The Media Man Reviews: The Legend of Korra

Back in August, I reviewed the hit Nickelodeon series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Now I'm here to review the sequel series, The Legend of Korra.

Created by the original creators of Avatar, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and released in 2012, the show ran for 52 episodes stretched over four seasons from then until 2014. The Legend of Korra carried on the story of Avatar: The Last Airbender by being set 70 years after the events of the previous show. Initially, Nickelodeon was reluctant to air the show because they felt "Boys wouldn't watch a show about a girl". I remind you guys, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic came out a whole two years before this show did and a large chunk of its fanbase were guys so, Nickelodeon really proved how out-of-touch with reality they were at the time. Also RWBY says hi too. XD

Anyway, the makers were able to convince them to air the show and the results were...mixed at best. Critics loved it whereas the fanbase is about as divided on the show's quality as the two warring tribes in Avatar's "The Great Divide" episode. Some REALLY love it, some REALLY hate it, some think it's OK at best and some think it was a disappointing follow-up but not that bad. Regardless of the quality of the show, The Legend of Korra was a critical success and was nominated, or outright won, several awards during its time on the air. It was also credited for being one of the biggest examples of LGBTQ+ inclusion in children's media with Korra being depicted as bisexual and ending the show in a relationship with Asami, another bisexual woman in the show. What would follow on from there would include wider LGBTQ+ inclusion in shows such as Arthur, Steven Universe and especially The Owl House. To put it simply: The Legend of Korra walked so those shows could run.

Now as someone who never watched Avatar when it was on TV, I was the same with The Legend of Korra. I NEVER watched a single episode when it was airing so like with Avatar, I'm walking into this show with no previous experience or childhood nostalgia. This is from the perspective of a newcomer coming into this show after viewing Avatar. So is Korra's legend a legend worth telling? Or should we let Amon take away this show's bending forever? Let's dive in as I review The Legend of Korra...

Section 1: The Writing

Set years after the original series, we now have the next Avatar in the ongoing cycle to take up the mantle Aang once took up, the titular Korra. Starting as a waterbender, Korra must learn to master the elements and become the new Avatar, but keeping the peace may be harder than she thinks given this is a very different world and she'll have to deal with some larger-than-life villains who may be enough of a threat to deal with even the powers of the Avatar...

I think it's easy to tell that this show doesn't have a head writer like Avatar did, because without one, the writing of Korra feels significantly lesser by comparison. Now contrary to what the fans think, I actually don't think Korra is this utter disaster of a series that "utterly destroys the canon" or "ruins its own world-building" or some garbage like that. Heck, I actually think the writing of the show is mostly good! Great event! But it's still not as great as the writing was in Avatar. As is, let's go through this slowly and steadily, starting with the good stuff.

First of all, this might sound like a hot take, but I actually love the world-building of this show and how it evolves from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Given we're several years into the future with a brand new Avatar in the form of Korra, of course the world will look and function VERY differently from before. I'll go into more details in the animation segment, but for now, I'll say that I personally buy it that the world of Avatar would become closer to modern times over the next 100 years or so. And then there's the fact it expands on previous lore to give us more of the world we thought we knew, especially in Season 2 with the spirit portals, the backstory of the first ever Avatar and how the whole Avatar cycle began when the light spirit Raava merged with Wan. That was really fascinating stuff for me and I found it so interesting to take in.

I also love how the story of Korra manages to avoid being a copy-paste of the previous show. Given we're not at war with the Fire Nation anymore, we don't need to spend seasons travelling the world trying to stop them and gather troops to help. Instead, each season of Korra is its own mostly self-contained story with its own villains to deal with. Season 1 is about dealing with the terrorist group known as the Equalists, Season 2 features Korra trying to bring balance to the spirit and human worlds, Season 3 is about dealing with the Red Lotus gang as they try to spread anarchy and chaos and Season 4 follows on from the events of Season 3 as our heroes have to stop Kuvira from turning the Earth Kingdom into an evil empire. I like this story-telling approach to the series as it allows Korra to stand out from its predecessor and even allows for more variety of stories to be told, and more kinds of villains to deal with too as each season has a different main antagonist, unlike before where we had a variety of smaller villains with the Fire Nation being the overall main threat. This in turn made Korra an engaging watch from beginning to end as I went into each season wondering what was next and what villains we'd be going up against.

