Avatar: The Last Airbender took anime seriously when few shows did

polygon.com:

Folks who grew up watching Avatar: The Last Airbender have high-key been in distress since its series finale aired in 2008. Unlike other notable pop cultural phenomenons like HBO’s Game of Thrones, whose divisive ending dampened viewers’ affinity with the prestige TV show, the basis of Avatar viewers’ discontent comes from how spectacular the show was. Like a picturesque illustration of a stallion mid-stride, Avatar’s journey from daring pilot to emotionally climactic finale left a void in viewers’ spirits that they’ve yet to fill with another show of its caliber. And who can blame them? Avatar: The Last Airbender hit differently.

Avatar: The Last Airbender was, by all accounts, a formative cartoon brimming with fantastical element-bending action; fallible heroes; gripping, complex, and nuanced villains; and enthralling world-building. What’s more, Avatar accomplished all this while exploring grown-up topics like genocide, sexism, ableism, propaganda, mental health, apartheid, bigotry, and geopolitics, without talking down to its Y7 audience. Avatar’s myriad themes spoke to the kind of X-factor plot points seasoned anime fans would cherry-pick when recommending top-shelf shows to unversed friends.

Before Avatar, kids could only find this type of programming on Nickelodeon’s competitor, Cartoon Network, with equally popular shows like Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, and Teen Titans. Like those Cartoon Network shows, a huge, unique component of Avatar’s staying power among die-hard viewers is how its creators seamlessly wove some of anime’s greatest stories and iconography into the fabric of the show.

Anime influences in mid-aughts Western cartoons have a bit of a complicated history for anime fans. Although piecemeal references to touchstone anime moments like the Akira slide have populated countless times in cartoons over the years to elicit its cool factor, other cartoons of the time — likeCodename: Kids Next Door, The Fairly OddParents, and the entirety of Kappa