Chat > Non-Game Reviews

[ANIME] The Legend of Korra: Book 2 Review

(1/1)

Swagmaster:
"Korra, this fight is not over.
Vaatu cannot win.
Do not give in to 10,000 years of Darkness.
You are the Avatar."
-- Raava, The Legend of Korra





Earth. Fire. Air. Water. Only the Avatar can master all four elements and bring balance to the world.

Nickelodeon's Hit Television Series Continues! This time, Avatar Korra takes a brand new spiritual adventure into the heart of the Spirit World, where she will stop war, discover secrets of her past, and, of course, save the world! This new Book brings on a whole new dimension into the Avatar universe and will unlock more to the avatar's past than ever before! But, what does this Book truly do? Is this Book as good as the first, or even the preceding series? Is it really worth the watch? Is it just a penny-pincher? Read on to find out! WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS

Story

(click to show/hide)Korra is entering the next phase in her Avatar training. Meanwhile Mako becomes a police, Bolin continues professional bending and Asami struggles to keep her business afloat. Korra decides she has mastered Air Bending training with Tenzin and decides to move on.  The group decided to visit Korra's family at the Southern Water Tribe. While visited the Tribe, they are attacked by a vicious spirit, which Korra's uncle, Unalaq, easily destroys after everyone else failed to even scratch him. Korra decides training with Unalaq would be better for her than Tenzin, and so her new journey begins!

Unalaq, as part of Korra's Avatar training, takes Korra and the group to unlock the Spirit portal. Soon after, Unalaq attacks the Southern Water Tribe and the group knows of his evil plans to take over the tribe. Or do they? Korra and the group set out back to Republic City in order to get help for this new Civil War from the president. Meanwhile, Asami met up with a business man named Varrick who invented "movers" (movies) and claims he can help her bring her company back to the top. There is an attack in Republic City where Mako the cop set out to find the ones responsible. Oh, and Bolin falls in love with Unalaq's daugher, Eska.

Enough to make your head spin?

After being turned down by the president and breaking up with Mako, Korra decided to go seek help from the Fire Nation, where she was swallowed by a gigantic evil spirit. Mako discovered Varrick was the one responsible for the explosion and got thrown in jail after being framed by him, and accusing him of using the explosions to fuel the Water Tribe's Civil War. Meanwhile, Varrick has taken Bolin and turned him into mover star Nuttuk, where they together make movers to convince the president to aid the Southern Water Tribe. Korra gets washed up on the shore of the Fire Nation and loses her memories. She is then taken on a spiritual adventure where she discovers the origins of the Avatar, and the story of the First Avatar, Wan. Wan fused together with the Light Spirit Raava in order to stop Dark Spirit Vaatu, and they locked him under the Tree of Time for 10,000 years. Avatar Wan closed the portals to the Spirit World and forced all Spirits to forever live separate from humans, where only the Avatar can be the bridge between the two worlds.

Whoooo! Lots to take, am I right, or am I right?

After waking up, Korra regains most of her memories and finds out Unalaq's (true?) plans, which were to release Vaatu on the Harmonic Convergence and take control over the world covered in Darkness. After making this realization, she turns back to Tenzin, who is on a family vacation, and tells him everything, where they discover they must close the Spirit Portal before the Convergence. Tenzin attempts to be the Avatar's spirit guide, but ultimately leaves it to his daughter, Jinora. After Jinora and Korra go to the spirit world, Jinora is captured and Korra is forced to open the other Portal. Meanwhile, Bolin starts to become famous, Asami is still struggling, Varrick's plan is working, and Mako is still in jail.

Too much stuff happening in so little time.

