When the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series was first announced, Netflix heavily promoted the involvement of the original series' creators. In 2018, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko were signed on as showrunners and executive producers.
If you only accept Japanese animation as anime then no it is not, it will be a cartoon. In Japan, all animated television is Anime. So, yes, by definition, Avatar is an anime.
Even though Avatar: The Last Airbender has many characteristics with anime, it is not an anime. It possesses all of the characteristics of a single: action and art, character development, and travel. Anime, on the other hand, is more than an art form; it is an industry. Avatar The Last Airbender was not produced by anime industry insiders.
— Bryan Konietzko about the creation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar: The Last Airbender, also known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang in some PAL regions, is an Emmy award-winning American animated television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon and the Nicktoons Network.
Michael DiMartino (left) and Bryan Konietzko, the series' co-creators. Avatar: The Last Airbender was co-created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, California.
Avatar: The Last Airbender was the highest-rated animated television series in its demographic at its premiere; an average of 3.1 million viewers watched each new episode. It had 5.6 million viewers for its highest-rated episode and was a highly rated part of the Nicktoons lineup beyond its 6-to-11-year-old target demographic. A one-hour special, The Secret of the Fire Nation, consisting of the episodes "The Serpent's Pass" and "The Drill", aired on September 15, 2006, and attracted 5.1 million viewers. According to the Nielsen Media Research, the special was the highest-rated cable-television program that week. In 2007, Avatar: The Last Airbender was syndicated to more than 105 countries and was one of Nickelodeon's top-rated programs. The series ranked first on Nickelodeon in Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Colombia.
Avatar: The Last Airbender (comics) The Legend of Korra. Avatar: The Last Airbender, known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang in some regions, is an American animated television series produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studios.
The series is centered around the journey of twelve-year-old Aang, the current Avatar and last survivor of his nation, the Air Nomads, along with his friends Katara, Sokka, and later Toph, as they strive to end the Fire Nation's war against the other nations of the world.
A video-game trilogy based on the series has been released. The Avatar: The Last Airbender video game was released on October 10, 2006, and Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth was released on October 16, 2007. Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno was released on October 13, 2008. Avatar: Legends of the Arena, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows, was released on September 15, 2008, by Nickelodeon. Players can create their own character and interact with other players around the world. Avatar: The Last Airbender was THQ 's bestselling Nickelodeon game in 2006 and was one of Sony CEA's Greatest Hits. Aang and Zuko appear as skins for Merlin and Susano, respectively, in Smite. Avatar: The Last Airbender characters and locations are featured in Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix.
Yee was published in July 2019 by Abrams Children's Books. The first book of the Kyoshi Novels is Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Rise of Kyoshi. The second part in the series, titled The Shadow of Kyoshi, was released on July 21, 2020.
The series' first season was the basis of the 2010 live-action film The Last Airbender, which was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It was intended as the first of a trilogy of films, each of which would be based upon one of the three television seasons. The film was universally panned for its writing, acting, whitewashed cast, and Shyamalan's direction; it earned a 5% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes as well as five Razzies at the 31st Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, and some critics described it as one of the worst films ever made. Although the film originally shared the title of the television series, the title The Last Airbender was used because producers feared it would be confused with James Cameron 's film Avatar. The Last Airbender stars Noah Ringer as Aang, Nicola Peltz as Katara, Jackson Rathbone as Sokka, Dev Patel as Zuko, and Shaun Toub as Iroh.
From a Western perspective, 'anime' is a looser term, generally meaning animations from Japan, but sometimes it's applied to Western shows with the anime 'look', like RWBY or Avatar. There's no strict guideline on what qualifies as anime and what doesn't, and arguments arise frequently online by people with different opinions on this.
Anime-as-loanword is a somewhat fuzzy term, but generally refers specifically to the animation's origin, and not necessarily where it is produced. Much of what we would call anime is actually produced outside of Japan: it originates there, but the production is outsourced to studios in other countries.
Likewise, a surprising amount of animation that we wouldn't call anime originates outside Japan, but the animation work is outsourced to a Japanese company.
Depending who you ask, it's a style of animation, probably including shows such as Avatar and RWBY but not the Simpsons, or it just means cartoons from Japan, in which case Avatar is definitely excluded. Because of this ambiguity, there isn't a simple, accepted answer to your question. Share. Improve this answer.
In regards to the 'manga' of Avatar, it seems to be commonly referred to as a comic rather than a manga. But the format of this should have no bearing on the animated production. The other answers are being unnecessarily noncommittal. The meaning of the word anime has different connotations in the West and in Japan.
ThunderCats is an example in both its incarnations: few people outside of Japan would call it anime, but the animation work was done there (the 1980s TV series was done by Pacific Animation , while the recent series was done by Studio 4C).
Whether this makes it count as anime, or at least as "close enough", is a subject of debate among some fans.