Book Two: ''Earth'' is the second season of '' Avatar: The Last Airbender'', an American

animated television series An animated series is a set of Animation, animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can ...

created and produced by

Michael Dante DiMartino Michael Dante DiMartino (born July 18, 1974) is an American animator, producer, writer, and director. He is best known, together with Bryan Konietzko, as the co-creator of the animated TV series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and ''The Legend of ...

and Bryan Konietzko for

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

. The series starred Zach Tyler Eisen,

Mae Whitman Mae Margaret Whitman (born June 9, 1988) is an American actress and singer. She began acting in commercials as a child, making her film debut at the age of six in the romantic drama '' When a Man Loves a Woman'' (1994). She achieved recognition as ...

Jack DeSena John Patrick De Sena (born December 6, 1987), better known by his stage name Jack DeSena, is an American actor. He is best known for his work on the sketch comedy series ''All That'', for the voice work of Sokka on the Nickelodeon series ''Avat ...

, Jessie Flower, Dante Basco,

Dee Bradley Baker Dee Bradley Baker (born August 31, 1962) is an American voice actor. Much of Baker's work features vocalizations of animals and monsters. Baker's roles include animated series such as ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'', ''Codename: Kids Next Door'', ...

, Mako Iwamatsu (in his final performance as

Iroh Uncle Iroh (), also referred to as General Iroh and credited simply as Uncle, is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender''. Created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the charact ...

) and

Grey DeLisle Grey DeLisle (; born Erin Grey Van Oosbree; August 24, 1973), sometimes credited as Grey Griffin, is an American voice actress, comedian and singer-songwriter. DeLisle is known for various roles in animated productions and video games. On Sept ...

as the main character voices. In the second season,

Aang Avatar Aang ( zh, c=安昂, p=Ān Áng) is the title character and protagonist of Nickelodeon's animated television series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' (created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko), voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen. Aang ...

and his friends Katara and

Sokka Sokka is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and its sequel series ''The Legend of Korra''. The character, created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, is voiced by Jack De ...

are on a quest to find an Earthbending teacher which finishes when they recruit Toph Beifong. After finding important information concerning the war with the

Fire Nation ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' (abbreviated as ''ATLA''), also known as ''Avatar: The Legend of Aang'' in some regions or simply ''Avatar'', is an American anime-influenced animated television series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and ...

Appa Appa or APPA may refer to: Organizations *American Pet Products Association, an industry association in the United States * American Psychopathological Association, a scientific professional organization * American Philosophical Practitioners Ass ...

ends up kidnapped. Their journey leads to Ba Sing Se, the capital of the

Earth Kingdom ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' (abbreviated as ''ATLA''), also known as ''Avatar: The Legend of Aang'' in some regions or simply ''Avatar'', is an American anime-influenced animated television series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and ...

, where they uncover a great internal government conspiracy. Meanwhile, due to their actions at the North Pole in ''Book One'',

Zuko Prince (later Fire Lord) Zuko (), also known as the Blue Spirit, is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender''. Created by Eric Coleman and designed by series creators Michael Dante DiMartino ...

and

are declared traitors of the Fire Nation and desert their country, becoming fugitives in the Earth Kingdom. Pursuing both Zuko and Aang is

Princess Azula Princess Azula () is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'', created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and voiced by Grey DeLisle. In the show, Azula is the crown princess of ...

, Zuko's younger prodigy sister. ''Book Two: Earth'' premiered on Nickelodeon on March 17, 2006. It consisted of 20 episodes and concluded on December 1, 2006. The season received considerable acclaim, with the series being called "consistently excellent." The series won multiple awards, including Best Character Animation in a Television Production from the

34th Annie Awards The ceremony for the 34th Annual Annie Awards, honoring the best in animation in 2006, was held on February 11, 2007, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. The nominations were announced on December 4, 2006. Winners are marked in bold ...

and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation at the 2007 Emmy Awards. Between January 23, 2007, and September 11, 2007, Paramount Home Entertainment released four

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

sets containing five episodes each before releasing the entire season as a boxset. __TOC__

Episodes

Production

The season was produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio and aired on

, both of which are owned by

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...

. The season's executive producers and co-creators are Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who worked alongside head writer and co-producer Aaron Ehasz. Most of the individual episodes were directed by

Ethan Spaulding Ethan Spaulding is an American animation director, producer and storyboard artist, well known as a crew person on the animated television series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender''. He directed twelve episodes, and held various crew positions on severa ...

