In this fine series, a fire lord declares war against the other three nations (Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, and Air Nomad<\/span>s). It is up to Aang, a 12-year-old Avatar and his friends to end the war and return peace and unity among the four nations.<\/span><\/p>\n However, I didn\u2019t always think this show was going to be as \u201cfine\u201d as it turned out to be. Back then in the mid \u201800s, I felt Nickelodeon had a track record for\u00a0<\/span>producing animation of a palatable caliber. I thought the introduction of an <\/span>anime<\/span><\/i> series would ruin that record. Let\u2019s look at my first reaction after the initial Avatar series announcement in the summer of 2004.<\/span><\/p>\n Who wants to take a peek in Vic\u2019s dairy? You know you want to!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, here\u2019s a page of my diary. It has been digitally altered to emphasize the date the entry was written and how dearly I regret not wanting change. I pixeled out thoughts about another show I watched that day (that part\u2019s for another post). Man, I really do feel bad about what I said. Here\u2019s what it said with all the spelling and grammatical errors intact:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI also found out about this show that\u2019s gonna be on Nick called \u2018The Avatar: The Last Airbender.\u2019 I know it\u2019s gonna suck because it\u2019s anime. it\u2019s not gonna last a year of the airwaves. The animation is just horrible! I\u2019d rather be dead when it comes out this November.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What in the world was I thinking as I was writing this? I\u2019ll break down this passage in attempt to further explain myself.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI also found out about this show that\u2019s gonna be in Nick called \u2018The Avatar: The Last Airbender.\u2019 I know it\u2019s gonna suck because it\u2019s anime.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again, I didn\u2019t care about grammar\/capitalization back then. This wasn\u2019t a school paper. So, I almost had the title right. I didn\u2019t have a smartphone in my room (where I wrote this) to confirm the title. This was after I switched off my dial-up connection for the night (yes, I used dial-up back then). I also felt I wasn\u2019t ready for Nickelodeon to be showing their own \u201canime.\u201d I knew Cartoon Network had anime on their Toonami block and that wasn\u2019t my cup of tea back then. I loved almost every show Nick had in those days. I was reluctant at first to try this one.<\/span><\/p>\n Later on, I found out that Avatar is not actual anime as it was not produced in Japan. There\u2019s a difference between this and Japanese anime where I can write a completely different blog post comparing the two. Soon I found out that this wasn\u2019t Nick\u2019s first time showing cartoons in the anime style. There were several acquired shows imported from Japan and France in the 1980s (ie: <\/span>\u201cThe Adventures of Little Prince<\/a><\/span>,\u201d<\/span> \u201cBelle and Sebastian<\/a><\/span>,\u201d<\/span> among others).<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not gonna last a year on the airwaves. The animation is just horrible!\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Boy, was I wrong! Three \u201cbooks,\u201d three years on the air, and dozens of awards? Explain that, younger me. I judged the animation by a slither of animation I saw on a brief preview shown on Nickelodeon and a still picture on the internet. When I watched more of the show later on, I found the animation quite beautiful.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI\u2019d rather be dead when it comes out this November.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Aaaawwww! I just didn\u2019t want to take any chances on this show. I didn\u2019t even want this show to exist on Nick. Back then, Nick was practically my life. If something didn\u2019t look good too me, I assumed my time watching Nick was over. Also notice I said \u201cNovember.\u201d That was the original air date before it was pushed to February. Notice the 2004 copyright date at the end of the earlier eps.<\/span><\/p>\n I never really wanted to die that November; perhaps falling out of existence would have been what I should have said. Luckily, I used that extra time between the time I wrote this and February to think about whether to give Avatar a chance or not. Come November\/February, I was still alive and it was time for me to give it a try. I never regretted anything!<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a blurb from the second and last page.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cthat does it, I believe that \u2018The Avator\u2019 [sic] is bring nick down to \u2018h-e-double hockey-stick\u2019 in a handbasket. There are some exceptions, but most of nick\u2019s programming is just s@#!!\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What I was meant to say in that first sentence was, \u201c…I believe that \u2018The Avatar\u2019 will bring Nick down to hell.\u201d Yes, I\u2019ll actually say \u201chell\u201d here.<\/span><\/p>\n I had some very low hopes for Avatar, didn\u2019t I? I thought the show would be the one to make me end my long-term viewership for Nickelodeon. There were shows on Nick that I didn\u2019t care much for and I thought Avatar would be one of them. Shortly after the show started airing, Nickelodeon either just got bad on its own or I just got older.<\/span><\/p>\n The lesson here is don\u2019t judge a show by looking at one frame. When you look at the picture, realize there should be more to the show than just a still picture. Open your mind and don\u2019t be afraid to diversify your show list.<\/span><\/p>\n I will post an Avatar: The Last Airbender review as soon as I can write it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Posted 31\u00a0October 2018 On September 3rd, I began my endeavor to watch all three seasons (or \u201cbooks,\u201d as so called) of Avatar: The Last Airbender (\u201cAvatar\u201d for short) (Nickelodeon, 2005-2008). In this fine series, a fire lord declares war against the other three nations (Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, and Air Nomads). It is up to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-have-watched","category-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171,"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"avatar1post\"](\"https:\/\/victoricadesigns.com\/vicsreview\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/avatar1post-300x295.jpg\"){kind=avatar}
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