Yip-Yip! The voice cast of
Avatar: The Last Airbender virtually reunited Saturday evening to discuss the beloved Nickelodeon series and its pop culture legacy more than a decade after the program left the air. Also present was the show's voice director, Andrea Romano, who explained why the project was so groundbreaking for the world of animation. According to her, the project really helped the "anime style" become appreciated as a "respected ... art-form" for kids' programming.
"They turned a corner in a big way," she said, going on to reference the fact that while classic anime (like
Gigantor and
Kimba the White Lion) had beautiful animation, their "voice-work was God-awful." She continued: "[Creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko] knew from the get-go ... what was going to happen 60 episodes later. They had it mapped out in stories, three books of 20 episodes each and had it figured out what each of you [the actors] would be doing. That's pretty remarkable."