A:tLA Abridged Series Review

Series: Avatar the Last Airbender

Genre: Animation; Abridged Series

Original Creator(s): Michael Dante Dimartino and Bryan Konietzko

Abridged Series Idea Creator: Gan Xingba

There will be two different types of things to be done for this blog, and one of the two directions that this will be going – One will be on focused on process of making Anime Music Videos (AMV’s) and few extras for things such as behind the scenes of extra works, whereas the other portion of this will be focused on Abridged Series and overviews along with good and bad points of it, such as this one.

In this overview for the Abridged Series, it will be on the popular series called Avatar the Abridged Series. But before I fully dive into the good and bad pointers of this series based off just the first episode, let’s go into brief explanation about exactly what abridged series is. In all essence, “Abridged Series” is just a bit of a fancy way of saying “quick overview of already existing movie/show without watching the entire movie/episode”. And this Avatar the Last Airbender the Abridged Series is no different. Gan Xingba is more of the well-known among the Avatar Abridged creators, and they take one entire 21 to 25 minute episode and cram it down into approximately 5 to 7 minute video. Without even losing content of the story itself, Gan Xingba also makes their own lines to make the show a little more lively and fun.

And just as expected, Gan Xingba took the “pilot”, the first episode, of Avatar the Last Airbender series and made the abridged version of it. For those that don’t know the show too well, here’s a quick overview of what happens in the first episode.

In the first episode of the Avatar the Last Airbender series, Katara (a waterbending girl) and Sokka (a nonbender – normal – boy) that are siblings from a tribe in the South Pole are out fishing when they come across a large iceberg with an outlined figure of what appears to be a boy. When they free the boy from the ice, they find out that he’s the last Airbender to exist when it was believed that Airbenders had gone extinct one hundred years before when the Fire Nation had destroyed any and all Air Nation’s temples to ever exist, leaving no survivors whatsoever. And as it turns out, not only is this boy that the two siblings found the very last Airbender to ever exist in the world, he’s also the Avatar, the main figure to keep peace all across the world and that are able to control all four elements – Earth, Fire, Water and Air. To be able to even control these elements is to be called bending of the elements, and anyone that is a bender is able to control only one element. In this last Airbender’s case, all four elements, but only because that one figure is known to be the Avatar, and the main purpose is so that all four nations will be able to be kept in balance and will have that one person to understand where all four sides are coming from. It is also given into an insight in the episode that when Katara and Sokka are young, their village was under attack by the Fire Nation, and even their mother had been killed off due to lying in order to protect Katara that she, the mother, was a Waterbender. And Zuko, a Firebender and the prince in the Fire Nation that had been disgraced from his seat by his own father with a burnt scar over his eye as a reminder, is in search of the Avatar to end the Avatar’s life in order to regain respect from his own father and to gain back his seat as the prince and the rights to the throne. His uncle, Iroh, follows Zuko to make sure that Zuko will be alright in terms of his safety and to try and lead his nephew in the right path than the wrong for one of Zuko’s grandfathers also at one point used to be an Avatar, but from the Firebender and Fire Nation lineage unlike the Airbender and of the Air Nation lineage Avatar that had been missing for a century.

What Gan Xingba did was take that basic story line presented in the first episode alone to use it to his own advantage to try and portray each character in their own ways – Whether it be by gender, characters’ relations, or even just the character’s personality itself. And to make it into something more than just the search and helping of the last Airbender, Aang, in the case of the South Pole tribe siblings where as in the hunting down of the Avatar in the Firebender Zuko’s case, there were also some humors included, which really keeps the audience to sticking to watch the series to the end. To go on with other things that were really well, it was having to use Zuko’s greed and childish ways of wanting things to go his way without having to hear out what his uncle has to say portrayed his character well. In the series itself, Zuko actually is seen as the childish character majority of the time. Everything he does, it was out of selfish wants and needs, and he refuses to see to everything that his uncle tells him. He doesn’t even acknowledge what his uncle has to say as anything wise, but foolish. To incorporate that into the abridged series by making it seem as if all he wants is to find the gigantic ice piñata just so he can have a lot of candy in the so called legend that Sokka tells his sister, Katara, about, it also adds the humor to show that the jokes stated are being referred to and actually showing the same desire to get what other characters also may want.

Some things that had been complained about when it came to this series is that it was “dumb” and how they couldn’t get a female to actually voice Katara’s voice. Point of the matter is for abridged series, it’s not always possible to get the necessary ender to actually play the part of a specific gender. At the same time, the purpose of not getting a specific gender for either or of the two genders also may be due to the fact that the creator(s) of a certain abridged series, such as this one, does it purposely in hopes of making the show even more funnier to give it a bigger boost by trying to imitate the opposing gender in the best way possible, which there have been a handful of people that have agreed it was funny in Katara’s case.

Another thing that had really worked out well for this show was the script. To write a script so that it actually follows the show AND to make it funny is sometimes harder than thought to balance out unless if working with a dedicated team to try and come up with comedic materials together to see what can be done. And the fact that the video clips have been smoothly put together than constantly choppy also may have its own advantages of drawing more viewers in. How smooth the transitions are, let alone how choppy just one scene is, can also take effect to the deciding factor on if the viewers also like the series enough to keep watching it since it’s not always just the written scrip that the viewers will go by to say they like the show.

Would I personally recommend the Avatar the Last Airbender the Abridged Series? Yes, I would! O’ve seen a handful of abridged series along with the originals, and this is defiantly one of the better if not the best abridged series I’ve seen by far over the years.

For the next review of an abridged series, it may be either on another well-made abridged series or something horrible that could have been done better. So stay in tune to the next Abridged Series to be reviewed

#atla #avatar #last #airbender #the #aang #katara #zuko #toph #beifong #beifong #sokka #abridged #series