So the first season of Avatar: The Legend of Korra is in the books. Was it everything you hoped for? If you missed it and plan on watching, proceed with cation, as this will be a slightly spoiler-filled review.
For those who may have missed it –or somehow didn’t know–, Avatar: The Legend of Korra takes place seventy years after Avatar: The Last Airbender’s final battle to bring balance back to the land. Aang has died, after a long and succesful life as the Avatar. The story picks up with the White Lotus Society trecking to a hut in the Southern Water Tribe, because a family has claimed that their daughter is the Avatar.
Our intro of Korra is a girl of five or six years of age, that can already bend water, earth, and fire. We then skip ten years later to Korra finishing her firebending test. At which time we are introduced to the youngest of Aang and Kitara’s children, Tenzin. Who out of the four children, was the only one born as an airbender. Although Korra is looking forward to her training with Tenzin, training is put on hold due to the fact that Tenzin must return to Republic City on urgent business. Korra reluctantly follows him and begins her airbending training with Tenzin and his three children.
Republic City was established by Aang and Zuko as a melting pot of a city. It is meant as a place for all benders and non-benders to live in peace. In Republic City, we see how much the world has progressed. Technology has taken a huge jump, automobiles are driven on the streets, and the bad guys –whom I’ll get to in a bit– use quite a diverse array of gear. Bending even has had a professional sport designed around it, called Pro-Bending. Which is played by two teams with a water, earth, and fire bender on each side. Naturally Korra gets herself into the league.
Unfortunately all is not well in Republic City. A movement by a group calling themselves The Equalists, is out to take over the city and ultimately the world. Their leader, Amon, is a masked man that claims to have been scarred by firebenders, and furthermore he somehow has the ability to take away people’s ability to bend. If you remember Ty Lee and her ability to Chi Block, or more correctly strike pressure points, that is what all the Equalists soldiers do. Which of course Korra discovers a few times.
The Legend of Korra’s first season was action-packed, had good comedy –much like it’s predecessor–, with a love triangle to boot. While we get a few hints as to what happened to our beloved original cast, we are left with many questions. We are never told how Aang died. Whether he died of old age, or fell in battle. Sokka became the head of the Republic City Counsel, with Toph becoming the Chief of the Republic City Police force, which are all metal benders trained by Toph. Suki isn’t mentioned, but we are pretty sure she and Sokka got married. My only disappointment with the show was we never found out if Zuko found his mother or not.
As a whole, I loved season one of this series as much as the original Avatar series. From a story standpoint, Avatar: The Legend of Korra is a stand out. With a huge amount of story and emotion packed into a fairly short first season –only 12 episodes–, there is a lot to sink your teeth into. The only noticeable flaw was the omission of some questions being answered, that were not at the end of the first show. Thankfully we will get a second season. Which will have more travelling in it, which will ultimately lead to us seeing more of what has became of the rest of the world.
I know this seems like a truncated review, and it is. It’s just that truly so much can be said about this series, and I just don’t want to go into pages upon pages of info for each episode. Which for long time fans would be quite easy to do.
VERDICT — Bottom line is, if you were in any way shape or form a fan of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender series, your going to love this series.
