My First Fandom
Today's topic shall be: The Top Ten Reasons Why I Really Hate Alliteration You Must Watch Avatar.
1. I am going to get this one out of the way. Zuko. Zuko starts his legacy of shirtless!episodes in the third episode, and this all leads up to the truly beautiful episode in the third season where he is at the beach and thus constantly clothed only in shorts and a vest. Also he is a deeply, deeply interesting character with fascinating motivations and incredible character growth. And in season two he pours water on his chest while shirtless. I was seriously not aware I could be actracted to animated guys before these things started happening.
2. And on to the logical reasons. The settings. You've basically got the Water Tribe, the Earth Kindom, the Fire Nation, and the abandoned temples of the Air Nomads, and all of these have detailed and consistent fashion styles, architecture styles, and really, really beautiful backgrounds.
3. Which brings me to point three: the animation. The animation is awesome. Full stop. It's a bit shaky sometimes first season, but only compared to the stuff that follows.
4. This, in turn, brings me to the fight scenes. These are incredible. You've got people controlling the elements, mixed with cool weaponry, mixed with people doing both- it is awesome.
5. Reason five: Actual Character Development. Yes. Really. In an American cartoon.
6. Toph. She does not appear until Season Two, however, so until then you must content yourself with
7. Iroh. Which should not be difficult. Cool Old Guy to the extreme.
8. The MUSIC. There are actual leitmotifs in this show. It's like a movie score, and it, like the animation and the fight scenes, starts off strong in Season One and then blossoms into Utter Awesome.
9. The Mary Sues in the fandom are fun and easily mockable.
What, that wasn't a good reason? Fine.
9. If you do not like Zuko, there is always Sokka.
10. The Epic!ness and twistiness of the plot. Yes, twistiness. Not only do the good guys not always win, the show's good enough that even when they do, you aren't always expecting it. Also people die. Like, actual teenage characters die. I still cannot believe this actually got shown on Nickelodeon, which is, like, the Channel of the Stupid.
Anyway. Good show. Fun show. Must watch.