Avatar: The Last Airbender is still one of the most recognized and beloved animated series to ever come out of Nickelodeon, and even with the release of an official sequel and live-action film, fans still cling to this original project over a decade after it first aired. Now as the franchise celebrates its 15th Anniversary, it’s the perfect time to look back and breakdown everything it did to be successful at the end of the day. This comes from its story the most, and while even some of the stars still have questions of how the story ended, it’s still full of huge moments.
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Speaking with ComicBook.com’s Megan Peters, Dante Basco (the star who brought Zuko to life) actually opened up what his favorite things about the series were, “I mean, the whole thing. I think Hollywood’s a fickle place and you never know what kind of projects you end up working on and what they ultimately ended up becoming. So very fortunate to be a part of the Avatar family.”
As Basco explains about his position on the series overall, he’s favorite aspect of it was the entire project as a whole, “Looking back, I’m most proud of the story. This kind of storytelling, and it happened to be a great story.” Elaborating further, Basco was proud to be a part of a series that was faithful to the multiple Asian cultures that inspired, “starts off with [series creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino] kind of creating this tale and being very respectful to the thing that inspired them, especially all the Asian themes and Asian American actors, artists, filmmakers.”
In fact, this respect to Asian cultures is what really resonates with Basco during with his long and storied career, “For the last three decades in Hollywood, I’m really proud that the time and character type tells a story influenced an Asian influence, they really did do an amazing justice to the homeland.”
Basco’s character was one of the most layered in the entire Avatar: The Last Airbender series, and Basco put the same care into his performance that the creators did when writing his arcs. With this kind of teamwork and respect from the entire team, it’s no mystery now as to why this is such a huge franchise 15 years later. But what do you think? What are your favorite parts of Avatar: The Last Airbender? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!
