Legend of Korra review

Legend of Korra has made it to Amazon Prime and it is just as amazing as I remember.

I first watched this show with my brother during spring break and we chose to spend every day eating nachos and watching Korra beat people up. It was awesome.

Legend of Korra has all the fun parts of bending with a modern twist. We get to see how the world recovered from the war and became better. Aang and Katara got married and had a few kids, one of which is creating a small army of air benders with his wife. Those kids crack me up. Sakka and Zuko both became generals, and Toph wandered off in a forest one day after raising two very different daughters and never came back.

I love seeing past characters pop up and find out kind of how things turned out. It’s also fun to see their kids and grandkids take over the whole fixing the world thing.

I really like all the new characters. Korra is very different from Aang. Not only is she a few years older than he was at the start of the original show, but she’s very athletic. Aang was too young for us to see him truly master fighting in all the elements, and air bending is more about being spiritual and swift.

Korra is constantly training, enthusiastically mastering all the elements. She struggles with air because she has ignored the spiritual side of being the Avatar. She’s pretty different from Aang.

Korra moves to Republic City, joins a pro bending team, makes some friends, and fights rebels. She uncovers the leader of the rebels as a blood bender and takes down the rebellion.

The first season is the most different from the original show. It’s much more modern, dealing with issues like mobs, corrupt leaders, and inventions used for evil. It’s really interesting to see how bending works in a world of cars, movies, and sports.

The second season focuses more on Korra’s spiritual journey. Her uncle, the leader of the water tribes, starts training her. Eska, Korra’s creepy cousin, decides to make Bolin her boyfriend/slave. I love how Aubrey Plaza is the one who voices Eska, I just picture April and it’s so perfect.

I like how Maku becomes a cop and Korra and Asami get over him and become friends. I especially like Bolin’s movie stardom, he’s so funny.

Korra opening the spirit portals and traveling into the spirit world is really cool. Ginora turns out to be the spiritual one in the family and guides Korra through the spirit world..or at least tries to. Again, spirituality is not Korra’s strong point and it gets her into trouble with the spirits.

But Uncle makes an appearance and helps her out, of course. He decided to leave his body and spend the rest of his existence in the spirit world having tea parties with bunnies.

Korra changes because of her journey through the spirit world and what she learns there about the first Avatar. She discovers the struggle between peace and chaos, then defeats the chaos demon. Instead of closing the portals afterward, she leaves them open.

Because of this, people start becoming air benders. It starts with Bumi, the one non bending kid Aang and Katara had, and manifests in people of all ages and situations. Katara and Tensin lead a team to find all the new air benders, which lets us see more of this modern version of the world.

Katara meets Toph’s other daughter and learns about their past. She hears some criminals broke out of jail and are hunting her down, so she shrugs and figures out how to metal bend. Once you have to deal with temporarily losing your bending and accidentally unleashing chaos into the world, a few psycho benders isn’t a big deal.

Except they end up throwing the Earth Kingdom into chaos and poisoning Korra to the point of nearly crippling her.

All normal problems for the life of the Avatar.

Again, Korra is very different from Aang. Her work problems differ because she’s dealing with technology and rebellion. Her personal life is more mature because she’s older. Even though she’s not trying to fix a war, everything feels more serious.

They really do an amazing job with this series. I love Aang and his adventures. They take that quirkiness and give it drama and innovation. This cast of characters has just as much personality and humor, which I think is really the trademark of the show. It’s definitely worth watching, preferably all at once and with junk food and friends.