Legend of Korra

I finally finished it: The Legend of Korra, a sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender. You can read my first impressions here. 

I had started watching it from the beginning and made it partway through the third season until Nickelodeon suddenly stopped broadcasting it. For some reason they moved it to their own Nickelodeon streaming website, which didn't work very well on our television, so I just stopped watching. A few years later, I noticed -- here it is, so I finished it out.

After Ang the Airbender dies, Korra, the water-bender, becomes the next Avatar. During the peace that Ang had brought, the people of the four nations had increased their technology and built Republic City -- kind of a steampunk version of an Asian New York City.

Korra comes to Republic City to learn her final skill -- air bending, but immediately finds herself in the middle of the City's life and politics. Someone is taking away the powers from benders, but Korra is young, impulsive, and inexperienced. Can she stop this new enemy?

Overall, I enjoyed all four seasons. They were fun to watch, with epic battles, beautiful scenery, and good development for most characters. However, at the end, it seemed to pale in comparison to its predecessor, Avatar: The Last Airbender.

I think it's because the older series felt much more planned out. The fire nation was the one big enemy, and Ang still had to learn how to control all of his added powers. With Korra, each season (or book), was a whole new enemy, which had more of a "villain of the year" feel, with no overarching plot. Perhaps this is because it was only intended to be a one-season show -- and that first season taking on the bending theif was pretty awesome.

The second season gives us a glimpse of the spirit world and explains how the avatars work.

In the third season, Korra takes on some super-powerful benders.

In the fourth season, which might have been the weakest, story-wise, she takes on a tyrant.

Each of these seasons felt rushed near their ends (while some of the episodes leading up to each finale were sometimes slow).

It was all good and worth watching, but I think I was looking for more of an overreaching arch. It has a lot of good moments, and always seemed to get me to look forward to seeing more episodes. So -- give it a try.

Up next: a live-action version of Avatar -- it's just gotta be better than the movie. And possibly more movies and series coming from the newly formed Avatar Studios. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.