I Swore BUT

Last month, I swore to leave the fandom of animated series because I am currently in the adolescent phase of being picky about anything related to art. But (pardon the sentence fragment, I'm trying to adapt a casual-speak tone) I was reminded by the frequent status updates in my Facebook feed (I still visit Facebook even though I hate what I see there) about the sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender. I grew up watching the series, which ended four years ago (can you freaking imagine that?!) and grew to love Michael Dante Dimartino and Bryan Konietzko's conceptualized world.


The Legend of Korra premiered last April 14 and takes place seventy years after the death of Avatar Aang. Korra is, of course, his reincarnation. I still don't know whether I am just okay with or I genuinely like her because her personality reminds me a bit of Aang's (except hers has more psychosomatic man-boobs). Whereas, in the first series, Aang had to learn three more elements, Korra has to learn just one: air, which is coincidentally the element Aang had already mastered by the start of The Last Airbender. Fortunately for her, there is no Hundred-Year War and she wasn't trapped in an iceberg. AND she still has her parents.

The Katara and Sokka of The Legend of Korra are Mako and Bolin. The creators have a thing for siblings. Mako, a firebender, was named after Mako Iwamatsu and is super macho. In real life, he would probably be an East Asian Francisco Lachowski. Bolin is an earthbender - I honestly didn't know it was possible to have two different bending abilities in one family - and reminds me of Jack Black. They participate in a sport called pro-bending. You'll have to watch the series to know what it is because this paragraph is already too long.

(Drum roll) The antagonist, Amon, is a cartoonized V (think: V for Vendetta) who considers the benders an oppressive lot and therefore should be demolished. He wears a freakishly awesome mask (Guy Fawkes, I'm telling you) and uses 1920s technology to herd in followers. Plus, he's smart. I like him but his evil, evil, evil ability (again, watch the series) scares me.

As of now, there are five episodes, all of which I would give a 9.999 out of 10. The 0.001 is reserved for when Mako takes his shirt of.

P.S. The animation crew has improved A LOT.