Long ago, the four elemental nations of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air all lived in harmony. However, when the Fire Nation attacked, the world was thrown into chaos. The Avatar, master of all four elements, possessed the power to stop the Fire Nation, but the youngest reincarnation of this ancient role vanished from the world.
100 years later, two children from the Water Tribe finds a young Airbender, last of the long-extinct Air Nomads, frozen in an iceberg. They wake him and soon discover that this young boy, an Airbender named Aang, is also the Avatar.
Lacking the necessary training in the other elements, the children set out on a journey to find teachers for Aang so he can finally bring back balance to the world by taking down the Fire Nation.
What “is” and “isn’t” anime is a debate that still rages on, but there is no arguing that anime as an art form has spread worldwide. Avatar: The Last Airbender was one of the earlier successful examples of the anime art style being made and successful outside of Japan. For those that fell in love with the art and possibility for adventure that can be presented in anime from watching something like Avatar, you have a vast world of anime recommendations waiting for you to experience.
Anime Like Avatar: The Last Airbender
For Fans of Elemental Powers
Demon Slayer
After the death of his father, Tanjirou has taken up the role of the man of the home, supporting his mother and five siblings. However, after selling charcoal in town, he returns to tragedy.
All his family was brutally slaughtered, save for one of his sisters. Unfortunately, she has been attacked by a demon and mingled their blood, turning her into a demon as well.
However, she still shows signs of humanity, thrusting Tanjirou onto a quest to find a way to change his sister back and preserve what is left of his family.
While different in overall plot with Avatar being about bringing balance to a world at war and Demon Slayer about slaying demons that plague humanity, the similarities here sit firmly with the fighting.
While most characters use swords in Demon Slayer, they use sword techniques that are elemental-based. This means much of each fight isn’t just slashing with swords, they are bringing elemental fury with each slash in a way much like the bending styles in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Elemental-based action aside, both Avatar and Demon Slayer also feature endlessly kind and empathetic main characters. This means they will be faced with difficult decisions and they will both struggle to make the right choice, and agonize when they do not.
My Hero Academia
After the sudden appearance of super powers, or “quirks,” now 80 percent of humanity has some kind of power. With some Quirk users turning to crime, it gave rise to super heroes that help the police keep the peace.
Since he was a child, Izuku Midoriya has idolized super heroes, especially the symbol of peace, All Might, but he is devastated to learn that he won’t manifest a Quirk himself. Still, he studies super heroes and is determined to become one.
After a chance encounter with All Might, Midoriya learns that there still may be a chance for him to be a hero after all.
Unlike Avatar where there are only four types of elemental powers, or even in Legend of Korra where there are then sub-sects of those elemental powers, My Hero Academia can have powers based on anything. One character can make explosions from his nitroglycerin sweat. Another character has the ability to utilize both fire and ice. They even have rather silly powers like being able to pull sticky balls off your head that stick to things.
Like Team Avatar, the characters in My Hero Academia all use these powers to be heroes. However, they are more akin to western-style super heroes.
If you were perhaps very fond of Aang’s fight with Ozai because of how epic it was, almost every arc in My Hero Academia ends with a fight of similar if not more intensity, visual flare, and magnitude.
Fire Force
A phenomenon has started overtaking mankind – one where people spontaneously combust and turn into destructive fire demons called Infernals.
To fight these demons, special fire forces were established full of those with dedication and powers to control fire.
This is the story of Fire Force 8 and their newest recruit – Shinra, who aims to become a hero and discover the truth behind the Infernals.
Fire Force takes place in a world where the benders are all just fire benders, essentially. There are normal people who help in the fights, but anyone using some sort of power is using a fire-based power.
Like Avatar, the fights in Fire Force are both fast and fluid. Unlike Avatar, Fire Force has the best sounding fire of any animated series by far, which I realize is a strange thing to say, but the sound of the fights was good enough to leave an lasting memorable impact.
While Avatar is a globe-trotting journey to ultimately crumble an empire, Fire Force is contained to a single city, mostly because the rest of the world was burned away. Instead of traveling, Fire Force unravels a conspiracy that goes right to the top of their society.
Black Clover
After being abandoned at the same church, Asta and Yuno grew up together. Together they also grew up aiming for the same title – The Wizard King, the strongest wizard in the kingdom.
However, it soon became apparent that while Yuno has skill with magic, Asta couldn’t use it at all. This all changed when they were attacked and Asta was given a strange grimoire that granted him the ability to nullify magic.