As Bolin's Nuttuk finale arrives, he visits Mako is jail, who tells him to watch out for Varrick. Bolin finds out about Varrick's plan and puts a stop to him. PHEW!! Done with that part of the story... ANYWAYSS>>> Korra goes back to Republic City where she tells the president who the true plan of Unalaq, but the president still refuses to help the War. Bolin, Mako, Asami, and Korra, along with Tenzin and his siblings all go back to Southern Water Tribe in order to go close the portal themselves. They make a plan, execute it, and enter the Spirit World. Korra, Bolin, Mako all try to stop Unalaq, who fuses with Vaatu to become the Dark Avatar, and Tenzin, Bumi, and Kya all go on a search for Jinora. After an epic fight, Korra loses and Raava is ultimately destroyed, destroying Korra's Avatar Spirit - and lineage - with her. Korra, with the help of Tenzin discovered that although she lost her Avatar Spirit, she still had her own. She got back into the fight with Unalaq/Vaatu (Unavaatulaq? -- I thought it was funny) and won, destroying Vaatu's spirit for the next 10,000 years, and reviving Raava by finding the "the light inside the darkness." She left the Spirit Portals open saying it was not right for Wan to separate the humans and the spirits, and that they were meant to live together. Happily Ever After.

If you read my summary contained in the spoilers, congrats, you've probably been mindfucked! If you didn't, too bad, I guess I'll get you next time! As you probably saw, this Book was a big jumble. It jumped from place to place and time to time and sometimes confused the hell out of me. All in all, once you've got all the story and side stories together, and look at the bigger picture, You've got yourself one helluva story! It takes a while to process what happens, and it starts up real slow, but after the entire Wan story (which in itself is perhaps the best episodes of any anime I've ever seen), it picks up pace real quick. This Book reminds us why we fell in love with the Legend of Korra and the entire Avatar series. It brings about it's fair share of action, adventure, suspense, drama, romance, and even a little comedy here and there -- the prime elements of which composed the entire Avatar series. I got a bit frustrated from the shows slow start, and I legitimately thought this may turn out to be an awful season, but as the season progressed, I grew in love with the Book and as it's time wounded down, I did not want it to go. This brings about a solid addition to the series and is well deserving of the Avatar Label

Presentation

Like the rest of the series, the animations in this Book are beautiful. It once again provides us with the unique art the series is well known for and even goes more into it with the Spirit World. The Spirit World and all its scenery is just breathtaking. The animation was choppy from time to time, but toward the end, the animation seemed to be more clear and precise. Watching it on Standard HD, the quality of the video was great and looked as though it was the maximum quality. The real highlight of the presentation of this series was the art style and animation of Avatar Wan's story. It changes the style of art almost entirely, and takes us more to a feudal-era look. it really isn't something I can put to words and is something I highly recommend you check out for yourself, even if you aren't a fan of the series.

Sound

This is an addition to the Avatar, series, so there should be no surprise in reading that the soundtrack in this Book is simply outstanding. It has plenty of old, with a mix of new and several remixes. They are always placed in the right time, and make you feel the moment rather than just see it. The voice acting is incredible once again. The voice actors are the same for all main characters and I had no problem with them. The only issue I had with the voices is Eska and Desna. They're voice acting was great and fit the characters well, don't get me wrong, but I just found them both extremely annoying. I loved the characters, just not their voices.

THE VERDICT

This is a solid addition to the series, and the Avatar series should be proud to hold it under its name. It certainly isn't better than its preceding Book, but it's definitely great in and of itself. The only issues I truly had with this series was the massive clutter of a story they try to throw onto us at once. When you get the time to think about it, it is good, but shows should not have to be like that. Also, the slow start to the story will irritate those impatient. The animations were choppy and unclear for the majority of the first 8 or so episodes, fixed itself up for the Wan story, went back to choppy for a few episodes, and then was great for the rest of it. The real highlight of this Book isn't even the ending (which was actually pretty epic), but rather the story of Wan, the first Avatar. All-in-all this was a solid Book that brought forth everything we love about Avatar, and added an entire new dimension to the story.

The Good:
+Great Story
+Great Art
+Great Visual Quality
+Great Soundtrack
+Great Voice Acting
+Great Side Stories
+Wan's Mofo'ing story

The Bad:
-Huge Clutter of Characters and Side-Stories thrown to the viewer at once
-Slow Start
-Choppy Animation
-Nobody wants to freakin wait another year for the next Book


Rating: 8/10

Navigation

[0] Message Index