And just like its predecessor, Korra contains some of the writing strengths that made Avatar so beloved. The antagonists (sans Unalaq) are three-dimensional characters who have layers to their characters, the Avatar character is a strong, well-developed lead who is compelling to watch, the show deals with heavy themes that make the show feel like it's not really for kids, the action scenes are awesome and its quirky cast leave a big impression. Korra really pushes the envelope for how serious a kid's show can be, even more so than Avatar at times! The villains are really scary, threatening and evil people who can be truly twisted at times, the show plays Korra's trauma at the end of Season 3 completely straight, the poor girl is metaphorically raped at times (key word being metaphorically, I obviously don't meant she was literally raped in the show!) and some of the kills are surprisingly brutal. Much like Avatar, the show still manages to be enjoyable in spite of how dark it can get at times, even if Korra constantly getting beaten up and put through trauma does get excessive at times. Seriously, it happens to the point it feels borderline fetish-y, and considering Korra is female, that doesn't exactly paint the writers in a good light...

And while the show has some teething issues at the start, once we get past Seasons 1 and 2 and the show finally stops adding in stupid love triangle nonsense, we get the third and fourth seasons in where the writing improves immensely with stronger plots, less idiotic decisions from the cast, a better focus now there's no romance or family drama and more focus is placed on character development and facing the villains. I'd even say Seasons 3 and 4 are the closest Korra gets to matching the original show in terms of quality. It's a pity the whole show wasn't as good as those two seasons, but at least the show did improve as it went along and found its footing. It's also not afraid to shake up the status quo and make some bold new changes going forward, especially in Season 2 when Korra decides to leave the spirit portals open and allow humans and spirits to live side-by-side, which in turn leads to airbenders making a comeback after so many years.

Of course, what made Avatar so beloved was how side-splittingly hilarious the show could be at times. Does Korra live up to its predecessor's legendary comedy? Eh...no. I'm not saying the show isn't funny at all, because that'd be a lie. How can you NOT find this show funny when Varrick exists? XD Korra does have a lot of funny lines and comical moments here and there, but it's not quite as funny as Avatar due to some jokes being too juvenile and even has a lot of "comedic" moments that wouldn't fly well in today's era of entertainment. We'll get to that later. But the show still manages to make me laugh a lot. And let's not forget how the clip show episode from Season 4 is often viewed as the funniest episode in the whole Avatar franchise, so the comedy clearly works for some people.

So yeah, unlike what the fandom has to say, I actually think Korra has a lot of good things about it, and I do mean A LOT! But before you raise your pitchforks and declare me an enemy to Avatar fans everywhere, I'm going to make this as clear as possible: I DON'T think the show is flawless and I certainly agree it's nowhere near as good as the original! OK? We got that? Now for the part of the review you guys will enjoy: the part where I criticize this show. And you'll be happy to know I DO have some BIG criticisms to give!

First of all, Seasons 1 and 2 are plagued with stupid love triangles and romance drama that just interferes with the pacing and story-telling, and it makes for a rather irritating watch at times. Like, did we really need to devote time to Mako, Asami, Korra and Bolin trying to romance each other when more important things are at hand? I'll never understand why writers think love triangles and romance drama are necessary to include. They aren't! They're annoying! Season 2 has the worst of it when we have Eska, one of Unalaq's children, forcing Bolin into a relationship with her and basically acting possessive and abusive towards him...and we're supposed to laugh at it. Why? Because Eska's a woman and women abusing men is funny? No, screw that ugly double-standard! Abuse is bad both ways! It's not comedic if it's a woman abusing a man the same way it's not comedic when men abuse women! That stupid gag with Eska and Bolin should've been dropped entirely and Season 2 would've been much better without it!

