Legend of Korra: Book Two Review

Oh man, Two years of BS reviews like this...

Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation back once again and welcome to the two year anniversary of The Shaman of Animation Blogs! That's right folks, two years of the best (HA!) blog featuring reviews of animation, Superhero stuff, and pro wrestling whenever I feel like it, around! And what better way to celebrate than to head back where it all started for this little blog: The Legend of Korra. So, without any further ado, let's wrap up this series with my review of The Legend of Korra Book Two (Warning: minor spoilers to a three year old season of a four year old show ahead).

Book 2 of The Legend of Korra takes place 6 months after the events of the first Volume. Asami is in charge of a struggling Future Industries, Bolin is still doing his thing with a new Fire Ferrets team, Mako is a member of the police force and Korra is spending her days with Tenzin and his family. During the gang's visit to the South Pole for the Glacier Spirit Festival, they run across a dark spirit that attacks them. As it turns out, spirits have been attacking ships around the Southern Water Tribe. Now Korra, with the help of her Uncle Unalaq, must now learn and master new spiritual skills to deal with these spirits.

The first thing I want to address for this book is the idea of this season alone: it's a pretty nice one on paper if you ask me. Spirits and the spirit world were all plot points that existed back in Korra's predecessor, Avatar the last Airbender. So having an entire season that goes a little more in depth with those ideas and having our characters venture in the Spirit World on paper makes for something of an interesting contrast from the first season, and also makes for great fanservice for those that watched ATLA.  

Book 2 of Korra also introduces a few new characters to the series. You have her Uncle Unalaq, who we'll talk about later, her cousins Desna, and Eska, twins that show very little emotion, Tenzin's older brother Bumi, who we saw at the end of Volume One and sister Kya, and last but certainly not least, Varrick, a very flamboyant businessman. Each of these new characters play a significant part in this season: Deska and Esna are working with their father Unalaq throughout it, with Esna being something of a romantic interest for Bolin, albeit a rather comedic one. With Varrick, Asami is hoping to strike a deal with him to help the company. But to me, Varrick is one of the best characters to be introduced in the entire series as far as comic relief goes. His over the top, talk a hundred words a second nature and his interactions with his assistant Zhu-Li definitely helps this season when it drawls on.  

Bumi and Kya serve as vehicles to further develop Tenzin as a character; and since I brought it up, let's talk about it for a little bit. In Book One, Tenzin was the all-knowing and mature teacher that helped Korra throughout all of her problems. While there was some of it in the last season, Book 2 really goes out of its way to really delve into Tenzin. How he sometimes feel like he lives under his dad Aang's shadow, how a particular short-coming near the second half of the season gets to him and in a surprising plot point, Bumi (A non-bender) and Kya (A Waterbender) bring up the favoritism Tenzin got from their father because he was an airbender. Tenzin's arc is one about self-worth and family and in my opinion, everything involving him is some of the best material in the season.

The honor of being THE best material of Korra Book 2 goes to what happens around the half-way point in the season. Around this point we get two episodes dedicated to Wan, the very first Avatar. Wan is easily likable as a character that's something of a screw up with a good heart, his meeting with Raava and how the Avatar came to be is something that you'd have to see to really appreciate. It does so much as far as universe and Lore building goes for the Avatar Universe. From those two episodes on, Korra Book 2 becomes a much more enjoyable season and it's easier to coast through. The first half of the season however...

Perhaps it's just me, but it feels like Korra Book 2 rehashes the first Book in some aspects, the best example of this is with Unalaq.

Yeah, we finally made it here.

Unalaq, Korra's Uncle, is introduced as a man that's spent years learning the spiritual arts and when he meets Korra and the situation with the spirits arises, he is quick to wanting to make her his spiritual apprentice, and as it turns out around episode 4, he's evil and Korra kicks him to the curb. Let's see, a waterbender who originally wants the aid of the Avatar to help bring end to an evil threat but then makes her his enemy. Why does that sound familiar...

Oh yeah, that's right...

Maybe I'm being unfair to the character of Unalaq, but the fact that we had a character like him after Tarrlok in Book One plus the fact that they look damn near alike does not help me in being invested in him as a villain. In fact, I'd argue that he was worse than Tarrlok because in the case of Tarrlok, you could argue that he was at least an interesting character and you could also argue that he was a person with the right ideas, but he went about things the wrong way. Book 2 tries to do the same thing with Unalaq, but I feel that they failed in doing so because you can tell right from the second he appears, that Unalaq is probably a bad guy; and a lot of things surrounding him is pretty uninteresting.

This is best shown in his conflict with his brother and Korra's dad, Tonraq. Early on in the series, it's revealed that they both lived in the Northern Water Tribe, Tonraq being the general at the time, and after an incident with a spirit, Tonraq is banished from the Northern Tribe and Unalaq takes his position. This results in a grudge between the two that ultimately leads up to a group of Southerners to try and kidnap Unalaq. This conflict makes up for a good chunk of the first four quarter of the season. In fact, two episodes are spent on it. What do I have against it in particular? When it comes down to the grand scheme of the season, this ultimately doesn't mean anything.

And that's perhaps the biggest problem with Book 2: there are too many subplots that ultimately don't matter. You've got the building tensions with the North and South tribes, you have a mysterious bombing that Mako is looking into to hunt down the real culprit, you have Bolin being a movie star. There are so many wheels turning in the first half of the season that you have to wonder if the show writers just added it so that the secondary characters will have something to do.

And the raving of the season's first half doesn't end yet.

One of the worse things you can do with a show is you unintentionally make your main character unlikable. Well that's what this show did with Korra in the first half. Korra throughout the first five episodes of the book is at her most unlikable. The first episode, she's butting heads with Tenzin over his way of teaching (Cause hey, we didn't see enough of that in Season 1), she's giving Mako crap over really trivial things, and she's mad at her dad for keeping things secret from her. The last one isn't as bad as the first two, I know and you do see where Korra's coming from, but it gets to the point where you run out of sympathy and understanding for the character and you're just yelling at your screen for her to just get over it already. Korra does get better as the season rolls on, but in that first half, she's at her most unlikable. I'd even argue that she regresses as a character for it.

And finally, I'm going to briefly mention the final fight of the season. Without going too deep into it, it's pretty disappointing. Problem isn't animation or anything like that, in fact as always is the case with Korra, the bending is fantastic and very well animated. But that final fight when you see it, especially compared to the fight just an episode before, it really is lacking.

Well, this is kind of awkward. I feel as though my feelings towards Book 2 of Korra very much mirror my thoughts of the first one: It's a very mixed bag with a lot of good and a lot of bad. And when the season is good, it's VERY good. However, unlike the previous Book, I can't just overlook the problems of Korra Book 2, especially when in this season I have put up with so much annoying stuff to get to the good. If you ask me, the only episodes I'd say you have to go out of your way to watch are "Beginnings part 1 & 2". I'd even recommend it for those who only watched ATLA and not much of Korra, the episodes for the most part are pretty self-contained. The rest of it though, watch at your own risk. 

That is all for this review Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for reading this, and whether you're new or you've been here before, thank you for two years of this little blog of mine. And as I post this, October is only minutes away. Meaning it is the return of...

Stick around Ladies and Gents! Scooby-Doo Month is right around the corner! Til then, I'm the Shaman of Animation. Take Care...