Netflix's Kyoshi Warriors Forgot Their Martial Arts Heritage 

Jeez, they messed this up so hard... Sokka is doubting the Kyoshi warriors because of (first sexism, but also) the fact that he was caught off guard. He gets ambushed and taken down before he can react. So it makes sense that he'd think they might not be that tough, because it was an intentionally unfair situation. With how this works in the Netflix version, what is Suki actually proving by taking Sokka by surprise again? That's why she just lets him make the first move in the anime. It's so Sokka can't complain about tricks or make excuses, she is JUST a better fighter than he is, and after being humbled he completely accepts that because he loses in an unambiguously fair fight. This is what actual good female character writing looks like. Suki isn't bending reality to do these forced fan tricks or anything, she is JUST allowed to be a better martial artist than the guys in a completely grounded and believable way, and we're going to play that 100% straight for what it is.

I’ve seen that portion of the show and many different reviewers interpretation of it. I think the fact so many people thought it was flying is more a fault of a show then of the reviewers.

He literally predicted that I would put the RU-vid playback in half for the scene 😂

Just to comment on your little apology at the end, I think the fact that you and so many interpreted Aang as flying instead of gliding is still a very fair critic!! It's really important to establish the possibilities with bending early on to viewers so that everyone's on the same page with its capabilities, but I believe you can easily argue that the Netflix adaptation fails in this since so many people saw it as Aang flying. Netflix did not introduce the abilities of airbending in a very clear and undisputable way, but instead forced viewers to rely on previous knowledge of the original (allowing for new viewers to potentially misinterpret airbending). Anyways, awesome video once again!!

4:52 Note the way Katara lurches sideways while her arm straightens, the Kysoshi Warrior first yanked her off balance before moving in for the hood.

Some actors clearly know their forms but i guess people behind the camera (director, operator, CGI people) suck at staging and blocking. The Kyoshi push is probably because they're trying to make her a thing, with books and rumoured upcoming animated movie from original creators (first Kyoshi book is actually really good).

As someone who is obsessed with Martial Arts in media, I thank the algorithm for digging up this channel for me! I've been hankering for more channels of martial arts nerds nerding out about martial arts and this is exactly what I've been looking for! Looking forward to seeing more!

This takes me back to my martial arts days when I was with a group of friends (different martial artists) commenting on a movie or even a manga together.

Oh yeah I was waiting for this one! And not gonna lie I'm pleasantly surprised at how you kept it balanced. Like I totally missed how the Kyoshi warrior training session looked good. Like I said I'm not an expert on martial arts but it shows that how much of an effort the original show put into it which makes you appreciate it a lot more. For instance the stealth of Kyoshi warriors makes total sense because there's no way in hell that a non bender can fight a master bender head on and expect to win. These little things makes so much sense even if you don't really know about fighting that much. Not to mention how unique each martial art style for each bending element is unique and has a lot to do with the element itself. This show sometimes totally forget that. Also you're pretty on point about Kyoshi as well. Like she's the "Coolest" avatar in the sense that she's always so calm and not hot headed as most people seem to think. Her expression hardly changes in any scene she's in, in the original. She took the most pacifist way to end a war by literally rearranging the map instead of killing or fighting the guy who started the war. 🤣

Great breakdown. Have a ton of appreciation for the kyoshi chapter even more. Even over analyzing avatar missed those small detail's.

Lmao whoever said it was “gLiDiNg” is coping so hard bc it was undoubtedly flying

christmas came early!!

So at the end, I think you were right about Aang flying. He has a glider for a reason, and the intro ESTABLISHED that he needs his glider to fly/'glide' around with him using it to get into the pose... Then the next moment he just can fly about willy nilly. It's not consistent. I think part of it is the effects for air just being hard to see because of the medium itself. But no, I'd say he was 100% flying in a way that was inconsistent, and also... Korra. Idk if you watched Korra, but there's huge things about flight in the show. They just could have done literally anything else to show the character being innocent/childish or showing off his extraordinary power which they use later in like episode 3 or 4. Yet they did this weird... Disney magic flying shit that doesn't show you much. Also you got that virgin flare, I know you can do it lol!

Ah yes more focus of “suki’s motivation” in the LA. it’s hot outsider boy is love interest, that’s her new motivation because that’s all that they focus on with her. :D (her added aquardness was fun addition just a shame with how it dosn’t well play with the motivation change. At least in a writing a good female character :T ) Well nice to see that their is some good things in here with the action! If they focused on her teaching like she dose with the other warriors it could be quite interesting! Also no I don’t think it’s an L to “misread” aangs“gliding”as flight because Most people misread it at flight. That is a greater issue on the production part that they intended it as gliding and made it look like flight! Being unclear with movements and action and bending limits is a key flaw they’ve have.

im glad you were able to seperate these characters from the original ones! i wish i could as well, but its so hard for me. if they wanted different characters, they could have.....created different characters??? but no one seems to be interested in creating original stories 😭😭💀

Your knowledge of martial arts action is impressive. I'm Learning a lot

I don't know why you're apologizing for saying that Aang was flying in the first episode, he was flying that episode and not "gliding"

I don't want to watch the Netflix show (ep1 sucked so hard I didn't bother anymore) so these criticisms make me learn a lot from the original show. I'm enjoying these videos a lot, thank you for making them!