Speaking of Season 2, that season is where most of my criticisms for the show lie. I agree with the fans when they say Season 2 is the show's worst, though I will not criticize it for stupid things like Korra trusting Unalaq, which isn't a valid criticism. What IS a valid criticism though is how this season is like Hazbin Hotel's second season. It's the kind of poorly written plot in where the characters act incomprehensibly stupid so a plot can happen. It's baffling how this season exists in a show that mostly has much stronger writing than this, because Season 2 made no sense a lot of the time with how dumb the characters act. There's Chief Lin acting weirdly hostile and dismissive towards Mako for literally no reason whatsoever, and then there's Asami and Bolin somehow doubting Mako's word when he realizes Varrick is a bad guy despite the fact that last time they trusted someone who seemed nice, it was Asami's dad and he turned out to be a bad guy! That was literally in the previous season, yet somehow Mako is doubted when he figures out Varrick is a bad guy? Utter idiocy! It also doesn't help we have a pair of numbskulls on the police force who only exist so they can be dumb and make this plot happen, which makes it extra infuriating. And the less said about Raava not explaining herself properly so Wan ends up falling for Vaatu's lies and she somehow thinks it's his fault Vaatu ends up freed, the better... Like I said, the characters act like idiots just so a plot can happen, and that kind of terrible writing is never OK in my eyes. Oh and that subplot of Bolin being a "mover" star was embarrassing. Why did that need to exist? The fact it only made Bolin act like an insufferable prick didn't help either.

A smaller point I'd like to make is that Season 3, while a step-up from Season 2 and the moment the show finally found its footing, has a little problem in where it starts off with Korra trying to fix the spirit vine problem, but then that plot point gets dropped in favour of dealing with the Red Lotus gang. That season kinda felt a bit crowded already dealing with the Red Lotus gang and trying to gather up airbenders, so I don't know why they bothered with the spirit vine stuff if it wasn't going to get resolved. Speaking of resolved, both Seasons 1 and 2 rely on deus ex machinas in order to solve their plots. Need I mention Aang somehow restoring Korra's bending at the end of Season 1 or Jinora somehow saving Korra from being corrupted in the climax of Season 2? Even the writers admitted that one was an ass pull!

Another thing that grinds my gears about the show is the atrocious way the Spirit World is depicted. The show constantly preaches to us how we "need to respect the spirits" and stuff like that, BUT THE SPIRIT WORLD IS FULL OF ASSHOLES!!! Seriously, nearly everyone in the Spirit World is a colossal jerk and somehow, the characters are told how they need to be respected, yet they don't respect humans and just treat them like garbage for...reasons! Screw the Spirit World! I'm not going to show respect to a bunch of assholes like them, especially since they refuse to help Korra despite the fact that Kuvira poses a threat to them and is using power from their world to destroy everything! I sure hope that whatever messed up the world in the upcoming Avatar: Seven Havens destroyed the Spirit World as well, because those jerks deserve to be killed for how horrible and unhelpful they are...

And this might just be a me problem, but I also hate how every damn villain in this show is just overpowered to ludicrous degrees in order to have them pose a threat to our heroes. Avatar didn't need to do that, so why this show did it is anyone's guess. You have Amon who's a bloodbender, Unalaq who's a skilled waterbender and has spirit powers too, you have the Red Lotus gang in where they just effortlessly curbstomp everybody nearly every time they show up and there's Kuvira in how she's a skilled earth and metalbender with a huge army at her command. It gets real old real fast when our heroes keep getting their asses kicked by the villains in the show and it just makes them, especially Korra, come off as ineffectual and weak a lot of the time. Then you get characters like Amon where they feel too clever to be believable and it does feel like taking the mickey sometimes with how they supposedly planned for every single outcome. I'm not saying the villains shouldn't be powerful, but they shouldn't have made them win so often and let our heroes score more wins so they didn't seem so uber unstoppable. This isn't quite as bad as how the villains in RWBY are handled because at least the villains of Korra are well-written and pretty nuanced characters for the most part, and also live up to their hype, so they're able to be cool and interesting in more ways than being overpowered, but it's still excessive and pretty exhausting to watch at times.

