Last week, I watched the first book of Avatar: The Legend of Korra, which is a sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Like all sequels to a good original, this one had high expectations to meet. The Last Airbender was a great series in spite of minor shortcomings that it had towards the end. The characters were all amazing, had good depth, and were consistent throughout. On this aspect, the Legend of Korra was a bit disappointing. Mako, one of the main protagonists, has is an unstable (or worse, opportunistic) character. He first falls for Korra who he knows to be the Avatar, and then falls for Asami who is rich and can sponsor their team in the tournament. He is unsure about who to choose, among his two girlfriends who are both resourceful in their own way. When Asami is disgraced and becomes homeless overnight, he makes his choice to dump her and confess his love to Korra. Whle it cannot be deneid that there really are such selfish opportunists, what is preposterous is that the Avatar should choose such a one against his good-natured and noble brother Bolin.
Another flaw – or, should I just say non-compatibility with my views – in this series is the technological advancement of this Republic City, and its similarity to New York as we know it. I consider it lack of imagination to have to depend so much on a real city, and to show technology that exactly mirrors the first world war level technology of our world. I won’t be surprised if in the next season they introduce the concept of a Nuclear Bomb as well. And it is somewhat saddening to watch high level techniques from the first part (such as metal bending and lightening) being trivialized to say that there are hundreds of metal benders in the city, and that all power is produced by bending lightening. While the level of techniques are higher, almost everybody seems to be capable of using techniques at the same level and the overall scale of techniques seem to have come down. The former is surprising in so peaceful an era, and the latter is quite the expected.
As a final criticism, let me note that blood bending has been shown as a power that is out of proportion with all other powers including those of the Avatar. For Yakone (Amon’s father) and his sons to be able to blood-bend at will, at any time, and for all of Toft, Ang (who is by that time a fully grown Avatar) and other powerful benders to be overwhelmed by a single crimelord, I feel it was a wrong choice to make blood bending so powerful.
On the positives, the animation is of top class, and even better than that of the first series. The fights, especially the arena matches, are well choreographed. The way the plot develops, with the true identity of Tarlac being revealed at the right time, is quite gripping, and I enjoyed watching the series from beginning to end. Yes, all I can do now is to look forward to the next book in the series – Spirits. I hope that will make up for the not-so-spiritual nature of this first book and re-establish the Avatar as the bridge between the elemetal and spiritual worlds.