Netflix has just the series for those who love both KPop Demon Hunters and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Of course, the overlap of fans of these two projects is bound to be fairly significant. Not only are they both animated and geared toward children, but they both appeal significantly to viewers outside that target demographic. It’s no big stretch to call KPop Demon Hunters and Avatar: The Last Airbender masterpieces and cultural phenomena that go far beyond traditional children’s entertainment.
Given how popular both these animated stories are, it should be no surprise that a TV show that combines the best elements of KPop Demon Hunters and Avatar: The Last Airbender is every bit as exceptional. The amalgamation is a three-season animated Netflix TV show called Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia. Like KPop Demon Hunters and Avatar, this series holds an impressively high audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, coming in with a 96% approval rating.
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Rotten Tomatoes Scores |
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|---|---|
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Title |
Audience Score |
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KPop Demon Hunters |
99% |
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Avatar: The Last Airbender |
98% |
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Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia |
96% |
Trollhunters also covers many of the same themes with a thrillingly complex storyline that makes it fit for all viewers. As far as Avatar: The Last Airbender goes, Trollhunters shares that “chosen one” angle, as, like Aang, the protagonist, Jim Lake Jr., is a uniquely selected hero with a destiny to guard and protect. Also like Aang, Jim isn’t left to face his destiny on his own. He has a crew of supportive pals, each bringing a diverse set of strengths. Then there are the mythological aspects, with both Avatar and Trollhunters centering on elements inspired by real-world legends and cultures.
Trollhunters shares many of the same elements with KPop Demon Hunters, though there are a few additional unique crossovers. In the latter Netflix film, the members of HUNTR/X live double lives as pop stars and superhero-like demon hunters. In Trollhunters, Jim bounces between being a regular high school student and the Sword-of-Daylight-wielding defender of the hidden troll world. Additionally, Jim is every bit as unique as Rumi. He may not be a half-demon, but he is the first human to be chosen to carry out this task. Overall, these projects are cut from the same cloth.
Netflix’s Trollhunters Is Just A Small Part Of A Larger Universe
Trollhunters has three seasons—just as Avatar: The Last Airbender does—and is therefore neither too short nor too long for the investment. Also like Avatar (and soon KPop Demon Hunters), Trollhunters isn’t the only installment in the broader universe. If you give the animated Netflix series a chance and like what you see, there are two additional TV shows and a movie left to enjoy.
Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia is followed up by the sci-fi spinoff series, 3Below: Tales of Arcadia, and a time-travel fantasy series, Wizards: Tales of Arcadia. Then, all three stories come together for the feature film finale, Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans. These projects fill out a full, complex universe with a rich, intriguing lore, which should be no surprise since the Tales of Arcadia franchise comes from fantasy mastermind Guillermo del Toro.
Del Toro is known for gritty fantasy projects like Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and Frankenstein, and while Trollhunters is aimed at younger audiences, he brings the same level of out-of-this-world creativity to it. It’s precisely for this reason that the Netflix fantasy series and its spinoffs have performed so well with such a broad audience, with all Tales of Arcadia shows earning Rotten Tomatoes scores between 91% and 100%.
Suffice it to say, there are a lot of great reasons to dive into Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia and the broader universe in which it is set. This is animated fantasy at its finest, just as KPop Demon Hunters and Avatar: The Last Airbender are. The best part—these are all stories the whole family can enjoy together.
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- Created by
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Guillermo del Toro
- Cast
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Nick Offerman, Grey Griffin, Tom Kenny, Cheryl Hines, Steven Yeun, Colin O’Donoghue, Kay Bess, Amy Landecker, Tatiana Maslany, Lexi Medrano, Laraine Newman, Alfred Molina, Brian Blessed, Fred Tatasciore, Piotr Michael, Kelsey Grammer, Bebe Wood, Diego Luna, Cole Sand, Jonathan Hyde, Nick Frost, Angel Lin, James Hong, Charlie Saxton
Trollhunters is a multimedia franchise consisting of novels, comics, an animated series, and an animated film. The most popular addition to the franchise was Guillermo del Toro’s Dreamworks animated series called Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia, which ran from 2016 to 2018 on Netlifx. In 2021, an animated film titled Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans was released that acts as the finale to the franchise.