And finally, I'm shocked more people don't talk about this, but there's one VERY iffy thing about the writing that I find shocking that the writers didn't realize how icky it was. You see, part of Amon and Tarrlok's backstory is that their father, Yakone, was exposed as a bloodbender and Aang took his bending away. After his gang freed him, Yakone underwent surgery to have his face changed and went under a false identity. After he moved out of Republic City, he settled down and got married to a woman and sired two children with her. Remember, he was going under a false identity at the time and while pretending to be someone else, he married a woman and had two kids with her. Sex under false pretences equals rape, ergo Nickelodeon somehow allowed this to slip their radar. It's utterly messed up how no one realized how icky this is and how they let it slide. Then again, I remember Nickelodeon is the same studio that allowed the higher-ups to mentally and sexually abuse their child actors as was detailed in the infamous Quiet on Set documentary, so maybe it's not that surprising. It's still gross though and somebody should've pointed that out during the script writing process. Why not just make it so Yakone didn't marry someone while pretending to be someone else? It would've saved the gross fact that he raped some poor innocent woman and had two kids with her, and all the while she had no idea about Yakone's dark past or his true nature...

As is, I feel Korra is way too over-hated and that it has a lot of good to it that many fans overlook. Sure it has some teething issues and the villains are too overpowered for their own good, but the show still has some really solid writing, fascinating world-building and a unique way to tell its story to differentiate it from its predecessor. The bad stuff is even worth putting up with in my eyes, because the good stuff is all worth it in the end, especially Seasons 3 and 4...

Section 2: The Characters

With a whole new Avatar in the role, that means a whole new cast to meet and go on adventures with. How do they fare up compared to the original's iconic characters? Let's go over them.

Of course, we must start with the new Avatar herself, Korra (voiced by Janet Varney). I don't think I've seen a character as disrespected by online communities as her. Seriously, I'd love to know what show these "fans" have been watching, because it clearly wasn't the one I have! You hear the fandom talk and they make Korra sound like she's this utter failure who never develops, never grows up and loses all the time, when that is objectively wrong! One of the strongest aspects of this show is precisely Korra's development! Over the course of the show, we see her grow wiser, more mature and become more level-headed as she's routinely humbled (and traumatized) by her experiences. Korra by Season 4 feels like a different person from Korra at the start of the show, and that's how character development should feel. The only criticism I agree with her is that she gets beat up and gets her ass kicked. A LOT! It's way too excessive, so she ends up looking pretty weak as a result, but I blame that on the writers making the villains too overpowered and constantly contriving ways for Korra to get handicapped just so she can lose. It's like how horribly Liko was handled in Pokémon Horizons, only in this case it's not as bad because Korra suffering and getting beat up a lot served some kind of purpose. Whereas Liko would just lose for no reason and the writers pretended it was character development, Korra losing a lot and getting traumatized by her experiences was all part of her arc. She learns that violence doesn't solve anything and she can't go running in elements blazing all the time. The last episode even spells that out to the audience by having her realize her suffering was to teach her to be more compassionate!

Korra to me is probably the strongest Avatar we've ever seen. She's been through so much crap, suffered some really nasty losses and was scarred deeply for three years after being poisoned by Zaheer...and yet through it all, she remained good and pure and only grew stronger as a result, even learning to be more compassionate and level-headed as a result. That makes Korra a stronger person than many people give her credit for. But the fandom continues to clown on her and make her a Memetic Loser because...women aren't allowed to be flawed and make mistakes or something, I have no idea! Korra is awesome and I'll forever hate how she was done dirty by the writers and the fans. And now we have the upcoming Seven Havens show making things worse with how it seems Korra destroyed the world or something. That poor girl can't catch a break I swear...

As awesome as Korra was though, her friends...leave a lot to be desired. To put it bluntly, they're nowhere near as great as Aang's friends were. There's Mako (voiced by David Faustino), Bolin (voiced by P. J. Byrne) and Asami Sato (voiced by Seychelle Gabriel). Mako is pretty boring honestly and has nothing particularly interesting or compelling about him. I can say that he does get more tolerable in Seasons 3 and 4 once he stops getting into love triangle crap with Korra and Asami and it is nice how he went from a guy trying to get by to becoming a detective who proves capable at what he does, but he still bores me for the most part. Bolin, Mako's brother, is a total dumbass who really takes the mickey with how dumb he can be at times. While he can be funny occasionally, he mostly annoyed me and even him being able to lava-bend didn't make him any cooler to me. Asami had potential as a badass non-bender who is the daughter of a rich tech-giant who has to deal with the fact her father wasn't what she thought he was, but she felt pretty underdeveloped for most of the show in my eyes. It also doesn't help she was part of the annoying love triangles in the earlier seasons. While I appreciate the character, and Korra herself, for being among the earliest examples of LGBTQ+ rep in media by being bisexual, and an non-stereotypical depiction of bisexual people at that, I wish their relationship and blossoming romance was focused on more instead of being breadcrumbs we had to pick up on and then the writers having to confirm it after the show was over. Still, KorraXAsami opened the doors for further, much stronger LGBTQ+ rep going forward, and it's thanks to this we got stuff like Steven Universe and The Owl House being unapologetically queer, so that's something we should give this show credit for. Overall, these characters don't hold a candle to the great team we had before and just make me miss Katara, Sokka and Toph.

