TV Retrospective: Legend of Korra Book 2 Chapters 1-4 - Rebel Spirit/The Southern Lights/Civil Wars (parts 1 and 2)

What better way to start off star wars than with the legend of Korra book 2 part 1

So, you might be asking, what’s with the formatting of this one, you seem to be doing random length episodes

I’m working these reviews in arcs

Part 1 – The Water Tribe Arc (Rebel Spirit – Civil wars)

Part 2 – Everyone’s an idiot except Mako parts 1 and 2 (Peacekeepers and the Sting)

Part 3 – Saga of the first Avatar (Beginnings)

Part 4 – The spirit world saga (featuring everyone’s an idiot except Mako (3)) (The Guide and the New Spiritual Age)

Part 5 – The final battles (featuring everyone’s an idiot except Mako (4)) (Night of a thousand stars – Light in the dark)

So, with that said, let’s start with The water tribe arc.

Chapter 1 – Rebel Spirit

Wow, Korra’s character’s regressed to exactly where it was before book 1, yay! She’s cocky, has no respect for her elders (unless they say what she wants to hear) or Mako for that matter (glad to see that relationship is intact)

Interesting development, in the light of the equalists’ attack, the United Republic has elected a president and the council has disbanded, great way to get Tenzin out of republic city. We’re right out of the bag, and already it poses interesting questions about the relevance of spirits in the modern world.

We’re introduced to Varick, and you can tell from out of the moment that he’ll be great fun to watch every time he shows up. We’re also introduced to Unalaq – who has “I’m a bad guy” written all over his face.

We get a little bit from Katara and Tenzin’s family (am I only one who would like to see her kicking ass rather than just healing) Bumi’s hilarious off the spot and Kya seems to be sort of the mid-point. Mako’s position with the regressed Korra makes every conversation with them annoying to watch, it’s not Mako’s fault (although we could still use more character development for him)

We also see Korra’s father, who goes from having no role whatsoever in book 1 to having a pretty major one in this book. We find out that it wasn’t Aang, it was Tonraq and the white lotus that kept her locked away (although neglecting to mention the 4 powerful benders that we find out tried to kidnap her in book 3)

With Unalaq come his daughters Eska and Desna, the goth twins basically. Well, the chemistry between them and Bolin is… I don’t like this particularly. The fight with the dark spirit was well handled, and I like that even in the Avatar State she couldn’t handle it (speaking of, how is she a master of the Avatar state in 6 months, Aang couldn’t control it for years)

The animation is a step down. Because Nickelodeon ordered Book 2 considerably further down the line than would’ve been practical for Studio Mir, the usual Korra animators to animate, animation is divided between Studio Mir and Studio Pierot, and this is one of theirs. It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what it is, but you can tell the quality of animation is lower than expected in Korra. Music and voice acting are well done.

Rating 7/10

Chapter 2 – The Southern Lights

Unalaq is evil, please say this with me, Unalaq is evil. With him revealing an unfortunate truth (all be it one side of it) about Tonraq, he’s managed to shake Korra’s trust yet again, and further her trust in him, he’s evil

As he guides her to the south-pole, we see numerous attacks from the dark spirits, with interesting results. The culmination of this is a nice scene in the South Pole with Korra holding her own and opening the spirit portal. We also see Korra nearly copying Unalaq’s spirit-bending technique, but only nearly.

We do sadly see more of the regression of Korra when it comes to her talking to Mako. Especially in the scene after she forces her own father to leave!

I don’t know what it is about Eska and Desna, but I don’t find the high jinks between them and Bolin all that funny, and I’ll continue not to find it funny throughout the arc. Bolin needs to gain character above being comic relief.

We also have the subplot with Tenzin at the air-temple. With proper introductions to Kya and Bumi in the last episode, it seems fitting to have some character development for Tenzin, even with him not being with Team Avatar. We don’t get too much, just that the air acolytes aren’t particularly sharp, and Jinora got drawn to a wooden carving which might be important later, oh and Meelo gets a lemur.

The animation maintains its problems, it just isn’t as clean or crisp as Studio Mir’s work

Rating 7/10

Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 – Civil Wars

Yeah, I’m doing these together, they’re classified as a two-parter

OK, I’m bored now, can we go somewhere else. You want to know something, for a two-part chapter named civil wars, there is no actual civil war in it at all. Sure we see Varick plotting, a little bit of oppression, and the shocking revelation that Unalaq, who had ‘I’m clearly evil’ written all over his face was in fact evil. But the civil war doesn’t even begin until the end, and even then we don’t see it, as Korra is sent away on a mission to gather troops, which I’m sure will not lead them to everywhere but troops.

But I digress. It’s nice to see some humility in Korra at this point, as she fought off the would-be kidnappers (using mostly karate and not violent bending) thinking her dad was among them, relieved to find that she wasn’t.

Varrick gets some funny scenes, particularly in the southern water tribe meeting, and during part 2 (the only one with sense over how to deal with Eska and Desna – ‘the only way to deal with crazy women is to lie big and leave fast)

The trial was a joke, there’s not a single person who thought this trial will be fair the moment we hear the fact that Unalaq picked the judge – surprise surprise (and through a nice interrogation moment with Korra and Naaga) he said exactly what Unalaq wanted.

As a result, Unalaq was an idiot and said he didn’t need Korra anymore, what did he think she was gonna do other than run off?! I still don’t find Eska and Desna funny, sorry, I just don’t. So their scenes were wasted on me (they get funny in the few lines in book 3)

We also have the search for Ikki in the southern air-temple. Where we hear that Aang was not a perfect father, having to balance duty, saving his own nation as well as being a father, he tended to favour Tenzin (perhaps not intentionally, but that’s how Kya and Bumi see it)

I like how it drew parallels between the breakups between the adults and the children, it makes the eventual resolution between them all the more satisfying. It’s sad really, 4 episodes in and not a lot has happened, the southern portal is open, and Unalaq’s a bad guy, that’s about it.

Studio Pierot continue their animation work here, and while it isn’t bad at all, it just isn’t the standard Mir had set in book 1 (and will set later this book.) The music and voice acting continue to be excellent.

Rating 5.5/10

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Images used in this review are from The Legend of Korra and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.