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[Neonivek]

Legend of Korra didn't have the same charm for me.  I was kinda meh about most of it.  And the ending I hated, it reminded me of one of those dumb sitcom endings where everything is back to normal at the end of each episode.

Ohh I just needed one episode to tell me it wasn't the same show as The Last Airbender.

But... I kinda think it should have went all the way. Rather then try to halfheartedly hold onto the standard.

[kaijyuu]

For those who liked Korra, could you explain why? My fiance is confused at the notion.

I found it had a few merits myself (mostly that a couple characters were alright here and there), but overall I found the writing to be terrible and the vast majority of the cast to be flat and boring. I could probably write an entire essay on how Mako's the male version of a trophy girl the hero gets at the end.

[Levi]

The one thing I DID like about Korra was Korra herself.  I thought she was an interesting character, and one that had an actual personality.  It was mostly the world and plot around her I didn't care for.

[Neonivek]

The one thing I DID like about Korra was Korra herself.  I thought she was an interesting character, and one that had an actual personality.  It was mostly the world and plot around her I didn't care for.

What I didn't like about Korra was that... some of the other characters actually would have made the better main character.

[Levi]

Really?  I can't see the Rich girl, Handsome guy, or the goofy guy as the main characters.  The goofy guy was entertaining, but I don't think he had any real depth.

At least Korra actually showed some emotion and personality.  There were bits where she was frozen with fear, frustrated, cocky, awkward and dismissive.  That kind of range generally doesn't show up in cartoons.

[Neonivek]

What makes you think I am siding with any of the teens?

[Levi]

What makes you think I am siding with any of the teens?

They got the most screentime and were most involved in the story.  I think its a natural assumption unless you are completely re-writing the show. 

[Zangi]

What makes you think I am siding with any of the teens?

They got the most screentime and were most involved in the story.  I think its a natural assumption unless you are completely re-writing the show. 

I'd totally do that. 

*Insert more Korra bashing here.* 
Yea, it didn't catch the... magic, quite like Avatar:TLAB did.  Or maybe I'm just simply unfavorable toward American toon's 'teen' stuff.

[Neonivek]

The issue is that the Adults... were frankly the much better written main characters.

They DID things, they planned ahead, and they showed far more range of emotion.

I get the impression that the "Teen and Kid" aspects of the show were phoned in because they had to. It is the only way to explain the huge difference of quality.

[Glowcat]

What makes you think I am siding with any of the teens?

They got the most screentime and were most involved in the story.  I think its a natural assumption unless you are completely re-writing the show. 

I'd totally do that. 

*Insert more Korra bashing here.* 
Yea, it didn't catch the... magic, quite like Avatar:TLAB did.  Or maybe I'm just simply unfavorable toward American toon's 'teen' stuff.

Korra wasn't terrible but I did feel it lacked some character that was found in its predecessor. It's not just the rushed ending either, but something about the character dynamics that I can't quite put my finger on. Possibly less focus on relationship drama? Better done character development? Or the awesomeness that is Toph and Iroh? I'm still not quite sure what pushed TLAB into great while Korra remains merely good in my mind.

[Sirus]

Pretty sure I've said this before (seems to be a common topic here!), but I enjoyed Korra. Not as much as TLAB, but it tried some different things and I thought the characters were pretty interesting. And let's not forget

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the whole murder/suicide thing at the end! How many ostensibly kid cartoons do that?

[Neonivek]

but something about the character dynamics that I can't quite put my finger on. Possibly less focus on relationship drama? Better done character development? Or the awesomeness that is Toph and Iroh?

It is because all the elements are there but they never come together as a cohesive whole. They always felt like seperate elements.

It is just weak.

[Furtuka]

I felt like it could have been a lot better if they hadn't wasted so much time pandering to the shippers

[RedWarrior0]

You know what I want? The Toph and Iroh Show. The (self-proclaimed) greatest earthbender in the world and the Dragon of the West (I think it's the west, anyways) team up for Crowning Moments both funny and awesome.

[kaijyuu]

The Fiance weighs in on Korra!

Legend of Korra review!