There's a lot of different side characters in the series, but I won't cover too many of them since the review will be too long if I do. The most major ones to cover really are Tenzin (voiced by J.K. Simmons), Jinora (voiced by Kiernan Shipka), Lin Beifong (voiced by Mindy Sterling) and Varrick (voiced by John Michael Higgins). Tenzin was a great character and I was always happy to see him onscreen. As the son of Aang himself and a father of three, Tenzin proves to be a wise mentor to Korra who has his own flaws that show he's not perfect either. Despite his patience being tested time and time again, he always stands by Korra's side, even when Korra's being rude to him, and his patience pays off when Korra proves capable of taking his lessons to heart and achieving great things with them. It was also so sweet to see him achieving what his father before him had set out to do many years ago and lead a new generation of airbenders that'll see the return of the Air Nomads after the Fire Nation nearly wiped them out long ago.

His eldest daughter, Jinora, is a sweet little cinnamon bun who proves to be a capable airbending student, has a strong connection to the spirit world and proves to be one of Korra's biggest life savers as she helps save her in the climaxes for Seasons 2 and 3. I really liked Jinora and was always happy whenever she got her time in the spotlight. It's easy to see why Kai liked her too. (wink, wink)

Lin Beifong took a while to become likeable in my eyes. At first, she was way too gruff and had too much of a chip on her shoulder, Season 2 made her really dumb and she especially grew pretty detestable when she was unnecessarily rude towards Opal during the team's visit to Zaofu, but once we learn her backstory, we do understand why she's the way she is and after making peace with her past and making up with her estranged sister at last, she becomes way more likeable and becomes a genuine ally and friend to Korra and the others. It's a pity it takes so long before she finally becomes likeable, but better late than never I say.

As for Varrick? Do I need to say anything? I'm pretty sure even Korra detractors love this guy! Varrick is the absolute GOAT for being such a ham-tastic, fun character who is insanely quotable (especially whenever he says "Do the thing!"), hilarious and also a lot smarter and craftier than his silly personality might make him seem. The twist that he was a bad guy in Season 2 especially made him more interesting to people, but Varrick proves he does have a conscience and becomes a genuine ally to our heroes in later seasons. The show's best idea was bringing this character into it. I guarantee Korra wouldn't have been as enjoyable without Varrick in it. He certainly "did the thing" so well here.

Now for the fun part of this section: talking about the villains. Going by seasons, the main four antagonists include Amon (voiced by Steve Blum), Unalaq (voiced by Adrian LaTourelle), Zaheer (voiced by Henry Rollins) and Kuvira (voiced by Zelda Williams). Season 2 also has another main villain in the form of Vaatu (voiced by Jonathan Adams).

Amon was a fantastic first impression for the kind of villains we would be getting in this show. While I did criticize his intelligence for seeming too good to be believable, Amon is still a great villain with how cunning he can be, his creepy voice, his terrifyingly powerful blood bending skills that allow him to take away people's bending and how unflinching he is in the face of danger. Even facing Korra herself barely gets him quaking in his boots and his cold, ruthless and efficient way of dealing with enemies makes him quite a threat. The fact he's able to con all his followers into thinking he's a non-bender and actually makes it convincing with how he seems to use no bending when fighting also adds to his duplicitous nature and how crafty he is. His backstory added a layer of sympathy to him with how he was abused by his father, Yakone, and raised to be a monster who abused his powers of bloodbending.

