Avatar: The Last Airbender is a cartoon aimed at children and adults. It was released on Nickelodeon in 2005. The series ran for three years and spans three chapters: Water, Earth, and Fire. It spanned a total of 61 tightly woven-together episodes for consecutive storytelling. Eighteen years later, it is still widely popular for the concepts it was able to show as they are akin to real-world issues. The series focuses on Aang, a boy found in the Ice Berg. Aang would reveal himself as the Avatar, master of all four elements.

In the 100 years the Avatar was frozen, the Fire Nation laid siege to the other three nations. Aang, an Air Nomad, had his entire culture taken from him when the Fire Nation used Sozin’s Comet to use genocide to wipe out the Air Nation in search of the Avatar. Aang has less than a year to learn the other three elements and confront Fire Lord Ozai in order to save the world from the Fire Nation come Sozins Comet’s return. Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, and eventually Zuko would travel the world in preparation to defeat the Fire Nation.

The group will have dealt with their own turmoil in relationship to the effect the war has caused them before turning their attention to defeating the Fire Lord. Upon many of these great qualities portrayed in a children’s show, Prince Zuko’s redemption arc was long and noteworthy and had some of the most noteworthy character development in any show I have personally seen. Along the way, concepts of imperialism, hunger, hatred, corruption, Nationalism, prejudice, turmoil, exile, banishment, politics, brainwashing, revenge, loss, power, and much more are explored as concepts that come with the unfortunate cost of war.

Aang has awoken to a world that is destroyed beyond recognition. However, through some unforeseen friendships and circumstances, the world will be left a better place upon the Avatar’s return.  Avatar: The Last Airbender’s successor story is The Legend of Korra. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Avatar: The Last Airbender returned to the streaming platform Netflix. On this platform, it beat out all other totals to hold the spot of the number one watched series on Netflix in the entire world. Due to its popularity, Nickelodeon launched Avatar Studios — a division headed by the creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

They will focus on expanding both Aang and Korra’s stories. Overall, the content of the series mirrors the Holocaust and wars that have happened since, along with the deep-rooted corruption in politics that causes many great nations to fall. These elements portrayed in a cartoon, along with the consistent story building, make Avatar: The Last Airbender one of the most popular shows of all time and a definite recommendation for those who have not seen it.