It was made for a target age of young-teen but is definitely HUGELY watchable as an adult [and I discovered it as an adult]. It has a huge adult-fan following and... in many ways does not feel like a kids show. It does a good job of tackling many serious issues, while also being funny and non-patronising. I recently introduced a friend of mine who's in their 40s to it, and they now love it.
It's been praised for things like representation as well as how it handles and presents certain issues (war, refugees, xenophobia, etc). One of the main characters has a disability (she's blind).
(Ps. Toph [who is one of the coolest characters of all time] - the blind character - is the mother of Lin Beifong who I originally posted about).
Legend of Korra is a series that follows ATLA and is set around 70 years later. Korra (the main character) is canonically bisexual.
As an aside, Avatar Kyoshi is also bi in official media and is also one of my fav characters. I love when the main characters are frantically trying to prove her innocence for a murder over 100 years after the fact and are trying to summon her spirit to get her to defend herself and she appears to them in spirit form and just announces proudly, "I KILLED CHIN THE CONQUORER!" in her very deep and serious voice haha.
So, the premise of the show is that people can 'bend' the elements (any one person may be able to bend either fire, water, earth, or air, depending on their nation of birth / parentage) though the Avatar can bend all 4, and is supposed to bring balance to the world. The Avatar is reincarnated each time they die.
The 'bending' is a sort of telekinesis like thing and definitely comes across much more like a martial art than 'magic' (it doesn't have an especially 'magical' feel about it somehow. It's... as I said, more martial-arty).
There's also an amazing redemption arc for a villainous character, and I also love the wisdom of one of the characters, Iroh, previously a war general, but now a patient and kind man.
As for where to watch it... it's best to watch these things officially where you can but as a tip off if you pretty much just google avatar series 1 episode 1 etc, like, all of them are on dailymotion.
NOTE OF CAUTION: There is a T.E.R.R.I.B.L.E live-action movie that was made and not sanctioned by the original creators of the series. It's often considered one of the worst movies ever made (goes to show that a good movie is made up of more than the basic plot! as it was based off avatar series one). I tried to watch it and lasted like... 15 minutes - with difficulty. I have seen various clips of it. It was criticised for lots of things, including awful acting, questionable effects, mispronunciation of everyone's names... also, they had an entirely white cast despite the fact that in the cartoon, the water tribe characters (of which 2 make up the main group) are quite clearly NOT white characters and most of the other nations are... quite clearly based off various east Asian cultures. Somehow they managed to cast EVERYONE to a white actor uh.... EXCEPT the villain. Honestly, watching it feels like watching a poorly acted fan-made film made by a rich kid who could splash out on costumes and special effects.
There's a running joke in ATLA fan groups/forums where they pretend the movie doesn't exist and are unable to see any reference to it. if someone posts a meme with a screenshot for the movie in it for example, people will comment things like "I can't see your post" or "why is the meme blank?" It's also common to say "there is no movie in ba sing se" (a joke because in the show, in the city of ba sing se, they brainwash their citizens and pretend the war [against the fire nation] does not exist. "there is no war in ba sing se" is a commonly heard phrase so fans have adopted that and now say "there is no movie in ba sing se" and pretend the movie doesn't exist haha.
Anyway, I'll leave you with some quotes from Iroh:
"Life happens wherever you are, whether you make it or not."
"If you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark, that is all you’ll ever see.”
"Sometimes life is like this tunnel. You can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you keep moving, you will come to a better place."
"You must never give into despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength."
"It is important to draw wisdom from different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale."
Message Thread 
Lin Beifong... - Emma May 20, 2020, 5:06 pm
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