AVATAR

Avatar: The Last Airbender (also known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang) is an American animated television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon and the Nicktoons Network. The series was created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who served as executive producers along with Aaron Ehasz. Avatar is set in an Asian-influenced world of Chinese martial arts and elemental manipulation. The show drew on elements from traditional East Asian (especially Chinese and Japanese) culture, blending the styles of anime and US domestic cartoons.

The series follows the adventures of the main protagonist Aang and his friends (who found him frozen in ice), who must save the world by defeating the evil Fire Lord and ending the destructive war with the Fire Nation. The pilot episode first aired on February 21, 2005 and the series concluded with a widely-lauded two-hour television movie on July 19, 2008. The show is available from the following sources: on DVD, the iTunes Store, the Zune Marketplace, the Xbox Live Marketplace, the PlayStation Store, and its home on Nickelodeon.

Avatar: The Last Airbender was popular with both audiences and critics,[8] garnering 5.6 million viewers on its best-rated showing and receiving high ratings in the Nicktoons lineup, even outside its 6–11-year-old demographic. Avatar has been nominated for and won awards from the Annual Annie Awards, the Genesis Awards, the primetime Emmy awards and a Peabody Award among others. The first season's success prompted Nickelodeon to order second and third seasons. The first part of a movie trilogy titled The Last Airbender is expected to be released on July 2, 2010.

Merchandise based on the series includes scaled action figures, a trading card game, three video games based on the first, second, and third seasons, stuffed animals distributed by Paramount Parks, and two LEGO sets. An art book is slated for release in mid-2010

BY HARRY OQC