We're Back where it all began folks...
GREETINGS!! Ladies and Gents, It is I, The Shaman of Animation back once again. Today is a very special day peeps as it marks the one year anniversary of The Shaman of Animation Blog! That's right folks, it doesn't feel like that long ago when I first started doing this, but here we are. I've changed over this last year as well, I've gone from some opinionated schmuck on the internet that thinks he knows enough about cartoons, superheroes, and wrestling to review them to....actually, nothing's really changed, just that I'm a year older now.
But I've gone on long enough, my first review on this Blog was of The Legend of Korra, and to celebrate the blog turning one, we're gonna revisit Korra's world! So strap on to your Sky Bison peeps, we're taking a look at The Legend of Korra: Book One! Also, be warned: because the series is three years old at this point, I will be spoiling stuff.
Synopsis: To the ill informed, The Legend of Korra is a sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Book One is simply titled: 'Air' and it takes place seventy years after the end of ATLA. The new Avatar, seventeen year old Korra, after spending all of her life mastering water, earth, and firebending, goes out to Republic City to learn Airbending from Aang's son Tezin. In Republic City, she'll learn Airbending, make friends, begin her duties as the Avatar, and come face to face with a man determined to eliminate all benders permanently.
The Good: A lot of the good I have for this series stems from me watching As someone that watched and was a fan of Korra's predecessor series Avatar, it was amazing to see how the world that was previously established in the first series evolved. The setting of Korra's first season, Republic City, has shown that the Avatar world has made a lot of progress as far as technology goes. There are cars, planes, etc. The only thing I can compare the aesthetics of this series to is the 1930's (which if memory serves me correctly was what the team on the show was going for, so good job). It gives it a unique look that does wonders for distinguishing it from its predecessor. Even taking the comparison aside, the art and designs of the show are still amazing, some of the best that have ever come out of modern day western animation.
Now let's talk about some of the characters I really enjoyed this book. First up, our titular character Korra. The first second she's on screen, you'll immediately be cheering for her. The character has a ton of personality that makes her instantly likable. She's a girl that's ready to jump into action and perform her duties as the Avatar, but because of that she's a bit of a hothead and impatient; and because she's spent all of her life secluded in a smaller part of the world, she isn't fully aware of how things work in the world, specifically Republic City. So seeing her learn and interact with her city and its people, good and bad, as she trains to master airbending and become a full fledged Avatar adds to the journey of the season.
Next we have Tenzin: Aang's youngest son and Korra's Airbending mentor (and considering the rest of the series, the best character on the show). He's the polar opposite from Korra's impatient nature and because of it, the two are initially resistant to one another when Korra begins her airbending training. But their clashing attitudes does bring some entertainment; and when on his own Tenzin's straight laced personality does add for some great comedic moments. The majority of the supporting characters of this season were also fun. Without spending too much time on them, I'll just name them: you have Lin Beifong (The daughter of Toph and chief of police in Republic City), Asami Sato, a character introduced around episode four of the season, and Tenzin's kids who are more comedy characters and are fun when they're on screen.
Since we've talked about our heroes, let's discuss our villains: Amon and the Equalists. As stated in the synopsis, Amon and his group, The Equalists are a group against Anti-benders and want to take away all of bending everywhere. How are they going to do that? Simple, Amon has the ability to take people's bending away. What I think the show does a tremendous job with is showing how much of a threat Amon is as a villain. He always manages to stay a couple of steps ahead of the protagonists, when he's on screen he has this great sense of presence to him and that's helped greatly by the tremendous performance of voice actor Steve Blum, and when he's about to take away someone's bending, the show kind of becomes like a slasher film, or at the very least like people are being executed. As a matter of fact, he catches Korra twice in the season. But I'm not done with Amon just yet, I'll be talking more about him later on.
The next villain I have to talk about is Tarrlock. Now Tarrlock is an interesting case. He's doesn't start as a villain, and he's not a villain in the same sense that Amon is. He's someone with a good cause and wants to put a stop to the equalists, but his means of doing so are wrong and it comes off as antagonistic to the main cast. Honestly I'd go as far as to say the mini arc with Tarrlock was one of the biggest highlights of this season.
I previously touched on this with Amon but Book One of the Legend of Korra also has a great voice cast. Like I said, it features Steve Blum but you also have other Grade-A performances from J.K. Simmons as Tenzin, Dee Bradley Baker as Tarrlock, Jeff Bennett, Mindy Sterling, P.J. Byrne and last but not least Janet Varney as our leading lady Korra.
I've mentioned it in my previous Korra reviews, but the fight scenes of The Legend of Korra are simply outstanding. The bending used in the Avatar series has always been based on various martial arts around the world, but in Korra the art of bending had been taken to a whole new level when Korra began; as strange as it is to say, it feels a lot more like the characters are doing performing martial arts with whatever element a character is bending at that time and there's plenty of scenes that show it off.
And finally, for those fans of ATLA, Korra does provide you guys with some pretty nice fanservice thrown in as we do get to see the characters we know and love making cameos that'll put a smile on some faces; and a joke that trolls all of us. People that have seen the show know the one.
