and the ones that seemed to be understandable seemed to only last a few episodes before being canned (the excellent Cyber City Odeo 808 being a perfect example of a great show with tremendously interesting characters, yet it lasted a mere three episodes). Having said all of that, my exposure to anime in recent years has been extremely limited and these older generalizations may not hold true.

An interesting and apparently successful approach has been to combine Western storytelling with the anime style of art to produce something of a hybrid programme. Robotech began this trend back in the early 1980s, with Carl Macek crafting an original story (albeit one heavily derived from Macross, one of the three contributing Japanese TV shows) to fuse three different Japanese shows into one continuity. A few years later, French writers and Japanese animators combined to create The Mysterious Cities of Gold and Ulysses 31, both notable for being limited series with definitive endings with much more adult themes than is usually encountered in animation primarily aimed at children. The latest such effort is Avatar: The Last Airbender, a Nickelodeon production currently in its third season hiatus in the USA.

Avatar is set in a heavily Japanese-inspired world which is divided into four forms of magic: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Manipulation of each form of magic is known as bending. Over the centuries, each form of magic has attracted its own followers, and a powerful nation or tribe has arisen based around each element: the two Water Tribes live at the opposing poles of the planet, the Fire Nation occupies a huge volcanic archipelago, the Earth Kingdom dominates the largest continent and the various Air Tribes (at least three of which used to exist) occupy remote mountain chains. The four peoples lived in harmony under the protective guidance of the Buddha-like Avatar (who could combine the four elements and thus kept the tribes in balance) until, a century prior to the series beginning, he vanished without a trace. Without a check on their ambition, the Fire Nation launched a war of aggression against the other peoples, quickly overrunning and apparently destroying the Air Tribes, but then becoming bogged down in a lengthy war against the Earth Kingdom.

Avatar opens with two youngsters from the Southern Water Tribe, Katara and her brother Sokka, discovering the Avatar trapped in a magical block of ice. The Avatar is a 12-year-old boy named Aang, an Airbender who doesn't know anything about the war or the events that have transpired in his absence. His only companion is Appa, his magical flying bison, but Aang rapidly finds himself the target of Zuko, an exiled Fire Nation prince who is determined to capture Aang to restore his honour and prestige at the Fire Lord's court. With the Southern Water Tribe in danger due to Aang's presence, Aang decides to journey to the North Pole to learn waterbending from the more powerful Northern Water Tribe. Katara, a novice Waterbender herself, and Sokka agree to accompany him.

Avatar is a single, large story which is divided into three 'books' or seasons, with each episode a chapter of that book. Book I is named Water, as the focus is on Aang's journey to the Northern Water Tribe and what happens when he gets there. Along the way he and his companions have many adventures, including repeated run-ins with Zuko (whose backstory becomes more complex and intriguing with every appearance) and Zuko's rival, Admiral Zhao, who is determined to capture the Avatar for his own purposes. We also learn about the ongoing war on the Earth Kingdom's continent, although somewhat disappointingly we never see the front lines. Aang also finds time to visit two of the Air Temples in an effort to understand his own growing power. Events culminate at the North Pole where Zhao launches a concerted effort to destroy the Northern Water Tribe.

Avatar is, simply put, a tremendously enjoyable slice of television. It's definitely a kid's show (those looking for dark, gore-filled gritty anime best look elsewhere), but it never talks down to its audience and credits them with a fair bit of intelligence. The worldbuilding is impeccable, the stories are intelligent and logical and the writers clearly have the story mapped out ahead of time, resulting in tremendous coherence and continuity. These guys could teach the makers of Battlestar Galactica a lot. It's also quite funny and shows occasional homages to other forms of animation: one early episode featuring our heroes accidentally devastating part of a city with a mail cart even has a Wild E. Coyote-style freeze-frame shot so the audience can more thoroughly appreciate the destruction they unleash. In another sequence two prison guards report the appearance of a dangerous flying bison to the commandant (voiced by George 'Mr. Sulu' Takei), who delays acting on the news due to linguistic concerns over where the correct designation is 'flying bison' or 'flying buffalo'. The animation is also excellent, clearly inspired by Hayao Miyazaki (Appa, our heroes' mount, is a nod to the Catbus from My Neighobur Totoro) and is a step above practically every other US animated show in production today.

I'm struggling to find some negatives here. The show is fast-paced and funny. It isn't preachy and never indulges in, "I learned something today..." moral lessons. It's simply a very good show, enjoyable by all no matter your age.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book 1: Water (****½) is available on DVD in the USA. Annoyingly, it isn't available in the UK yet, although Region 1 copies can be purchased from Amazon.co.uk. Season 3, which is the final season, is currently airing in the USA on the Nickelodeon.