Any anime series about mages is innately similar to Avatar as mages often use elemental-based magic. That is pretty much Black Clover. While not every magic is elemental, a large bulk of it is. This means big elemental magic fights akin to bender fights in Avatar.
Like Avatar, Black Clover focuses on a group of characters traveling the world, though Black Clover is more mission-based rather than destination adventure-based like Avatar.
Unlike Avatar, Black Clover has a rather large cast of unique characters in its main organization and even beyond. This allows for a lot of creative magic use and interesting characters to explore.
Fairy Tail
While looking to enhance her magic, celestial mage Lucy meets an energetic fire mage name Natsu. After finding out he is a member of the famous wizard guild Fairy Tail that she has long admired, the pair travel home so Lucy can join.
Together with her new guildmates, Lucy and Natsu embark on adventures to help people, make money, and explore their vast magical world.
Fairy Tail is similar to Black Clover in that it also follows a guild of mages. However, in this series, the magic is more honed in on elemental use and the core group is about the size of Team Avatar. Again, the characters travel on missions and often end up in fights when they get there.
Like Avatar, Fairy Tail has a bit of a younger feel to the characters and world. That said, it still isn’t afraid of a little body-based humor, but never in a particularly outrageous ecchi way.
Aside from the flashy elemental fights, perhaps what makes Fairy Tail closest to Avatar in terms of content is how you grow close with the characters and they grow deeply close with each other over the course of this long series.
For Fans of Toppling More Powerful Kingdoms
Seven Deadly Sins
In this feudal world, the realm is protected from those who seek to spread their evil by the Holy Knights. However, in the kingdom of Liones, a small group of Holy Knights known as the Seven Deadly Sins sought to overthrown the king only to be driven off.
Now, ten years later, the world hunts for the Seven Deadly Sins, but the Holy Knights have now turned their blades on the king and taken control of the kingdom.
Now it is up to his third daughter, Elizabeth, to find the Sins and help them take back control.
While Seven Deadly Sins has a plot that evolves into something else as it goes on, it initially started like Avatar – gathering a team to take back and free a kingdom. However, instead of just having one incredibly powerful individual like Aang, the entire team was just wildly powerful when compared to other fighters.
Aside from its similarity in plot and the same passion for interesting battles, Seven Deadly Sins is innately different in setting. Instead of Asian influences, Seven Deadly Sins sits firmly medieval European-inspired in its very much fantasy world.
Yona of the Dawn
After having her luxurious life shattered by the betrayal of her cousin, Princess Yona is forced to escape with her childhood friend and bodyguard Son Hak.
However, leaving her palace forces her to see the poverty and strife that really makes up her beloved kingdom.
Now, she must journey to not only regain her rightful throne, but to return her kingdom to its former glory.
A good portion of Japanese anime tends to only stick to Japanese cultural inspiration. Yona of the Dawn is different in that its world is distinctly Korean influenced. That said, like Avatar takes aspects from many different Asian cultures and adds them into their own unique world, so, too, does Yona of the Dawn. They take those Korean influences and they just add to the fantasy world they create.
While Yona of the Dawn shares similarities in setting, it also has a similar premise of one person being a sort of person of destiny to crumble and change a kingdom. However, Yona just wants to go home (and may be vaguely hinted at by destiny) while Aang is chosen by destiny.
Both series also feature the main characters having to travel to find very specific companions as well. They are more guardians in Yona of the Dawn rather than teachers like in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
However, Avatar reveals in action, but Yona isn’t the best at doing action. It is great at creating and exploring an interesting world, likes to hint at romantic pairings, and creates decent political intrigues. However, action is not one of Yona’s strongest elements.
Magi – The Labyrinth of Magic
After spending his life in isolation, Aladdin and his djinn Ugo set off on a journey to see the world. Soon after, he becomes friends with Alibaba, a young merchant that has ambitions of wealth, after he destroys his supply cart.
In order to pay of the damages, Alibaba suggests the supremely powerful Aladdin helps him conquer a dungeon full of danger and wealth.
Of all anime, I believe that Magi shares the most in common with Avatar: The Last Airbender. Both stories start off about a very young, somewhat naive, and magnificently powerful boy who just wanted to see the world. It isn’t long before he makes friends and with those friends gets pulled into the intrigues of local issues, kingdom-wide issues, and finally worldwide problems that they posses the power to solve. However, unlike Aang, there isn’t as big of an emphasis on it being their destiny to solve them.
As Magi follows magic users, it has a lot of flashy magic, though none of it done with the particular physical flair that bending styles have.
