Aang vs Traveler Review

It has not been easy being an Avatar fan recently. The Netflix adaptation is a complete disaster, the new movie not only didn’t get a wide theatrical release and got leaked, but also turned out to be pretty resoundingly meh, and the new series looks to be of similar quality. The only bright spot is the fighting game, and even that had a bad launch. What did the Avatar fan base do to deserve this?

And if that all wasn’t bad enough, now they have to watch the main character die. Yeah I’m not burying the lead on this one, this is one of the stompiest stomps we have ever seen in quite some time. At least Cell and Reze had some advantages in their fights, this one just seems horrifically unfair.

The sad part is that no one was particularly looking forward to it either. I knew I wouldn’t care for it because I’m not a fan of either series, but I’m usually in the minority in those instances. This is one of the rare times where I actually hold the majority opinion. Kind of feels nice I won’t lie, I just wish it was in better circumstances.

To give you an idea of how unenthused people are for this, when the Kickstarter was running and this episode showed up in the stretch goals, the funding grinded to a fucking crawl. It was only after the tiers got pushed back and it was put in a lower tier that the funding picked back up. That is how indifferent people are.

The only bright spot is that the episode might actually be decent. Which for the Avatar series would be a first since its previous episodes weren’t exactly top tier. Hell, Aang’s previous episode was outright terrible. So bad that people have been asking for a runback with him so they can do the character justice. That monkey’s paw is curled up to the knuckle at this point.

Not the best starting point for an episode. in fact, I am absolutely certain it will likely bomb in viewership. But I am an open-minded guy, and I have been surprised by episodes in the past. So let’s take a look and see how it goes.

And as it turns out, the episode was just kind of there. I honestly don’t know what to say about it. This is one of the most nothingburger episodes I have ever witnessed. To be clear it’s not bad per se, I can’t think of anything it did particularly wrong, but it also didn’t do much right either.

The animation is predictably the only real standout. It’s nice and flashy with good choreography and some fun use of the elemental powers. It’s got nice expressive character animation, and it even throws in the side kicks for a brief cameo. That was nice even if the fairy’s voice was annoying.

Speaking of voices, the two main actors both did a great job. Granted Traveler’s actor didn’t exactly have much to work with, but I’ll get to that in a moment. At least Aang was perfectly cast, his voice actress really captured the spirit and cadence of the original show and if I’m being honest despite being the loser, Aang still stole the show. He was easily the most entertaining part of the episode.

But that’s mainly because Aether doesn’t have a personality in the slightest. He is the wettest of wet blankets in this. I went in knowing less than nothing about him, and I still know less than nothing about him now that it’s over. The episode did a piss poor job of showing who he is, and what he’s all about. I know he has a sister, but that’s literally it. What the fuck is he even traveling from anyway? His world died? Would be nice to know a bit more about the fucking apocalypse but ok just hand wave it away, that’s cool.

I will give them every benefit of the doubt I can. Genshin is a gacha game whose story is still ongoing, and Aether is more or less an audience stand in. He’s like Link in that regard, someone with no outward personality because you’re meant to project your own personality onto them. I get that, but that still doesn’t make him fun to watch. The only time he was remotely interesting is when he a dinosaur, and that’s just because dinosaurs are awesome.

It’s not exactly helping the matchup when it involves a beloved childhood icon getting murked by a guy who makes my pet rock look like the life of the party. For god’s sake guys, give him something. Hell we don’t even see how the fight starts. It just starts with them fighting. Probably because having a proper set-up requires you to utilise the characters personalities, and Aether has less personality than my wall.

The analysis isn’t helping much either. One thing I noticed watching the analysis was that for Aang it largely focused on his story. It mentioned the feats and power scaling stuff, but it felt secondary to analysing the themes of Aang’s journey. In Aether’s case though it’s the polar opposite. They focused almost entirely on his abilities and scaling, and only paid lip service to his story. Which was rushed through so quickly that it was hard to even tell what it was even about. They threw so much stuff at you so quickly that any newcomer is going to get lost immediately.

I gave up caring pretty quickly in this. Honestly there’s no point in really going over the analysis because it’s irrelevant. The winner is too obvious, and the scaling on either side isn’t all that interesting. I could call foul on strength being tied in the results, but who fucking cares at this point. I don’t care about accuracy for Genshin Impact, especially not in this instance. So fuck it, say they’re even I don’t give a shit.

The only part of the analysis that is even remotely interesting is the cameos from Jocelyn, Ring Master and Dummi. It is nice to see these guys again after so long. The banter between the hosts was fun, and I like the callback to Ring Master being a massive whale that was shown in Harley vs Jinx. This was the highlight of the analysis, everything else is bland.

Which is what the episode is, bland. It’s so resoundingly average that there really is no reason to keep talking about it. Sorry Avatar fans, you’re still stuck waiting for a good episode. But really I do hope this episode shows the importance of a good matchup in shows like Death Battle.

Let’s be honest, VS shows aren’t really about character analysis. They can have that, but they’re more or less just mashing action figures together and seeing who wins. The debate is just as, if not important than anything else. So if the debate is non-existent, you better pray the match has something else to fall back on. Cell vs Metal Sonic had a ton of personality, Frieza vs Megatron had spectacle, Ruby vs Maka had dope music, Bakugo vs Reze had… well it had a hot girl in it. That’s something.

But Aang vs Traveler doesn’t have much going for it. The animation is fine I guess, and you can tell the animators tried their darndest to make it work. But it also doesn’t do much other episodes don’t do a thousand times better. It’s completely lacking in personality, there’s not many memorable or hype moments, the analysis is uninteresting, and it all stems from this matchup not having much to work with.

This was apparently a passion project the team wanted to do for a while, but I don’t see how this could inspire any kind of passion. There had to be better options for these two that actually let them shine more. Or at least made Traveler look like an actual character.

Yeah this episode sucks. It’s the worst episode of the season, and I am not kidding. Other episodes may have issues, arguably more depending on who you ask, but at least I felt something from them. I felt nothing after watching this, and I’m probably never going to watch it again. That’s the worst thing you can say for any piece of media.

But there is one bright spot in this cavalcade of mid, the next time is one of the most out of pocket picks I have seen. Kai vs Tos Tahu. A frigging Lego battle. That is something to look forward to.