And yeah, technically I wouldn't consider it under anime, since it was produced elsewhere, with different styles.
My thoughts after watching Avatar: Legend of Korra, book of air.
Frankly, it was pathetic.
The coolest part about Avatar, the fantasy world set in an ancient China style setting was totally wiped and turned into some 1900s America. The idea of using technology to fight against benders is cool and all, but was there really a need to go all modernised, even the clothes and all? The only people with the traditional clothes are the council-members and a few others, thrown into a world where they look really out of place.
And the part about the bending. In the first series, bending was something people had to work hard to master, with the chinese martial arts moves and the spiritual calmness and what not being developed. In Korra, bending is being shown as merely a power some are blessed with, and they fool around with it, or use it to get their way. It's like, give a man some power to shoot fire out of his arms, and watch him pull powered up boxing moves for the heck of it. What's this now, some superhero show where everyone's a superhero?
The producers probably thought it might be cool to mix in some complicated plot into a kids cartoon, but that was poorly done. Who's the target demographic here? Kids? or avatar fans looking forward to a sequel? Dk about kids, but as someone who really enjoyed avatar, Korra is a real disappointment. The premise is cool, in a world about 60 years later, technology starts to match up to bending, and then all sorts of nasty people with strange ideas start to pop up. No way a kid can follow this. Yet, they don't develop these at all! The deepest they went was showing how korra always, always always always ends up using her overwhelming avatar power to solve things.
And that brings me to Korra. Korra is as crappy a main character as any could get. The only thing Korra has going for her is being blessed with centuries of power. And right now, she simply seems like a boiling pot about to overflow, and the only thing she knows how to do is bring confusion to the battlefield, by charging in and declaring things without thinking. And not being able to dig her own way out. And the worst part is, Korra doesn't even grow in any way through the series. She learnt "Patience" you say? Well, yeah she says that a few times, but out of those times, one of it was because she was scared of facing amon, and the other time, she was close to losing her cool if mako wasn't around. All other times, she ended up going "ARGH I CAN'T STAND THIS SHIT LEMME JUST GO IN AND BLAST THEM ALL WITH MY OVERWHELMING POWER." (did i forget to mention i have no clue how to harness my power? Well, truth is, my power only comes out when i'm in a pinch, which really makes you not want to rely on me) Horrible.
As for the other characters... It's probably because the season was compressed into 12 episodes, but most of the characters weren't developed much at all. What happened to Amon? the story of him as a child doesn't really explain it. Also, the producers made a mistake in trying to emulate the old crew. They threw in bolin, a sokka replacement, who wasn't as funny as sokka, and mako, whom they just gave relationship issues. And then general iroh, a young general voiced by zuko. His successor? well probably, he has the angry look, but his only purpose there was to show amon's craftiness and help them destroy a few planes. Much as i don't like asami, i felt that asami was the only one who was developed to any extent. And why do they have to try SO hard, to keep the legacies of the old crew, like aang's son, and toph's daughter. and a stuffy old kitara who only had 3 minutes of screen time? AND THEY DID NOT HAVE ANY TRAITS OF THE OLD MEMBERS. what was the whole point of including them?? to let viewers have some sense of nostalgia? or what, compare to the previous series? well the comparing part worked, in the wrong way. Merely reinforced the stereotype that stuffy old blokes who have too much experience often do more harm than good. (No offence to the organisation of the white lotus, those old people were awesome.)
Hope to see much improvement from this series.
May edit some time later, to just add in some screenshots. But really, I'm not too sure i want to put myself through it again.
Then again, my friends said that Korra seasons 2 and 3 showed marked improvement, so perhaps I might give it a chance. Who knows.
