Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my favorite animated shows today. The series is being shown on Nickelodeon, and it stars a 12-year old monk named Aang.

The show is set in a human-like universe with a largely Asian setting. Here, all civilization is chiefly divided into four nations each named after an element--the Air Nomads, the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. Each nation has a special order called benders; people who have the power to use and manipulate their native element. In every generation, only one person is able to master the control of all four elements. He is known as the Avatar, the spirit of the planet manifested in human form. When the Avatar dies, he is incarnated into the next nation in the Avatar Cycle.



The four nations lived in harmony until the Fire nation attacked. To ensure that the Avatar would not interfere, all Airbenders were mercilessly killed. Only Aang, trapped in suspended animation in a frozen bubble for a century, survived the massacre, thus continuing the Avatar cycle into the new age.