Unalaq...yeah, I can't disagree with the fans on this one, he really did suck. He had a good start by proving to be a skilled manipulator that was able to turn Korra against her own dad (he's her uncle and the two have a good relationship together, hence why he trusted her) and get her to open the Spirit Portals, but then his motivation became unclear and you wonder what he's even trying to achieve in the end. Does he actually want to bring balance to the two worlds, or does he just want to destroy everything? I don't get it. Vaatu was a much stronger villain and easily overshadowed him due to being the personification of darkness and all, even if his "flying kite" design looked a little silly.

Zaheer was a very fascinating character to me. With the help of his gang of friends consisting of Ghazan (voiced by Peter Giles), Ming Hua (voiced by Grey DeLisle) and P'Li (voiced by Kirsty Wu), he's a different kind of villain in how he wants to spread anarchy and chaos as he believes the world shouldn't be ruled by single rulers such as kings and queens. Yet despite his ruthless nature and how clearly insane he is, he's a pretty polite and well-read kind of man who can seem pretty friendly and approachable at first glance. Even when dealing with Korra, he's pretty affable towards her, even if it might be an act for the most part. It says a lot about what a strong villain he was when Korra actually comes to him for help in Season 4, and he does so with no animosity towards her. Zaheer was such a cool character, even if his skills as an airbender were hard to swallow since he only just learned how to do it, so him somehow curbstomping nearly everyone he met just felt ridiculous to me.

And finally, Kuvira. She too was a very strong villain. With her control over her Earth Empire army, her iron-clad will and ruthless efficiency with getting the job done, this woman managed to be the single biggest threat in the Avatar universe yet with her skills as an earth and metalbender, her intelligence that shows she's smart enough to think of contingencies to deal with anything that might be a threat to her giant mech in the climax and how no matter what she's dealing with, even if it's the Avatar herself, she takes no crap and faces any challenge head on. Like Amon, she's pretty sympathetic due to her past as an orphan who clearly has abandonment issues and how she wants to make a unified kingdom, it's just she went the wrong way about it. Thankfully, she proves not to be a lost cause when Korra talks her down in the final episode and gets her to surrender.

Oh and for fans of Avatar, thankfully we do get to see the old cast again, namely Katara, Toph and Uncle Iroh. While Toph and Iroh have fantastic showings, I hate the way Katara was handled in this show. She's just "the healer" and her skills as a healer are all that's focused on. Nobody ever brings up what an awesome combatant she was or how she was a waterbending prodigy who helped take down the Fire Nation, even Azula. This just feels like character assassination to me as Katara herself fought against the sexist treatment of female waterbenders in the Southern Water Tribe to prove women can be powerful waterbenders in combat too. She didn't show how awesome she was just to be known as "the healer" people!

While not as strong as the cast from Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra has a plethora of strong, memorable and fun characters that make the show enjoyable and the roster of villains we had throughout each season added a unique challenge for Korra to face each time. A pretty decent cast for the most part, I'd say...

Section 3: The Animation

Much like its predecessor, The Legend of Korra boasts some pretty good visuals for a TV series, and it really keeps up what made the original show so fun to watch.

As a sequel series to Avatar, the art-style is identical to what came before with that same Western-Anime style that made the original so beloved, and that also comes with all the same strengths that the original had. Making a grand comeback are the fantastically expressive character animations with some very over-the-top faces during the comical moments, a lot of expressive body language that allows the characters to show off much of their personality and of course, the brilliant fight choreography that gives us some truly awesome fight scenes to watch. I've seen debates going around that Korra even surpasses Avatar in terms of its fight scenes. I'd probably say I agree since the fight scenes truly get very creative, very explosive, and at times very violent! As mentioned earlier, this show wasn't afraid to get surprisingly brutal with some of the deaths, and we even see them for the most part! Need I bring up the way the Earth Queen was suffocated to death, the rather nasty way Ming-Hua met her end, or...well, this scene:

Like...Jesus! Are we sure this show's even for kids at this point? XD Also funny how both are from the same season. Season 3 was hardcore, man! Still, if you love awesome action scenes with creative choreography and use of powers, then this show should satisfy that craving since it delivers on those in spades. And much like the original show, the animation was able to reflect the moments the show would get dark beautifully with some scenes look suitably creepy thanks to the dark lighting, intimidating angles and extreme close-ups that feel unnerving. Standout moments in that regard include Korra's first meeting with Amon, the creepy close-up of Korra's face as she's being poisoned and whenever Korra's being stalked by the dark version of herself.

