Everybody was Kung Fu fighting

[ebonlock]

I'm going nuts over Avatar: the Last Airbender this season, it's gone from great to damn near brilliant. The writing's incredible and the story and character development amazing. If you're not watching it you should, in the meantime, though, here's a really fun mashup of Avatar and Aladdin that works almost too well:

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And this Avatar pairings vid is just adorable, though I was a little sad not to see Toph/Sokka, which has suddenly become my favorite 'ship. And the Mai/Zuko is so cute...of course I think anything involving Zuko is cute, so...

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Speaking of cute and Zuko, "Kung Fu Fighting" with Zuko as the star, yeah baby!

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Part of the reason I love the show is that the animation is actually based on Chinese martial arts, and they did some really cool shorts on the subject which you can find here:

Firebending, based on Shaolin Kung fu
Waterbending, based on Tai Chi
Airbending, based on Bog Wah
Earthbending, based on Hun Gar

It's like getting an animated Hong Kong film every week, how can you beat that? And it doesn't hurt that the writing is some of the best in current animation.

UPDATE: Ok, I had to add this one because it just had me howling with laughter, Zuko does the Happy Song:

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Comments

[ebongreen.livejournal.com]

I will happily second the Avatar endorsement. I realize the potential for heresy when I say: because of Avatar among other things, I haven't bothered to watch BSG. (Please don't excommunicate me.) /B-,

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

No excommunication, however, you really should catch BSG because it's pretty damn brilliant too :)

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

Avatar is one of the very few things Nick has done right since they completely alienated Vasquez with how they completely fucked him over with their handling of Zim.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

I've gotta' say I was stunned when I started watching this show first season. I was like, hey good writing, continuity, character development and...wow, real kungfu?! Holy crap! This season, though, struck me as being very much like the difference betwen Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire for me. Liked book 3, but book 4 started being more for the grown ups and that's when I got seriously hooked.

Eating up the Zuko redemption story, and Sokka gets some of the best dialogue in animation.

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

I turned Avatar on by accident one day during the first season. I've been hooked ever since.

Even the episodes that are weak compared to the rest of the series far surpasses almost everything currently available.