Anime/TV that's kind of like "Avatar the Last Airbender"

[alias_sqbr]

For the duration of this post "Avatar" means the tv show "Avatar the Last Airbender". Lets forget the other one exists.

greteldragon asked about this on Twitter and once again Twitter simply could not hold the full extent of my genius. I decided it was a question I'd like to open to you guys anyway.

So: there is no anime, or animated show from any other genre, or fiction of any type at all, really, that feels significantly like Avatar to me in all respects. There are some that are similar in some ways, but whether or not they match in the most important ways is going to be subjective.

We have: a ragtag group of teenagers/children trying to save the world in a fantasy setting based on medieval East Asia. Pros include humour, character consistency and growth, large 3 dimensional cast, moral ambiguity, good writing, clever worldbuilding.

The list of general anime recs from my anime panel last year

Shows which remind me of Avatar of the top of my head. Pros and cons are both similarity and quality (and then I got bored of listing them)

Teen Titans: A group of teen superheroes saving the world. Pro: Light tone, likable humourous characters, similar Americans-emulating-anime feel. Con: VERY silly, total reset button every episode.

Samurai Shamploo: Two samurai and a girl have wacky hiijinks in Edo era Japan. Pro: very well written with clever metahumour, moral ambiguity, nicely realised period Japanese setting. Con: Not all that similar :) Personally I find samurai dramas dull and got bored.

El Hazard: Schoolkids and teacher find themselves suddenly transported to a far away magical kingdom and are drawn into an epic battle taking place, better than it sounds. Only anime with a moderately epic fantasy plot I can think of that I've actually liked.
Pros: Funny, ensemble cast, does some interesting and clever things
Cons: A bit silly, dated and cliched in parts (very uncliched in others though)

Full Metal Alchemist: Much darker and quite different in a lot of ways, but very good from from what I've seen and it is a fantasy about teenagers on a quest in a fantasy setting with clever writing and good (steampunkish) fantasy worldbuilding.

There's "The Mysterious Cities of Gold", but I haven't seen that since I was a kid so can't guarantee it'd stand up to modern viewing!

There's a lot of light anime about groups of schoolkids having weird magical hiijinks, I think the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya (TV Tropes: it's very hard to summarise!) is my favourite but it's not much like Avatar (more surreal and...wrong, also smaller scale. But just as funny).

In a similar-ish vein part of me wants to rec "Serial Experiments Lain", "Princess Tutu" or "Gokusen" because they're awesome but they're really not very much like Avatar at all :)

I can't think of any live action TV which reminds me of Avatar at all, but that may be a failure of imagination on my part.

So, what do other Avatar fans think of my recs? What would you rec? Stick to tv or miniseries I think, unless you have a book/movie/etc that's really similar.

And if you haven't seen Avatar: do so! It's awesome!

LJ mirror: http://alias-sqbr.livejournal.com/323178.html

Comments

[ex_gretel640]

Yo,

Thank you so much for writing this post...

However may I ask that that username be changed to my lj one as it's crossposted... I kinda don't really want a lot of lj checking on my dw. Even though there's not a lot there.

[ex_gretel640]

Also Teen Titans is awesome.

Robin <3

[bunny_m]

Teen Titans is indeed all kinds of awesome. I was so bummed when I finished watching the movie, even though it ends so well.

[alias_sqbr]

There's a MOVIE??

*googles*

Wow, there is way more of this show that I thought (eg, what I could get from the video store) HMMMM

[bunny_m]

Thanks to a certain Liz, I have the entire run, all seasons plus the final movie. I can pass them to you if you'd like. ^_^

[alias_sqbr]

Ooooooh. Yes please.

[alias_sqbr]

Done, sorry about that.

Personally I have a soft spot for Raven and Beast Boy :)

[softestbullet]

I don't have any recs, but I'm totally bookmarking this page. :D

[alias_sqbr]

Good good :) There's a few more recs on the lj version, too.

[polyserena]

It's such a hard question :( There really isn't anything like Avatar. The shows which should be like Avatar in terms of being a kids show about a group of kids in historical-ish Asia-ish on a quest are... not that good quality-wise (Naruto, for example).

The best I could think of was Fullmetal Alchemist, in particular the second anime (which is based much more strongly on the manga than the first anime). Which is a masterpiece that I think everyone should watch anyway, but it's definitely a whole lot darker than Avatar in places and is more fantasy Europe than fantasy Asia. And has more emphasis on adults even though the two main characters are teenagers (but hey on the plus side more awesome adult women).

Actually I can think of a manga which is a bit like it, but it got cancelled after 23 chapters because Japan sucks it wasn't popular enough in the magazine it was in. So it's only very short, but Double Arts is adorable and centres around kids and is clever and imaginative. Not as much with the fantasy Asia though.

But I'll ask around! I know people who've seen much more anime than I have.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, I decided to go for "Makes me happy in the same way Avatar does" rather than "Any anime about a bunch of teenagers having hijinks in a fantasy setting" because 99% of that genre bores me to tears, and anyone who does like that genre in general probably wouldn't think of it primarily as "like Avatar".

I should check out the second FMA anime, then. I quite liked what I saw of the first one but lost watching momentum when one of the disks I got out was scratched.

I shall check out Double Arts right away!

See, I pretended this was to help greteldragon, but it was totally a ruse to get recs for myself :D

Outstanding post 45097

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