I just watched your first video and wondered how long it will take for your next video. To my suprise you just uploaded it already. Imma grab some popcorn for this one. (sorry I don't have anything interesting to say. 😅)

I really want to see an analyzation of the martial arts techniques and moves used throughout the original show.

18:00 Zhao and his Dairy Queen-ass fighting

Yeah the hand fight in the forest with Suki and Sokka was weird. They could've kept the awkwardness of Suki by having her grab Sokka, but then not make her a jerk, by letting Sokka react, more like Suki was trying to see how Sokka would defend himself instead of just choking him right away.

I started having a light interest in martial arts not too long ago, but this channel really makes me want to try and take it up. Good videos talking about the Netflix series man 👍

I've been practicing aikido for 12 years now and yeahhh, Suki's actress definitely could have used more practice before shooting. My pet peeve with the depiction of aikido on screen is that the stunt coordinators tend to focus on the form too much, when the most important thing to make aikido believable is the fluidity of movement, the lack of tension in the body. I would prefer them to use the simplest of techniques if it meant the actress used her time training to learn to hold her body right. There is a reason aikido gets ridiculed as just being "dancing" and it's the emphasis we place on tying one movement into another and that's just something that was missing from Suki completely.

I love your channel. I am a kung fu prationer and martial arts movie enthuaithst. And I am so happy seeing you break down the terrible fight scenes in this series. My biggest gripe with future episodes of the show is: just when you think there might be an awesome fight scene, the show starts prioritizing humour over good fights, and the fights leave you disappointed ps: have you seen the new Japanese martial arts movie that just came out recently 'one percent warrior'? it's fantastic

Commenting for the Algorithm!! Hope your channel grows! :D.

Great vids! I enjoy watching your breakdowns! I noticed a lot of things I didn't at first!

"Focusing on the wrong things" This is essentially my main critique of everything the adaptation did. I went in consciously asking myself, "what info do I need to make this make sense?" A lot of the time, it wasn't something I had seen in the adaptation, but something from the original show filling in the gaps, though this did get better during the later episodes. This is why I really dislike Iroh in the adaptation, as once I realized I was filling in his character for the adaptation and stopped doing so, I was left with a fairly hollow, stiff, and surprisingly uncaring character. And this is despite the extreme exposition problem the show has. How can they be telling us so much while also missing so much? Because they're focusing on entirely the wrong things. Suggesting half speed was a nice touch, but I wasn't prepared for half speed Benny Hill. lol I really, really appreciate you pointing out how memefied Kyoshi is. She was never like that in the show (maybe the comics? I haven't read hers, and generally find a lot of the post ATLA stuff to expose a bunch of problems under the hood). Like, she knows she's talking to a child, right? A kid younger than he's supposed to be to know he's the avatar? An air nomad kid, whose culture she would have spent at least a year immersed in, let alone all the years she would have been working with in her role as the Avatar? I'd bring up that he's also her, too, but Korra revealed that reincarnation isn't actually a thing that's in this world and the adaptation uses the same verbiage as the original did that belies the creators misunderstanding of the concept... I don't think it's an L to think Aang was flying. The evidence for it is not readily apparent for the same reason the show made everyone think Aang is flying: the editing/framing. "Aang flying" is still a massive problem, it's just not what is literally happening but the result of poor film making techniques. Just as the fights don't necessarily show actual fighting/sparring, the pantomime has to make you think they fighting is real. If it makes you think something else, that's on them, not you. However, if we're doing a deconstruction of the media, it is nice to figure out what actually went wrong and put the blame where it's due. And if you think Aang flying is bad, wait until you find out that the group of Earthbenders in the movie did not throw the singular rock, the editing just makes it look like it was them (the bending is still bad, though, just not for the reason the scene is infamous).

Thanks for the analysis. I wish they have put more effort in the continuity of the fights and blockings. And what I noticed was, the warrior's fans. When Suki threw it to cut the watermelons, it looks like metal. But later when they were training, they used paper fans. We even got the close up shot of blocking using paper fan at 11:43 , and it looked weak lol. Idk if that was supposed to be a training fan, but it looks like in the real fight they used paper fans too, and against fire, so...

Inspired content as always. Keep it up.

