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Like any truly great fantasy story, Avatar: The Last Airbender has a multitude of inspirations. Some of these, like Hindu mythology and Kung Fu cinema, are obvious to even the most casual of viewer. But recently, voice actor Olivia Hack, who plays Ty Lee in the 2005 series, revealed that at least one episode was inspired by the 1985 John Hughes classic, The Breakfast Club.

Speaking at LA Comic Con 2024, on a panel dedicated to Avatar: the Last Airbender, Hack was asked which of the show's 61 episodes were her favorite. "The Tales of Ba Sing Se," the actor answered, to much applause. She then broke down why episode 15 of season 2 was her favorite.

"[The episode is] always a classic," Hack explained. "I like origin stories and you get a lot of origin stories for everybody in that."

For context if you haven't seen the episode, The Tales of Ba Sing Se is a series of vignettes that dive into the backstories of Top, Katara, Iroh, Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Momo. 

"Also," she continued, "I think in that episode you remember that [the characters] are teenagers, and I think that sometimes that's lost." 

After the panel's moderator commented that the episode was "a little bit John Hughes," Hack confirmed that he was correct, claiming "[the producers] specifically said they kind of based that on The Breakfast Club."

The voice actor continued to say that she loved the episode's "levity" in a particularly dark season and that "you get to watch Azula flirt," which was, in her opinion, "cringe."

Avatar: The Last Airbender (and its 2024 live-action remake) is streaming on Netflix now.

Each week, Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• How Jujutsu Kaisen subverted Shonen tropes to become one of the most popular manga of all-time
• A World without Goku: How Akira Toriyama's death could make Dragon Ball Daima the end of Goku's story
• Why the finales of My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and One Piece feel like the end of an era in manga
• Why I don't talk about Rurouni Kenshin as an anime journalist
• The anime industry grew 22% in 2023 - here is why we think it happened
• Why is One Piece more popular now that the anime is 25 years old? We asked around and found out
• Dan Da Dan is weird, profoundly inappropriate, and the perfect anime this season
• Why One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy is the perfect anime hero for the dark times ahead