Avatar: The Legend of Aang-Book 1: Water-Volume 1 (2005)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	92:00
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Dave Filoni
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Michael Dimartino Tim Hedrick Bryan Konietzko John O'Bryan Giancarlo Volpe Dee Bradley Baker Jack De Sena Mae Whitman Zach Tyler Dante Basco
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Benjamin Wynn Jeremy Zuckerman Joseph Adorisio II

Avatar: The Last Airbender begins with the above narration. Mythic, compelling and epic. To its credit the animated series meets the grandiose ambition of the opening through a combination of simple yet elegant animation, clever and deep storytelling and excellent voice acting.

The show has been so successful on Nickelodeon that it is now in its third season and M Night Shyamalan has reputedly signed on to make the live action version in three movies. It has spawned trading cards, video games and figurines galore.

Firstly, the curious thing out of the way. In Region 4 this DVD is called Avatar :The Legend of Aang instead of Avatar :The Last Airbender. Even the common Region 4 DVD sales sites give it the traditional name. Devotees of the show may be able to enlighten me on the reason for the change.

Obsessive fan support is nothing new for animated series' yet Avatar deserves and has received far greater respect than that accorded to the Pokemons and Yu-Gi-Oh's of this World and its following has extended further than the original pre-teen target audience. So whilst I might have signed on to review this DVD as a favour to my 11 year old son I kept watching the episodes out of genuine enjoyment.

Avatar, as the opening narration suggests, is the story of the one master who can stop the evil fire nation from controlling the World. Aang has slept in ice for one hundred years only to be awakened by teens Katara and Sokka. He is 112 now though he looks and acts like a normal 12 year old. His faithful steed Appa , a winged bison, is defrosted with him.

Katara has her own power. She is a water bender but her skills are basic and she lacks training. Sokka is something of a skeptic and forms the "Han Solo" of the threesome.

The friendship between these three forms the backbone of the series as they travel from their homeland to accompany Aang on his travels to regain his powers and stop the fire nation from succeeding in the war.

In the episodes presented on this DVD the fire nation is pretty much represented by Prince Zuko, an exiled fire nation prince who has the sworn duty of finding the Avatar and capturing him. It is worth pointing out that the characters in Avatar are all flawed in some way and even the evildoers like Zuko have some complexity and depth to their character. It is the careful storytelling which gives the show its gravitas. Aang is immensely powerful but he does not have complete control over his skills and when in the most powerful "Avatar state" he can be a danger to even his closest friends.

Despite its similarities to any number of Japanese anime Avatar is, in fact, a product of Americans Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and is animated at Nickelodeon Animation Studios. As said above, the animation for Avatar is fairly simple but effective nonetheless. The backdrops are beautiful to look at and the show is cinematic in vision. The character faces themselves are nothing amazing or detailed but there is something special about Aang with his puckish smile and arrow head decoration. The voices are just right and the humour, which may be a bit dopey for adults, is pitched perfectly at the pre-teens.

My only gripes are firstly that the show has received some less than stellar editing so that it cuts to black at the ad breaks. Secondly, the DVD is short at only 90 odd minutes. This packaging does match the Region 1 approach but, as detailed below, they have released the first two seasons and season packs some time ago and we in Region 4 probably deserved better than to start from the very beginning with individual volumes. Avatar is a justifiable modern success story which is suitable for the young and the young at heart. This DVD contains the first 4 episodes of a 20 episode season which, taken from the rear of the case, are as follows:

Chapter 1 The Boy in the Iceberg: Katara and Sokka, a brother and sister from the Southern Water tribe, discover a twelve-year-old boy frozen in an iceberg. Could this be the Avatar the world has been waiting for?

Chapter 2 The Avatar Returns: Prince Zuko, a young Firebender whose mission in life is to capture the Avatar, tracks Aang to the Southern Water Tribe village where Katara and Sokka live.

Chapter 3 The Southern Air Temple: Aang is eager to take Sokka and Katara to the Air Temple where he was raised, but discovers the temple is not as he remembers it.

Chapter 4 The Warriors of Kyoshi: When locals of a small island discover Aang is the Avatar, they treat him like a celebrity, which ultimately leads to trouble!

Video

    Avatar :The Legend of Aang is presented on DVD in a 1.33:1 full frame transfer consistent with its original aspect ratio.

The series is not exactly cutting edge and home theatre fans will need to wait for Ratatouille on Blu-ray (or maybe Shrek 3 on HD-DVD ) to show off their new systems. It is probably the equivalent of any other "lower end" cartoon show. But the look is generally pleasing and certainly won't disappoint fans of the original series. It looks just as good, perhaps better, than it did on pay TV.

The colours are solid and not surprisingly, given the paucity of material on the DVD, there are no problems with compression even though it is on a single layer DVD. The only consistent problems I noticed were edge enhancement at times, particularly the credit sequences and the snow scenes and a some "hum" around the line drawings on midrange shots. This is more noticeable the larger your display.

Otherwise the transfer is perfectly acceptable.

Video Ratings Summary

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Shadow Detail
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Film Artefacts
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Audio

    Avatar :The Legend of Aang comes to DVD with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack running at a low 192Kb/s.

The production company Nickelodeon have done no favours to consumers by upgrading the sound for DVD release. Still, the dialogue can be heard clearly, it is in good audio sync. The music, by Jeremy Zuckerman, contains some excellent themes both reflective and stirring.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Avatar :The Legend of Aang comes with no extras bar some trailers - see the Region comparison below.

Avatar :The Legend of Aang has been the subject of extensive releases in Region 1. In fact, all of the first two seasons have been released in volumes like this one as well as complete series collections. The Region 1 equivalent of this edition contains a short feature regarding the fighting styles on show in the series. I have read a few reviews of the extra which suggest it is better than nothing - but only just.

Therefore I would probably recommend the local release for all but the most dedicated fans of the show.

Truthfully, however, any dedicated fan should probably seek out the complete series 1 and 2 on DVD from Region 1 rather than wait for each one to be issued here. As I write only volumes 1 and 2 are available in Region 4. The slow rate of release may mean that it will be years before the whole 3 seasons reach our shores!

    Avatar :The Legend of Aang is an excellent animated series which gets its first release in this DVD.

The transfer quality is not stunning but is pretty much what any fan of the series on Nickelodeon would expect.

The lack of extras is a disappointment.

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Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall