A is for...

Hello everybody!  Guess what today is?  Today is April 1st, otherwise known as April Fool's Day.  It is also the first day of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  Now if I was cool enough and though of this before hand, doing a post on April Fool's would have been a pretty smart thing to do.  However, I only now realized that it would have worked and I already have another topic that I really want to post about.  So maybe we'll talk about it next year. 

Okay so the topic I am so excited for is, of course, Avatar: The Last Airbender.  And I am not talking about the James Cameron Avatar with the blue people on another planet.  I'm talking about the Nickelodeon cartoon with the people who have the power to manipulate the four elements: air, water, earth, and fire. Each element has a nation built around it, consisting of benders and non-benders alike.  It is only the Avatar who can master all four elements and maintain world order.

The premise of this show is that the Avatar, Aang, has been lost to the world for 100 years.  Most everybody thought he was dead.  However, he is discovered in an iceberg by a girl waterbender, Katara, and her brother Sokka.  Together they embark upon a journey to help Aang master the four elements while simultaneously avoiding the seeking hands of the Fire Nation, who has practically conquered the world in the absence of the Avatar.

I absolutely love this series for multiple reasons, including:
1. The Characters
2. The Story
3. The Animation
4. Character Development
5. Animals


The Characters themselves are amazingly thought out.  Each one has a back story and a wonderful personality.  And each character also develops throughout the three seasons.  The characters alone could probably carry the show, but the story they portray makes everything fit together even more.  This is no ordinary cartoon where each episode has a plot but most of them can be seen independently of each other and still make sense.  This series has a plot.  It also just so happens to be animated.

Speaking of, the animation for this series is breathtaking.  They use some of the most difficult materials to animate, water for example, and use them in almost every episode.  And it looks good.  And the final reason that I love this series (that I'm going to mention anyways) is the animals.  The animals in this series are always entertaining.  The creators of the show decided to forgo the norm and not use any real animals.  But at the same time they didn't really create new ones either.  Instead, they combined the best characteristics of two different species, say a badger and a mole, and made one animal, a badgermole!

Bam!  Clearly that is a creature any animal lover (like me) would love. 

Now whenever this show was on when I was younger I would watch it.  However, I could never figure out it's airing schedule so I never actually saw the entire series.  Zoom to present day and here comes my Junior year roommate with all three seasons on DVD.  Oh. Man.  Once we started watching them we would finish off at least a disk a night.  We would stay up until one or two in the morning just to watch this show.  I think we finished all three seasons within two weeks.  So then we had to watch all the special features and the commentary episodes.  It was definitely a major development in our friendship.  Or that's what I think anyways.

So.  Now that you all have a general idea of what this series is and what it's all about, I hope you all go out and start watching it.  Start from the beginning.  You should watch at least a few episodes before you decide whether you like it or not as you really should let the plot line get started before you make a decision.  If you don't like it, that's fine.  But if you do... you're welcome!  Hahahaha.  Also, for all of you who have already seen the show or you really enjoyed it, do you know the creators are coming out with another one?  This one is set seventy years into the future and is the story of the next Avatar, a waterbender by the name of Korra.  This series is titled The Legend of Korra (pretty obvious).  You can get information on it here.  It officially premieres on TV on Saturday April 14, but they have already released the first two episodes online.



On that note, I wish you all a wonderful first week of April.  Try not to let the weather get you down.  Summer will be here before you know it!!  Happy blogging!