I do like it. I think my favorite character might technically be evil, but he values tea (ginseng is his favorite).
I do wish Aang weren't quite so immature though. I get that he's young, but I find that the fun, playfulness that is hyped in the write-up comes across more as annoying to me. I'm fine with having some of it, it's important for character info. But the degree to which episodes just stop the story to put in action sequences of kids playing just bores me so very, very much. I put it down to the show being written for a young audience. But it makes it very hard for me to mentally think of Aang as 12, when he seems more like around 8. And I have trouble watching it without thinking that they're trying to hook a young audience by giving them a kid mentality to identify with and pretending he's older, because young kids admire older kids.
I'm hoping he grows up a bit as this progresses, or at least they cut down a bit on the cute play sequences. They're not ~bad~, but that combined with the "Previously on" means that each short episode has a significant chunk of time that is somewhere between dull and annoying.
On the other hand, sometimes the writing is quite clever, and I appreciate that.
I'm not too far into it yet, so I'll learn more as it goes. Darch really likes it, which is why he's having me watch it.
I don't find the races of all of the characters to be obvious in the cartoon. But Sokka is pretty clearly not white. I find I have difficulty telling race and this definitely seems linked to vision loss. And Aang looks to me like he could be either Asian or Caucasian. I don't really see him as distinctly either. But culturally he certainly is Asian. And Sokka is clearly not Caucasian, so I can see a degree of white-washing. But mainly what annoys me is the casting call. There was ~no~ reason to prefer a Caucasian actor for a part that was not in any way inherently Caucasian. That's hard to justify as anything but racism. To not even give equal weight to Asian actors when the part would make more sense with one... yeah, that's a problem. And the fact that Asians have difficulty getting roles already makes it worse. This is a role that should have been playable by an Asian boy.
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I do like it. I think my favorite character might technically be evil, but he values tea (ginseng is his favorite).
I do wish Aang weren't quite so immature though. I get that he's young, but I find that the fun, playfulness that is hyped in the write-up comes across more as annoying to me. I'm fine with having some of it, it's important for character info. But the degree to which episodes just stop the story to put in action sequences of kids playing just bores me so very, very much. I put it down to the show being written for a young audience. But it makes it very hard for me to mentally think of Aang as 12, when he seems more like around 8. And I have trouble watching it without thinking that they're trying to hook a young audience by giving them a kid mentality to identify with and pretending he's older, because young kids admire older kids.
I'm hoping he grows up a bit as this progresses, or at least they cut down a bit on the cute play sequences. They're not ~bad~, but that combined with the "Previously on" means that each short episode has a significant chunk of time that is somewhere between dull and annoying.
On the other hand, sometimes the writing is quite clever, and I appreciate that.
I'm not too far into it yet, so I'll learn more as it goes. Darch really likes it, which is why he's having me watch it.
I don't find the races of all of the characters to be obvious in the cartoon. But Sokka is pretty clearly not white. I find I have difficulty telling race and this definitely seems linked to vision loss. And Aang looks to me like he could be either Asian or Caucasian. I don't really see him as distinctly either. But culturally he certainly is Asian. And Sokka is clearly not Caucasian, so I can see a degree of white-washing. But mainly what annoys me is the casting call. There was ~no~ reason to prefer a Caucasian actor for a part that was not in any way inherently Caucasian. That's hard to justify as anything but racism. To not even give equal weight to Asian actors when the part would make more sense with one... yeah, that's a problem. And the fact that Asians have difficulty getting roles already makes it worse. This is a role that should have been playable by an Asian boy.
meh