What is AMJ?

Avatar: Macai's Journey is a fan spinoff and expansion of the Avatar: The Last Airbender television series.

Sooo, time has passed since the creation of Avatar: Macai's Journey. The original sequel of the series is Avatar: Lingering Tensions and of all the seasons in AMJ, season 2 is seemingly the second least popular (not that, that is a particularly bad thing).

Here is a quick summary of what both stories represent:

AMJ Book 2:

This is essentially the essence of Macai's Journey. Where Macai has finally left the Fire Nation Capital and Nyarri to go to war. Macai has become a skilled, disciplined, and brutally effective commander. Pirates, bounty hunters, revolutionaries, Earth Kingdom troopers, and Water Tribe warriors stand in his way as Macai looks to honor his father by creating one of the most feared military units in the world.

Little does he know, that destiny hides some surprising twists that will forever change his life.

Avatar: Lingering Tensions:

After the Hundred Year War, bitter members of the Fire Nation Remnant embark on a perilous path of revenge. Former 31st members Ronin and Kedo stage a prison break which brings them new allies and enemies. The duo search for the colonel and former Nyarri citizen Hakon as they look to muster a devastating attack on Zuko's administration.

Conclusion:

For me, it has to be book 2 of AMJ. There was so much heart and soul in that story. I think the main reason it is less popular than the other AMJ seasons is because Macai goes on a lot of missions, and it has less of a structured plot (up until the very end of the season). More of the plot in that season is the journey but it is very important for Macai's character development and the apparent passage of time for us to get a feel for what the 31st's time in the war was like.

Lingering Tensions is more structured and is still a fun ride but for me it just doesn't hit the same. It feels more like a bonus than anything. What probably gets some people is it is a very Fire Nation story, even more than Macai's Journey. There are aspects with the other nations but most people involved in Lingering Tensions already have been fleshed out in AMJ or ATLA. There is less of that newness and mysteriousness that we got in Macai's Journey.

Correction: the popularity of AMJ books seems to rank in this order (not counting Lingering Tensions)

1. Book 1

2. Book 3

3. Book 2

4. Book 4

So ALT is going against an AMJ book that ranks roughly in the middle. I know less people have finished Lingering Tensions than AMJ