Now for the visuals themselves. Given this is the world of Avatar, only several years later after the original and we now have a new Avatar in the role, the world looks very different from what we knew before. Republic City is the best example of this as the whole place looks very close to 1920s America with the use of automobiles, radios and other tech that brings Avatar closer to the modern era. Some may feel this is too much of a departure from the Ancient Fantasy Asian settings that came before, but I feel it makes perfect sense. We're 70 years later, of course civilization will have advanced to a large degree by then, especially after Toph invented metal-bending! Also, Avatar was to the point zeppelins were invented, so I think we can buy cars and trucks existing after a big time-skip. I also like how Korra's world-building went in this direction as it allowed for the series to carve its own identity and give us set-pieces and action scenes that you couldn't get in the original show. I mean you certainly couldn't have had a climactic showdown between Team Avatar and a giant mech in the original series, but you can get that in this show! That and it gives Korra experiences and challenges more unique to her as she's in a very different world to the one Aang lived in, so I say the writers and animators deserve so much credit for creatively using the setting to their advantage, both in the story and in the visuals. The setting feels integral to the story, not a fancy gimmick is what I'm saying.

One of the visual highlights for me was the two-part episode about Avatar Wan, the first Avatar. As we see Wan's story unfold, the art-style shifts to a more simplistic, painterly art-style that evokes classic Asian artwork and it was really nice to look at, as well as something that makes those particular episodes stand out more. It even fits how this is a story set so far in the past, so why not make the animation style reflect that by evoking an older style of artwork?

Other visual highlights for me include the city of Zaofu and the Spirit World. Zaofu looks really cool as this idyllic metropolis made by metalbenders and the Spirit World is all kinds of trippy with how some parts of it look tranquil, colourful and peaceful and then some parts look more foreboding and creepy. It proper gives off the impression that you never know what you're in for when the characters enter this world. I may hate the residents of the Spirit World for being unhelpful assholes, but the world itself is always interesting to visit and explore.

Much like the original series, the animation does have a few hiccups here and there. Occasionally you'll get the odd off-model moment or weird face from the characters. One noticeable example is at the end of one Season 2 episode after Vaatu is freed and Korra makes an...odd expression that makes her look a bit dopey. Kinda ruins what was supposed to be a tense cliff hanger, especially with Vaatu making a weird sounding laugh too. Oh and the use of CGI is terrible here. Anytime it's used, mainly on the vehicles and the mech suits, they stand out like sore thumbs and feel like animation models for a video-game rather than a TV series. While I imagine it made things easier for the animators since they would've been to complex to draw, they needed a better animation software to make them blend in with the visuals better.

Still, the animation of Korra has little to criticize overall. It brings back all the good parts of Avatar's animation and brings it all into a brand new, evolved world that continues where the original left off...

Conclusion

While I agree The Legend of Korra isn't as strong as The Last Airbender, I disagree with it being a terrible sequel series. I actually think Korra deserves more love. Yes it has some pretty big flaws, mostly in the first two seasons, but the good stuff is REALLY good! The world of Avatar truly feels it evolved with this show, the story gets better as it goes along, the characters are strong and memorable, it's pretty ballsy for a Nickelodeon series, it's not afraid to get dark at times and the animation is some of the best we've seen in this franchise. I'm sure many Avatar fans will hate me for daring to say The Legend of Korra isn't a steaming pile of garbage, but I don't care. These blog posts are me giving my honest opinions about the media I consume and I'm not going to lie about what I thought to The Legend of Korra. Yes, Avatar: The Last Airbender is way better, that is a fact, but we shouldn't sleep on this show either. I say check it out for yourself and don't let the internet judge it for you...

And that's my review of The Legend of Korra. I hope you enjoyed it and I invite you all to share your thoughts down below. Do you like this series? Do you not like it? Do tell me.

Next week, I'll be returning to Robot Wars as I cover the career of Terrorhurtz. See you then media fans!

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