Magi and Avatar, while having serious themes, are also anime for younger audiences.
The big difference between Magi and Avatar is that Magi is Middle Eastern-inspired in its world compared to the meld of Asian influences in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
For Fans of Vast World-Exploring Adventures
Fullmetal Alchemist – Brotherhood
After their attempt to bring their mother back from the dead goes horribly wrong, Edward is left without an arm and leg while his brother Al’s soul is only bound to this world by a suit of armor.
The two brothers journey to look for a way to bring Al’s body back, in the process joining the military as alchemists.
However, the object that could bring back Al’s body is not the only problem they encounter.
There is a reason that Fullmetal Alchemist is one of the most popular anime in all of the art form, and a good chunk of that reason is because it knows how to build an interesting world. Like Avatar explores its world to show you how vast and different things can be even in one country, Fullmetal Alchemist shows you different places and also gives you a sense that the world is living outside of what the main characters are doing.
If you like Avatar for its lore, Fullmetal Alchemist can hit that same vein. Furthermore, with alchemists like Mustang that wield fire, it has some bending-like moments in its fights. However, wielding elements isn’t as big of a focus since alchemy can come in many forms.
Naruto
Orphaned at a young age and ostracized by his village due to the nine-tailed fox demon that was sealed within him at birth, Naruto aims for the top. His dream is to eventually become the leader of his village, the Hokage.
However, first he must actually become a ninja and gain strength enough to rise to this pinnacle.
Avatar: The Last Airbender does well to create different cultures in the world that each feel distinct and different. In Naruto, while many of the “cultures” it shows off are just different ninja villages, they too have their own culture and abilities that make them unique. For example, the sand techniques of the Hidden Sand Village are not the same as the water-based techniques of the Hidden Mist.
Despite Naruto being about ninjas, it has that sort of Avatar bending combat where ninjas often specialize in techniques of a certain element. You also have those who use just physical attacks like Sokka because they don’t excel in any particular element.
While Naruto doesn’t start off as such and only goes there nearer the end of the series, both Naruto and Avatar become about the titular main character trying to save the world from an over-powerful leader that wishes to destroy it ultimately ending in a big flashy fight between them.
Orient
After their descent 150 years ago, the demons demanded reverence from humanity as gods. Standing up against these new overlords were the Bushi, who still battle to this day, but the demons preach that they are enemies.
Hinamoto, freed from Bushi rule many years ago, lives peacefully and reveres demons. The residents mine rocks for the demons to consume, but for Musashi, a miner in training, he craves freedom.
Together with his childhood friend Koujiro, a boy outcasted for being a descendants of a Bushi, they start a fight against the demons for freedom, only to be saved by an actual Bushi band.
Seeing them fight and destroy the demons, the pair decide they will form a Bushi band of their own!
Avatar takes a number of Asian cultures and melds them into its own unique world. Orient is only feudal Japanese in its setting, but it certainly bends it to create its own unique fantasy world.
What Orient has most in common with Avatar is that the plot is pretty focused on a small group of characters just traveling around and getting caught up in local problems, then often helping to solve them.
Instead of elemental-based fighting, Orient is about different classes of swords that have different powers for the wielder – some of them elemental in nature as well. It also, like Avatar, is an action series that is aimed at younger audiences but still capable of being enjoyed by all. It isn’t ridiculously ecchi or drowning in gore.
Sabikui Bisco
A red wind has swept over Japan and withered everything in its wake. Wherever the wind blows, rust grows and consumes all in its path.
With humanity succumbing to this rust, and the world a barren wasteland, mushroom spores bore the blame for it. This has made archer Bisco Akaboshi, who grows mushrooms wherever his arrows land, into a notorious terrorist.
However, he is a mushroom protector who spreads his fungi in order to enrich the land as he searches for the legendary Sabikui, an ancient mushroom that devours rust in all forms.
Avatar is more your standard fun fantasy adventure to save the world, but while the same can be said about Sabikui Bisco, it adds a big dose of anime weirdness to it. Not anime weirdness in the form of ecchi or questionable content, but anime weirdness in the form of fighting things by growing mushrooms on or near them.
The mushroom-based combat is what makes this anime unique, but also doesn’t force it to be bloodless either. Like the Avatar needs to maintain a certain balance in the world, Bisco also is trying to bring a balance to the world that is so out of balance that the air is rusting people away.
Both Avatar and Sabikui Bisco create unique worlds and let you explore them as the characters explore them.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Avatar: The Last Airbender? Let fans know in the comments section below.