I'm not going to mark spoilers since, even if you haven't seen it already and care for some reason, it's really not hard to foresee the plot twists. Like this guy "secretly" being evil; rather than this being a surprise, the viewer is left wondering from the moment he appears how he even got a seat on the Council in the first place. Do they have a designated Chair of Evil or something? And the leader of the evil anti-Bending group turns out to be a Bender himself, and... trust me, if you think "what is the most stupid and obvious thing to do" you'll predict 90% of the plot while watching.

The remaining 10% that's hard to foresee are the contrived coincidences. It's fine to premise a story on something unlikely happening to begin the plot, like "two young people from the Water Tribe stumble across the frozen Avatar," but using them during the story is another matter entirely. Like resolving Mako's financial problems by having a new wealthy heiress character smash into him on her motorcycle and instantly fall in love with him. (If you haven't seen the show, yes, that's a completely fair account of what actually happens.) Special mention goes to Tenzin and his family getting captured with no adequate explanation. "We saw them get away!" shouts Korra, and viewers too, but to no avail. There was apparently an off-screen contrived coincidence, which deserves some kind of medal.

Anyway, one major problem is that the characters are a lot weaker than TLAB's characters, even though both series are structured to rely on strong characters. This is partly because Legend of Korra's characters are individually less complex and interesting, but what's more important is that their relationships are simplistic or nonexistent. The entire dynamic among Korra, Mako, Bolin, and Asami is driven by them being romantically entangled, and two of them being brothers, and... nothing else. What does Asami think of Bolin? "He's the brother of that guy I'm in love with" is the best I can come up with; two members of the protagonist's main group don't even have a defined relationship! Contrast with the way TLAB could throw any pair of characters together and get an interesting episode, like the field trips with Zuko. The bad relationships are so bad that they even manage to mess up other things; Asami has a lot of potential as a character after she realizes her father is evil (plus the electricity glove and being able to drive a car were pretty cool), but she gets almost no further development due to all her scenes being eaten up by the unresolved romance subplots.

Strangely, there are still a few decent characters, except they get relatively little screen time and aren't used to much effect. Tenzin is kind of cool for exemplifying Air Nomad philosophy despite having a totally different personality from the ones we'd seen previously, and Lin has more character depth than most of the cast (which is admittedly not hard). Tenzin, Lin, and Pema having a (mostly) resolved love triangle is a lot more interesting than the main party's situation, too; it was something that could be brought up a few times without consuming entire episodes.

Then there's a laundry list of miscellaneous complaints that show they didn't put nearly as much effort into the setting as in TLAB.

• Is there really no explanation for the super-bloodbending ability except "random mutation"? I thought this was Avatar, not X-Men.
• In a world with place names like Omashu and Ba Sing Se, why the heck is the capital called Republic City? That sounds like something from a particularly stupid part of Star Wars.
• Why is the giant Aang statue of liberty of young Aang instead of his adult form? "We have like three entire continents to rebuild from a hundred-year war, so your first task is to erect an enormous statue of me"?
• And just how the crap do the scoring rules of pro-bending even work?

And finally, the ending. It somehow managed to exceed the rest of the already bad plot in a kind of monument to sheer badness. I had hoped, based on the actually interesting plots in TLAB, that Korra wouldn't get her other bending back, but would have grown enough as a person to appreciate how valuable her Airbending was (especially with so few Airbenders left in the world). When she contacted Aang I thought "oh, so maybe she can use his energy-bending thing in reverse to give the people who lost their bending Airbending, restoring the balance of the elements!" And then we'd get an awesome scene of the Wolfbat guy and Lin trying to learn their new Airbending. But no, instead we just undo all the consequences of the plot for poorly-explained reasons. And Tarrlok blowing up himself and his brother was not totally out-of-character, but it looked suspiciously like a way to dispose of them without making the main cast guilty of their deaths, which was completely contrary to the emphasis in the first series about how all life is valuable. Having some suggestion that they were planning to reform, like plotting a course to go on an actual hunting trip in the North together as brothers, would have been more appropriate.

I feel like I've only scratched the surface of the problems with this series, but I think that covers most of the major issues. Other than the exorbitant amount of time spent on the pro-bending arc. And the main party being uniformly stupid. And the police somehow failing to find the explosives in the most visible part of the arena. And a large standing army/navy existing despite the world allegedly being united and at peace. And...