6:53 That's not a Seoi Nage, that's Tai Otoshi. Sokka is not being thrown over the back, and Suki's stance is wide with her right leg extended. Her center of gravity is show leaning backwards in the 2nd cut, which is very bad, but otherwise it should work as show.

Yknow I didn't even realize the directors changed after ep 2 and thta explains so much. Eps 1 and 2 are SO bad I would recommend skipping them to anyone watching for the first time. Also, tidbit I think you'd like, Dallas Liu, Zukos actor, is an old school tricker! There's a reason his form and choreo seems so much better than many others imo. Idk how far you've ACTUALLY watched it, but the show gets much better from here. And my fave fight from the season is coming up and I'm stoked to see what you think of it.

Netflix Avatar in general lost its martial arts heritage

Really enjoying this series!

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For me the fact that Suki was clearly clumsy and amateurish, while teaching other much more seasoned people, was a show of what the showrunners thought of nartial arts and the viewer. Physical prowess should've been included in the requirements when casting, but none of the actors even remotely athletic in a sense that is needed for martial arts. They maybe were going to the gym. but tbh going to the gym does not equate to having good coordination and fluidity in motion. A lot of people cite the fact that most of the actors are kids (not really, except for Aang and Katara, the rest of the cast was around 20), but I've been around circus kids all my life and none of them would've moved so clumsily as Ty Lee. Kids are wininning gold medals in Olympics for goodness sake! Kids who are proficient in their martial arts or sports are extremely aware of their body and movement. Especially circus kids. At the age of 14 some of them do aerial acrobatics for a living. You can see I'm really salty about Ty Lee. To be perfectly honest I have no idea how they managed to find Asian kids who were not forced to do martial arts, it's as if they were looking for the most inadequate for the job. Ty Lee should be a circus kid, Azula should've practiced all her life as a maniac to prove that her brother is a loser. Aang was taught martial arts since he was a toddler. I do not believe that there were no kids that were forced to go into martial arts. They could've recruited from martial arts studious! But they never reached out to anybody who had at least some proficiency in the martial arts, and never taught the actors the right movements. Which means it was an intentional choice.

Isnt your roots one of the fundamentals of Fire-bending? The fight scenes in Avatar the animated series (both AtlA and Korra) is amazing, following the fundimentals of martial arts with the theatrics of old Hong Kong kung fu movies. One of the missed opportuneties of Netflix avatar is the lack of wire work. Put Aang on some wires deam it!

I had to agree with you

I actually like the Caillou-Style copyright evasion, if you find it to be necessary.

Would love to see your take on ep3 as well

So... You sat with your legs spread open for the entire video? That is something to be proud of

are you northern or southern based? that bit at 12:29 looks like a southern sow chois but im sure theres similar stuff in the northern schools

2:11 you don’t need to out yourself out, I love Avatar Roku as well.

18:00 That was Zhao?! That was pathetic!!

How exactly did Sokka get his bow wrong, except not doing the exact same as them again? More or less, different styles do one of the two depending on regions and preferences from what I've seen. At least from southern styles like Hung Gar I've seen people mostly doing the one Sokka did here.

Netflix said its a reimagining. But I wish they kept the characters the same just reacting to different situations. Plus the martial arts is really a let down. I also agree that they made Kyoshi just angry and aggressive when in the animated series she was zen and grounded. But I think this kyoshi's character is consistent with her comics version where she has a firebender girlfriend. So I guess netflix is ahead of the story.😂

omg the shoutout

As much as I think the complaint that “the martial arts doesn’t look like martial arts” is pretty dumb, at least he’s able to admit that he’s wrong about Aang flying when he wasn’t🤷🏾‍♂️

Hey you forgot one thing...when this happened 19:04 katara is still there behind kyoshi and then kyoshi leave for the village and lands there immediately after 2-3 seconds but she is not alone somehow avatar katara also managed to cover the same distance with more speed and when kyoshi lands avatar katara is already there in the village watching kyoshi do magic stuff😂😂😂 at the very start of the episode they showed the shrine and the village are completely on different areas so how the hell katara would have covered the same distance in no time by running or whatever??

Nah you saying that Aang was Flying wasn't an L at all. That's Basically what he was doing *Verbatim* We see what actual gliding in the show is and what Aang did in the 1st episode was not it even remotely. He even pushes himself back up with Air while Mid Air. He's Basically Flying at that Point

Oh no….he doesn’t know about the rest of the series….oh no no no……

Before i even watch the vid: that hadaki jime was sooo bad. Was ghere nobody on set who knew wgat they were doing?

Is it just me me or does the kyoushi warriors fighting style loos similar to the bending arts

This is painful for me to watch. I was so upset with the entire thing. It felt sleepy but flashy. It's exactly the worst combination. Watching it broken down is reliving this trauma of the live series.

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