The first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, also known as Book 1 Water, is 20 episodes long. It is a Nickelodeon animated series. It is set in a world with four nations, each based on one of the classical elements, being fire, water, air or earth. Each nation has a subset of people who can control and manipulate the elements and are known as benders. In the past, the Fire Nation declared war on the other nations, and the avatar, a bender who is able to use manipulate all four elements and keep the harmony between the nations, disappeared. As a result, the world begins to fill with despair as the Fire Nation has superior firepower and dominates the world.
Focusing on a pair of siblings at a small Water Tribe located in the South Pole, they are Katara and Sokka. They’re partly responsible for helping the tribe continue to function as all people of fighting age had gone to assist in the war, leaving only the very old and very young. Katara is a waterbender, albeit she is just beginning to learn about her powers, while Sokka is nothing special (although a bit hotheaded). The pair were fishing when they come upon Aang, an airbender (and soon revealed to be the avatar) who was encased in ice and awoke when they were near.
Things quickly go south as the Fire Nation comes to attack, having realized that Aang was there. Once that threat is temporarily over, Aang explains that as the avatar, he will need to learn the other three types of bending. Conveniently, it has to be learnt in a specific order with waterbending being first. The trio then decides to travel all the way to the other side of the world to North Pole in order to properly learn waterbending. The season covers the trio’s travel as they stop at towns along the way. This serves the double purpose of showing off just how oppressed several towns and cities are with the Fire Nation having taken over. There is a sense of fear with a lot of the population. The show also takes this chance to show how the world works and the different cultures that it contains.
During the whole time, the Fire Nation’s exiled Prince Zuko relentlessly follows them to try and capture Aang. This is supposedly his ticket back to his father’s good books and be allowed back into his own country. Zuko is shown to be ruthless, impatient and having a fiery personality. Of course, as the season progresses, we learn the tragic backstory of Zuko and how he came to be the person that he is now. The show has good humor, with a lot of gags that works really well. While it is mostly visual gags and in typical cartoon fashion, it is done in such a way that can be enjoyed even if you’re outside of the target audience.
The show also handles various themes and lessons. Katara and Sokka will often have opposing views, and over the course of the episode, will sort them out. The main message being that you accept differences in others. It can be a bit predictable and repetitive when various episodes have similar messages. Aang will continually make the same mistakes of not trusting Katara and Sokka. They are travelling this journey together and been through so much, yet he is always afraid that they’ll leave whenever something comes up. Aang is also a bit too impatient in trying to learn and explore everything, making him an easy target to be tracked at times.
The ending is strong and are the best episodes of the season. We see the experience that Aang had gained over the course of the journey and it leads to a powerful final episode. By this point, you’re invested into all the characters and it brings more of its lore to the forefront. It had a satisfying battle with strong pacing.
Overall, the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender is a good show. While it follows an episodic structure that can make some episodes pointless in the scheme of their journey, the season ties together really well with a clear objective. The characters are clearly making progress and have strong reasonable motivations, which leads to an epic season finale.
--------------------------------------------------
For other anime reviews, have a look at this page.
