I realized that I was now a part of this fandom when my father asked me what anime was. I’ve only been an anime fan for a short while, but it’s a passion I don’t hide—if I did, you wouldn’t be reading this. Even though the first part of that description probably isn’t true anymore, I’ve been referring to myself as a “novice weeb.” A classic tale of green eggs and ham sums up my obsession with the medium and the numerous stories it contains. Avatar: The Last Airbender, rather than a traditional anime, opens it.
The art style of Avatar: The Last Airbender is similar to anime. Encircled by creatures straight out of a Studio Ghibli film, Nickelodeon Animation Studio drew the human characters with all the characteristics of anime (large eyes, small noses, smooth skin, etc.). A mano-a-mano aerial fight that rivals anything from Dragon Ball Z serves as the show’s climax. By basing its world on the customs and history of Southeast Asia, the show pays homage to its sources of inspiration. The characters’ abilities, or “bending,” are executed through martial arts techniques. Many people continue to argue that Avatar does not “count” as anime because it is not a Japanese series. It’s undeniable that it uses anime flourishes, but I’m not here to bridge this gap. This was something I noticed, for sure, and that’s how the show turned into my much-needed introduction.
I’ve been familiar with anime for a while. In elementary school, I was really into Pokémon. Sometimes I’d catch a few random episodes of Naruto and InuYasha at friends’ houses. I couldn’t help but wonder, “Why does this show look like Pokémon?” It repulsed me rather than piqued my curiosity. Not helping was the fact that the episodes I watched weren’t introductions; instead of enjoying what was happening on screen, I was thrust into the middle of a story and had to spend the entire episode figuring out the context. Imagine serialized arcs in cartoons?
I never moved on to Toonami and Adult Swim after I outgrew Pokémon, the television shows that gave rise to a large number of American anime fans in my generation by offering mature content (the curse of being cable-less). The internet, the other otaku path, dragged me in the opposite direction. I was a stupid teenager who read and internalized the denigration of anime and its fans, leading me to believe these unfavorable stereotypes about the genre to be true. Every series has to have an awful English dubbing, a ton of filler episodes, and a lot of fanservice. Shamefully, I also decided anime would be the line that distinguished respectability because I didn’t want to come across as overly nerdy.
2020 follows. You have to know where I was that year. I was becoming disillusioned with the Marvel Cinematic Universe after growing up loving superhero movies. My enthusiasm for Star Wars had been extinguished by the immense letdown caused by the Rise of Skywalker. I was stranded at home, just like everyone else, because of COVID-19. I had time to kill and was very open to new media.
Lo and behold, Avatar: The Last Airbender launched on Netflix in May 2020. I’d seen a few episodes of Avatar years ago but never watched the complete series back to back – the way you must to enjoy it fully. Since I knew it hewed so closely to anime, I’d dropped it in the same pile and written off getting into it. This time, though, I bought into the buzz and decided to check it out. Soon, I discovered where all the praise for the series originated from.
The more I appreciated the show, the sillier I felt for ignoring it. The world-building, from the four nations to the element each one bends, is basic yet effective. How can you not be attracted by the characters? Especially Prince Zuko, the angsty young villain with a heart of gold. I’m not sure I can offer anything to the topic regarding his great redemption arc except to say that the highs and lows he endured made my heart ache.
I was continuously pleased by the show’s willingness to let even the good guys be fallible. While the show’s humor is broad enough for the youthful target demographic (not to say I never laughed), this maturity is why it continues.
The tale is inseparable from how it’s told; Avatar made me realize how animation could tell the kind of stories I already enjoyed and do them even better. Instead of being the minor leagues for stories that don’t warrant live-action, animation is the purest artistic expression of cinema: moving images transplanted directly from an artist’s mind to the screen, beginning and ending with an artist’s pen.
Come August of that year, Netflix added the Avatar sequel series, The Legend of Korra. I devoured that show with the same voracity, this time in my dorm room. But there are only so many Avatar episodes out there. Soon, I was craving something that would scratch the same itch, i.e., original fantasy storytelling rendered in beautiful art. As I stayed one step removed from anime, I read about what inspired Avatar creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante Dimartino.
One name stood out to me — Neon Genesis Evangelion — and come 2021, I decided to take that plunge. If nothing else, I thought, I might gain a deeper understanding of Avatar by watching a favorite of its creators’. I got that and much more out of Evangelion — one of the most profound and personal experiences I’ve ever had with art. If Zuko’s story tugged at my heart, Shinji Ikari’s pierced it.
It took me about six months to become an anime fan instead of just an Evangelion fan, but I was finally sold. If anime can tell a moving story, I thought, it must be worth exploring. The natural next step was FLCL, also produced by Studio Gainax and another of Konietzko and DiMartino’s favorite anime. Then Cowboy Bebop, partially to catch up before the live-action remake dropped (I never finished that show, but I remain in love with Shinichiro Watanabe’s original).
After that, I briefly told myself I had enough anime for one year. Then, in December 2021, I saw Fullmetal Alchemist was being pulled from Netflix come January. So, I pulled the trigger to binge that series in the last two weeks of the year.
By 2022, all trepidation had gone away. I’ve made it my mission to make up for lost time and binge classic anime or recent acclaimed ones. The best series please my cinephile brain with bolder filmmaking than I see in my old passions like Marvel. I’ve even started reading manga; like anyone newly in love, I want to know everything about the one who’s caught my eye.
As I immerse myself in anime more and more, I don’t think about Avatar as much as I used to. But you can’t forget your first love, especially when it’s back in the news. The live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender has just dropped on Netflix. Retell this story removed from animation, and you’ll introduce your audience to only one new world, not the possibility of dozens more.
Anime is a medium of imagination, and thanks to Avatar: The Last Airbender, it now captures my heart time and time again.
