No ATLA spoilers for you newbessies. I *will* throw Z spoilers in here though because fuck it it's as old as I am.
Like The Super Saiyajin Son Goku emerging to challenge Evil Lord Freezer, I never dreamed there could be two action shows as absurdly spectacular and as evenly matched as Avatar: The Last Airbender and Dragon Ball Kai. To decipher who truly was the stronger, I watched the two shows back to back over the course of a few weekends. For Kai, I only watched the first 53 episodes (Saiyan & Freeza arcs), as to present the best possible comparison.
First and foremost, it was an experience of unparalleled satisfaction and synergy. The two programs' mutual themes and styles made them flow perfectly together, but their fundamentally opposite episode structure allowed for the perfect balance. It's hard to imagine two shows that work better in tandem. ATLA focuses on concise storylines wherein a satisfying conclusion is reached every episode, while Kai tells one long, 53 episode story, so the two together effortlessly kept my attention without ever feeling redundant.
The two shows even mirrored each other in progression, with an exciting first arc, a slower second arc more focused on build-up, and a third arc that is the best of all. And sure enough, they were pretty much neck and neck. Both shows tell a brilliant story, with excellent animation and characters. ATLA has much better dialogue, with some of the smartest and best-written lines in TV history. But Kai has much better fighting, in fact it's in a league of its own. No show in history can even come within 50% of Kai's immaculate battle scenes.
Memories
Dragon Ball Z will always hold some of the most vivid and by far some of the most beautiful memories of my childhood. But Kai is only able to retain bits and pieces of that, for obvious reasons. If you could combine the nostalgic aspects of the Ocean Dub and the original Japanese Z into a series as good as Kai, that might be my favorite show of all-time. But ya can't.
Avatar: The Last Airbender may be a lot newer, and I may have been a cynical & depressed teenager by the time this show existed... but it was one of the frighteningly few unsoiled bright spots in an otherwise dark time. It was able to transport me back to those DBZ days and offer something genuine of its own as well. So I have a cherished wealth of ATLA memories too.
Of course, I've only just begun watching Kai. Memories of my first time watching Kai will surely be worth something someday, this is a pretty great period of my life in its own right. It took me a few years before I came to fully appreciate ATLA and likewise Kai is liable to improve on further viewings.
Mentor & Master, One & the Same?
One thing you must admit, gotta hand it to ATLA for getting it right the *first* time around. They took the bloated, filler-infested format so common among shonen anime like DBZ and Naruto, and made a perfectly-paced, virtually fillerless series. They took everything great about the classics and genuinely improved upon it.
Oh there's no question that ATLA was standing on the shoulders of giants. Had Dragon Ball Z not existed, you can be almost certain Avatar: The Last Airbender would cease to exist as well. Not only did ATLA take abundant influence from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, but without the immense success of Z in America, it's highly unlikely a series like ATLA would ever have been greenlit by Nickelodeon in the first place.
But I've never been one to value history over results. I'm not going to put Robert Johnson over Led Zeppelin just because Johnson was a pivotal influence. I still think Zepp made much better music and making good material is the primary objective and highest virtue. To me, the victor gets the spoils.
The Final Stretch
But the road goes both ways, you see? If I'm not judging ATLA for standing on Z's shoulders, obviously I can't judge Kai for doing the same. So we end up right back where we started: with Kai and ATLA being dead even, kneck 'n kneck, both at the top of every game.
It wasn't until the final stretch, with both series at the ultimate peak of their powers, when Avatar: The Last Airbender pulled conclusively ahead. Kai culminates in the most astronomically gorgeous deathmatch in the history of histories, the badass duel between two gods on a dying planet. And as it progresses it gets better and better, with Kaio-sama's fucking brilliant scheme to resurrect the Namekians & teleport them from Namek, Freezer's desperate measures, his tragic defeat, and that heartbreaking... confounding call from help, from such a creature as he. It's really satisfying when the final moments of a series are also the best moments by far. Dragon Ball Kai is definitely, easily one of the best shows ever made.
But it is in its final season that Avatar: The Last Airbender pushes its already prodigious ingenuities into maximum overdrive. Its episodic sensibilities become more supreme than ever, with outstandingly deep side quests like The Beach and The Southern Raiders. And yet, at the same time, all these little threads they've been planting throughout the entire series, are now weaving together in an prescient web of clever fullfilment. Things that at the time seemed like filler, all become pertinent and meaningful.
Supreme Ruler
The few complaints that I had about ATLA after my first viewing, have since become some of my favorite moments of the entire show. A couple things that seemed a little thin at first, were expanded on in The Legend of Korra and now they make perfect sense, and are some of the coolest goddamn shit ever.
As jaw-droppingly magnificent as Dragon Ball Kai's fighting is, the dialogue can get pretty stale -- even in Kai we still have to hear people repeat some things over and over. ATLA may not be able to compete with Kai on fighting but for crafting likely the most flawless, perfect program of all-time, it is clearly the better series.
Its intricacy is immense, it's almost on level with Neon Genesis Evangelion, it's so succinctly assembled. And not only does it boast some good wisdom, it's bloody hilarious as well. Avatar: The Last Airbender may well be the greatest show of all-time. It may be better than Neon Genesis Evangelion, it may even be better than Seinfeld.
Next time I'll have to pit it against one of those.
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