Last March 29th, the 2008 Kids’ Choice Awards were held at the Pauley Pavillion in California. In this momentous occasion, “Avatar: The Last Airbender” was awarded the “Favorite Cartoon” award, what could very well be the most prestigious award throughout the entire event. This is refreshing news: it’s been a pretty long time since Avatar garnered any awards, despite being the excellent show that it is. So congratulations to the cast and crew of Avatar: The Last Airbender. You guys deserve the recognition. Now, on with the show!

I don’t really know if this is good news or another set of false alarms, but I’ve some news that may or may not be the real deal. There hasn’t been any official word from either Nick or Viacom, so all of this is still in the realm of speculation. Sigh.

First off, we’ve got this little item from the Internet Movie Database (click on the link to check it out). If you’ll scroll down to the season three section, you can see that the air dates of all the episodes (except for one) have all been mapped out. Now, this is curious; how would IMDB know about the air dates of the remaining AtLA shows when even insiders like Dongbu Feng or Distant Horizon have no idea as to when the episodes will be airing? There’s also the curious little lack of information on “The Boiling Rock.” How could they have the entire four-part finale mapped out without having any idea as to when the second part of a minor story arc will be airing?

Sounds suspicious to me.

The airdates they posted for “The Western Air Temple” and “The Firebending Masters” are pretty accurate, though, if you think about it. While these two episodes have yet to air on American television, they had already been shown ahead of schedule (I use the term loosely here) in either Canada or the Netherlands. I believe the airdates for these shows on the above said link are pretty exact, which lends a bit of credibility to the list. Not much, but enough to make forlorn Avatards hope a little bit more.

In Dongbu Feng’s chatbox, meanwhile, moderator Dylan unleashed something that, as of this moment, has yet to be confirmed: Avatar may start airing new episodes (in the U.S., I’m guessing) by April fourth. Truth? We can only guess at this point in time.

. . . unless you’re an Avatard.

The last time there was this little Avatar-related news that could be found anywhere was the season break between the second and third seasons of the show. During that period, AWS soared among avatards throughout the globe, and every scant bit of news, no matter how misleading, was greedily picked up by every able-bodied fanboy / girl.

Right now, the latest Avatar-related news comes in the form of a press release from Viacom about an upcoming Avatar-themed online game. Although the news sounds promising, there isn’t much information about the game itself to satiate fans. The game is slated to be released this fall. You can find the official press release here.

The fans haven’t been idle, though. Over at Dongbu Feng, one of the moderators has come up with a series of various scenarios that could happen with the future air dates of Avatar episodes. Yes, when fans run out of things to do, they speculate; the various forums can attest to that (not to mention the shipping wars). If you’re interested in joining in the fun, the post can be found here.

I’ll be away from any form of technology the next few days (which explains why I’m posting my easter greeting early). Happy easter to everybody! I don’t really celebrate Easter myself, but I like the idea of chocolate eggs. There hasn’t been any decent news regarding Avatar the past few, but let’s hope that the situation changes over the weekend.

One of the most interesting aspects of Avatar is the fact that it arguably has one of the most diverse roster of characters most people would ever see in an American cartoon. There’s also the gradual development of their characteristics; you see people like Aang and Zuko develop from their initial characters into the banished prince and the reluctant avatar. There’s a continued evolution, almost drama-like in quality, saved by the quirkiness of some of the characters (namely Sokka).

Of course, everybody’s sure to have a favorite Avatar character. Mine is definitely Ty lee, if only because she’s the prettiest girl in the entire series (yes I’m that shallow, somewhat). It’d be fairly easy to deduce that my favorite Avatar episode would be “The Beach,” since it features Ty Lee in a bathing suit. But really - what’s not to like about her? She’s cute, she’s funny, and she’s a good match for benders in general. She also has this infectious cheerful attitude that not even Azula, in all her evil glory, can stifle. She actually thinks fighting with Sokka is actually a form of dancing.

This is, remember, also the woman who tried teaching the Earth King’s bear, Bosco, to walk on his hands. She’s like the sunny bubblehead of the entire group, and if there’s one thing that can be said about bubbleheads, they make life more interesting by being cheerful all the time.

How about you guys? Who is your favorite Avatar character? And Why?

I was dredging through one of the forums discussing possible Avatar: the Last Airbender merchandise, and came upon a post that underscored one of the things that keeps the show / franchise from shining as much as it really should: the lack of a fairly decent AtLA game.

I’ve seen a whole bunch of AtLA-themed games released for various platforms and in various guises, and while I haven’t really tried all of them out yet, I can say without any second thought that the only game I really enjoyed . . . was a flash game named “Fortress Wars,” if I remember it correctly.

It isn’t that playing as the Avatar and his friends isn’t much fun at all, or that traveling the world of the four nations can’t be interesting, but the fact remains that while the series hasn’t yet completed the entire run of the story, it’s going to be very hard to make a self-sustaining adventure-themed game - since the adventures tend to be very, very limited. And there’s hardly any clear conclusion.

Now, I’m not saying that it’ll be impossible to come up with something that’s half-decent for AtLA this early in the game. There’re plenty of ways to convert the entire series into a console - or even PC - based game, but you’ll have to rely more on the gameplay rather than story for reasons that I just recently stated. Which is what makes “Nation Wars” so interesting; the gameplay’s pretty simple in that you just technically chuck various forms of bending to the enemy base in the hopes of eventually leveling the entire fort. And that’s it: no fuss, no rush, no story. Just good, clean fun.

This makes me think that maybe a realtime strategy game can be developed for AtLA, since you pretty much have all the necessary elements laid out for you: four warring nations (okay, maybe you’ll have to set the story way before the airbenders were wiped out) with infantry, a navy, and awesome benders to boot. You don’t need much of a storyline except for the campaigns. The only problem I see with having an RTS based off AtLA is the Avatar himself - each nation will have a claim to an avatar depending on the age’s setting, which makes a problem for everybody; who gets dibs on the all-powerful avatar?

Speaking of games . . .

. . . today seems to be a bit full of Avatar-related news. The AWS of most avatards just got whet a bit more when Nick.com released a new AtLA flash game based on The Boiling Rock, and the game contains two very big spoilers: first of all, Zuko is in the lead. Secondly, you get to see the prison. Yes, it is a prison, much to my dismay (all my theories - ground to dust!), but that didn’t keep the excitement from welling up into a little, girly yelp when I found out.

You may quench whatever AWS you have left here.

Don’t look now, but we could most likely expect things to pick up in the world of Avatar: the Last Airbender. This list gives us an idea of how the episodes could be released (I think it also gives out the dates the “Sozin’s Comet” book comes out).

Also, Jake from Dongbu Feng gave hints of releasing tidbits of information within the first few weeks of March.

Everything’s in the air as of this writing. But rest assured, as soon as I get the slightest bit of update, I’ll have it up here.

Because AWS is a killer unlike any other.

Okay, small update (which could actually count for something pretty big!) for today.Dave Roman, one of the people behind Avatar: The Last Airbender (I forget what he does, exactly) is looking for fan-made tributes to AtLA so long as they are “. . . FUNNY, short, and PG rated . . .”