The Bad: Fun Fact for you guys, when the Legend of Korra was first announced, this season that I'm currently reviewing was supposed to be the entire series; there wasn't originally going to be a Books two to four. And boy does it show here.
First, let's address the biggest problem and that's with Amon. Like I said earlier the show did a great job making him a very viable threat to Korra and the rest of the cast, perhaps they did a little too well because I feel the writers of the show may have written themselves into a corner with Amon and they didn't know how to defeat him. On top of that, the twist revealing who Amon was and his backstory was very weak.
First of all, let's fast forward to the season finale, where it's revealed who Amon really is: Tarrlock's older brother Noatak and that he's a bloodbender that uses this ability to take away people's bending. This twist really came out of left field as there only one "hint" towards that reveal and that hint came from Tarrlock himself using his blood bending on Amon but Amon felt little to no effect from it and proceeded to take away his bending. Other than that, there's nothing that would suggest it. On top of this, it's never really explained just HOW Amon can take away people's with his blood bending. I had to look it up on The Wikipedia, and if I have to look stuff up to get the full story, that's a fail on the writers' part.
Now the way Amon was defeated was pretty lame. Turns out, after taking Korra's bending away and almost doing the same to her love interest, Korra finally airbends and knocks Amon off a window into the ocean. Amon, uses waterbending to bring himself back up out of the ocean and his mask is off and the makeup he previously used to disguise himself is washed off, getting the people that bought into his revolution to turn on him. With no other options, he takes Tarrlok, escapes on a speedboat, only for Tarrlok to kill them both. It might sound cool describing it, but in reality it is kind of anti climatic.
Speaking of Anticlimactic, let's get into the very tail end of the finale, where Korra's bending is taken away and there's nothing she can do to get it back. She runs away, cries a little, then a vision of Aang shows and immediately gives her her bending back and the ability to go into the Avatar State. Which, beating on a dead horse at this point, is pretty lame. Granted, yes the show wanted to end on a happy note, but I think Korra coming to terms with the fact that she couldn't get her bending back and being okay with it would've made for a much more impactful ending or since the show writers knew they were going to get a second season after the ratings of the first season went well, they could've pushed back the finale and reworked it so that the season ended with Korra losing her water, fire, and earth bending and the next season revolves around her having to work her way to get it back to deal with some new threat. The way it's actually executed is a bit of a cop out as it just...HANDS Korra her bending back.
I've gone on long enough about the season finale, let's talk about some of the other bads of the show. Remember how I said in The Good Section that the majority of the supporting characters were good? Well, we're gonna talk about the two that weren't so good. Those two are Mako and Bolin? What's wrong with Mako and Bolin? Simple, looking back they didn't really add much to season. Bolin was just there to be the comic relief, but I thought his jokes and "funny" moments were more misses than hits. Well except this one:
That running animation is still gold.
Mako...oh boy Mako. To those who didn't watch ATLA, there was a strong following from fans that wanted Katara and Zuko (Fans called it Zutara) to become a couple and when that didn't happen, they were angry. So when Legend of Korra came around, the show's creators tried to make up for it with Mako and Korra becoming a thing (Fans called it Makorra). That's right, Mako was just there to be a love interest; and when Asami came in and became Mako's girlfriend, effectively making the show a love triangle, it became a waste of minutes.
Yeah Baby, Look into my gorgeous eyes and see all of my EDGE...
Even with the time put into developing Mako's and Korra's relationship, it felt like a forced pairing somewhat and the time used making these two a couple could've been used to better foreshadowing of the Amon/Noatak twist; also considering what the final pairing for the series is, it's kind of hilarious thinking back to how much effort was put into making Mako and Korra a thing.
And can you blame Korra for hooking up with Asami? I mean look at her. If I were a girl in the Korra universe, I'd be a lesbian for her too.
Conclusion: Looking back on it three years later, and with the hype of the series severely dwelled down now that it's over, it's a lot easier to see more of Korra's shortcomings in Book One. Especially with how the rest of the series plays out. As Doug Walker pointed out in his Korra Reviews, Book One doesn't really have much of an effect on the series in the grand scheme of things; and it makes you wonder if the team on the show knew they were going to have more than one season from the get go, how differently would things have played out?
But that's neither here nor there. Even with all of the flaws I pointed out, I still very much enjoyed Book One of The Legend of Korra (Hell, I even own it on DVD). Its presentation in art, action, and music is fantastic, and while tripping at the finish line and having some problems here and there in story, the journey is still entertaining; and at the end of the day, that's the goal of all television shows. Is it necessary to watch Avatar The Last Airbender before watching The Legend of Korra? In my opinion, no. The show does a good job of making it easy for new viewers that haven't seen the previous series to jump into this one. But I think there'll be a much bigger appreciation for the series if you watch Avatar. If you want to watch The Legend of Korra, it's pretty easy to find, just go to Google, type in the name of the show, and knock yourself out from there.
Til Next Time Folks, I'm The Shaman of Animation, and I want to thank you guys for reading, sometimes commenting, and sharing this past year. It's meant a lot to me. Stick around as there's more to come. Especially this upcoming October. I've got a few reviews in mind that'll make you say 'ZOINKS!!'
Til Then guys, Take Care...
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