August 31, 2008

Avatar: The Last Airbender


My Friday night, I watched the last 4 episodes of Avatar~
Suprizenly the show was pretty damn good. All this time I've been watching all the episodes on streaming and then this last 4 episode I download the TV-rip where I didn't realize how smooth the animations were!
The show was so good that going back to watch Transformers, TMNT or any other kid's show, those shows are the most mindless show I ever seen. I was trying to finish TMNT but it kinda got boring at space invator area. It also makes me think does kids actually watch and understand the philisophy?? Espeically the culture difference. I remember in Mulan they had to replace the funndoshi(asian underwear before WW2) to stripe boxers just so people know that is an underwear, but Avatar they just went ALL OUT with full asian culture. I don't think I saw anything that had European culture in it to transulate it, which is good so it feels they have there own world.
It really was too bad the voice actor of Uncle Iroh: Mako died before the show ended. Luckly there weren't that many line for him in Season 3... But it woulda been A LOT nicer if they had his voice at the scene when Zuko applogized him. Mako has distintive voice he sounded awesome playing as Iroh, to me he's been typecast as wise old man, unless that is what he's known for already. ;) I only know him as wise man role like Iroh and Splinter from TNMT movie and as actor, I didn't even know he speaks english well -_-
There are few things I didn't catch:

- if Aang is the last airbender, will it screw up the order of reincarnation now that they're missing air? The only possiblilty I can think of is by the time it gets to air, airbender already expanded.

- how do benders become bender? is it a gifted talent they born with or anyone can learn from their nation? If anyone can learn it can't Sakka would of learned waterbending? I can only assume warrior is also one type of fighting style or whoever is interested can learn how to bend. Did I just answer the question?
Though it woulda been pretty powerful if warrior learned bending, and cheesy at the sametime~ =)



K, slightly off topic but how many people find it's annoying when episodes of anime aren't consistent with their original drawing style? Like first couple of episodes are the same team who animated them, then the studio will send it off to somewhere else to do it for them(or within the studio they get different animator to do it, but you get the idea) and then it'll go back to the same team originally to work on the episodes. If you don't know what I'm talking about try watching Gundam Seed Destiny, because that has the obious style difference. Though I remember my brother told me there's no difference. OR Samurai Champloo, I think it was somewhere in between episode 20~24, when Mugen and Jin were fighting with naginata lady who lost her child.
So I guess really the question is do anyone notice the style difference in some episodes in the show??
From Avatar, the one I remember right now is check out Season 1: Episode 15 "Bato of the Water Tribe" THAT looks different from the first episode of the show. In case you didn't notice, their face and especially the eyes they look more bubbley/rounded. Like it's almost they don't know how to draw anime perfectly.

The minor anime studio do send their animation to Korea to save time. But some places do a really bad job. That is when you should notice the difference.
There is nothing wrong with sending animation to another studio. But AT LEAST keep the style consistent!!
Sure, American doesn't want Avatar to consider to be as "anime" but even the Americans can't keep the "anime-style" consistent with each episodes. Maybe the American cartoon has the same problem as anime but their drawing are already so bad that I probably didn't notice.

That's enough of that~ =) Now I'm back to deciding what to watch next....

7 comments:

  1. See, SEE. Other things to note are how the four bending arts are based on four distinct martial arts styles that suit them. Off the top of my head, water is obviously Tai-chi and Fire is some form of Shaolin Kung-fu. Air I think is like... Ba-gua or something... You never hit an opponent, you just kind of push them off balance.

    By the way, your next show should be Firefly. = D

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  2. Yeah I definitly noticed that. I would think air is like Aikidou, at least bit of it.

    I forgot to mention this but imagine if they push this bending idea more. It would be pretty bizzare!
    Like if you can take out water from plants imagine take out liquid in human body.
    Or like sand bender absorb water(i got that idea from One Piece which btw you should read the comic! not anime cuz it's crap).

    But I'm sure they thought of that so the show ends it to the point it wont get too messed up.

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  3. Ahaha, well they did have Blood bending... which in itself seems pretty unfair. ^_^

    And to add a question to your list of questions... what happens if one bender marries another bender and has a kid? Do they become a bender of BOTH? Or just one? Or none? If it's just one... then, assuming Aang and Kitara get married and have kids, are they OBLIGATED to keep having kids until they have one that can air bend? And for that matter, how would they even know before it's too late?

    ahaha, then again, I think most meta-sciences can get messed up if you over think them.

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  4. What's sad is that once Appa die, no more flying bison~ =(

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  5. Anonymous11:54 PM

    that's why aang loves someone... they are gonna make lot's of air babies, flying all ovah. HAHA

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  6. really enjoy this blog..

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  7. omg...this is by far the best blog i've visited so far. i actually read the words not only the pics lol

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