Lauren MacMullan Lauren Hunter MacMullan (born April 30, 1964) is an American animation director. She grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs of Havertown, Lansdowne and Swarthmore, and graduated from Swarthmore High School in 1982. She attended Harvard University, ...

and

Giancarlo Volpe Giancarlo Volpe is an Italian-born American animator, director, producer and comic creator. Volpe directed, wrote, and storyboarded for the Disney Channel animated series '' Star vs. the Forces of Evil'' from 2015 to 2017. On February 14, 20 ...

. Episodes were written by a team of writers, which consisted of Aaron Ehasz, Elizabeth Welch, Tim Hedrick, John O'Bryan; along with creators DiMartino and Konietzko. The season's music was composed by "The Track Team", which consists of

Jeremy Zuckerman Jeremy Zuckerman (born July 31, 1975) is an American composer of concert music, film and television music, music for modern dance, and experimental music. He is best known as the composer for the animated series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' an ...

and Benjamin Wynn, who were known to the show's creators because Zuckerman was Konietzko's roommate.

Cast

Most of the main characters from the first season remained the same: Zach Tyler Eisen voices

voices Katara,

voices

voices both

and Momo, and Dante Basco voices

. In addition, several new characters appear: Jessie Flower voices Toph Beifong,

voices Azula, Cricket Leigh voices Mai, Olivia Hack voices Ty Lee, and

Clancy Brown Clarence John "Clancy" Brown III (born January 5, 1959) is an American actor. Prolific in film and television since the 1980s, Brown is often cast in villainous and authoritative roles. Brown's film roles include Viking Lofgren in ''Bad Boys'' ...

voices Long Feng. Mako Iwamatsu, who voiced

in the first two seasons, died from throat cancer after production was completed; he was replaced by Greg Baldwin for the following season and ''

The Legend of Korra ''The Legend of Korra'' (abbreviated as TLOK), also known as ''Avatar: The Legend of Korra'' or simply ''Korra'', is an American anime-influenced animated television series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko for Nickelode ...

''. In the episode "

The Tales of Ba Sing Se "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" is the 15th episode of the second season of the animated television series ''Avatar: The Last Airbender''. It features six short vignettes of several main characters as they go about an average day in the Earth Kingdo ...

", the segment titled "The Tale of Iroh" features a dedication to Mako at the end when Iroh is tearfully singing to mourn the loss of his only child, Lu Ten.

Reception

In a review of the Volume 2 DVD Release for Book 2, Gabriel Powers from DVDActive.com described the series as one of the best children's series in recent times, making comparisons with '' Samurai Jack'' and '' Justice League'', and complimented it for its depth and humour. Powers also comments: For the video and audio quality, Powers says "Season two generally looks better than the bulk of season one, but still has some issues" concerning image sharpness. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 87% fresh rating in 2008. Jamie S. Rich from DVD Talk says that "As a flat concept, ''Avatar the Last Airbender'' is nothing special, but in execution, it is head and shoulders above other children's entertainment", and that "as a whole, the look of Avatar is consistently excellent". The show also received acclaim for its visual appeal. In the

, the show was nominated for and won the "Best Character Animation in a Television Production" award, for Jae-Myung Yu's animation in "The Blind Bandit", and the "Best Directing in an Animated Television Production" award, for the episode "The Drill". In 2007, the show was nominated for "Outstanding Animated Program" in the 2007 Emmy Awards for the "City of Walls and Secrets" episode, though it did not win. However, the show did win the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation" award for Sang-Jin Kim's animation in the "Lake Laogai" episode.

Home media

Nickelodeon began releasing DVDs for Book 2 on January 23, 2007. The first four DVD releases contain one disc that consisted of five episodes each. The final DVD was the "Complete Book 2 Box Set", which contains all of the episodes in the season on four discs, and packaged with a special features disc. All of the DVD sets for Book 2 were released with Region 1 encoding, meaning that they can only play on North American DVD players. Book 2 was released on Region 2 on July 20, 2009.

Footnotes

:1. Production code format taken from the commentary for "Sozin's Comet: The Phoenix King"

References

;General * * ;Specific {{DEFAULTSORT:Avatar: The Last Airbender (Season 2) Avatar: The Last Airbender 2006 American television seasons fr:Liste des épisodes d'Avatar, le dernier maître de l'air#Livre Deux : La Terre