The Legend of Korra - Book One: Air

I'm sorry, who?

 

The writers/creators.

 

OK, that's two episodes in a row I wasn't crazy about. An entire episode just about the love triangle? I would have liked to have had an actual villain or story. The pro-bending concept is cute for an action opener, but I don't like multiple entire episodes being based around it. It's not like it places the characters in jeopardy or has a real impact on the larger world.

 

The episode was meant to pander to and troll the shippers. Which Bryan and Mike love to mess with.

 

I enjoyed it for what it was, and I feel like it was a necessary story that just needed to get out of the way. Now we're done with it, and we can move on.

 

"The Spirit of Competition" takes a break from the danger and politics to focus entirely on pro-bending and romance. On the one hand, it feels a little disjointed to have this big disconnect between the different sides of Korra's life; we've now had two episodes that were all pro-bending and character stuff without any advancement of the main arcs. Though on the other hand, I guess it's plausible that even the Avatar wouldn't be facing life-threatening dangers every week.

Anyway, I'm surprised they confronted the big romantic-triangle stuff so soon and mostly resolved it (though I assume there's still a bit of a Korra-Mako-Asami triangle to be resolved later). I guess it's because this was originally conceived as only 12 episodes, so the story has to advance more quickly. It was handled pretty well, but the soap-opera stuff doesn't engage me as much as the other stuff.

 

This episode is definitely not suited for kids.

 

Why not?

 

I don't remember there being anything inappropriate for kids in this one.
I thought it was pretty good as character development, but I would have liked to see it effect the Equalists arc more, even if it was just a little bit at the end or something.

 

It had some very twisted moral lessons.

 

^That doesn't explain a thing. What lessons? As far as I could tell, the lessons were about how to deal with unrequited love, heartbreak, and jealousy, and how to look past them and not let them ruin friendships or partnerships. I don't see anything twisted in that.

 

The only "adult" thing I could see in the episode (and I'm not even sure this is what was going on) was that Bolin apparently got wasted and then had a massive hangover the next day at the pro-bending tournament.

 

^That was clearly the analogy, but from what I gathered he got wasted by stuffing himself full of those water tribe noodles...so I'm not sure that counts as being inappropriate for children. Indeed, I seem to recall Sokka drinking cactus juice and spending the rest of the episode hallucinating. Was this some moral lesson about drug use being harmless and funny? No, it was just funny.

The relationship stuff seemed harmless enough to me.

 

I didn't think Bolin was hung over, just really depressed. He'd probably been up all night crying and binge-eating, and that would've left him exhausted and physically and mentally off his form.

 

The episode annoyed me because in my life I've been the Bolin way more than I've been the Mako.

 

Looks like Korra has mastered a small measure of air-bending given how she out burped Bolin at the restaurant.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

Cactus juice. It'll quench ya. Nothing's quenchier. It's the quenchiest!

Fine. I love that episode.

 

Yeah, I was amazed "standards and practices" did not force the production to drop that bit from the episode. I can only suspect the creators pulled a "briar patch" by proposing something far more outlandish, knowing the censors would freak and want the crew to scale it back.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

If you interperate that scene thay way then you could say the scene where Korra said to Mako "well whe you're with her you are thinking about me!" as something much more adult

 

1x05: "The Spirit of Competition"...

For a light episode and a break from the main story, it was pretty enjoyable. It could have been boring but they made it funny.

- Korra is quite the tomboy. I liked how she and Bolin were comfortable scarfing down noodles in front of eachother without any sense of propriety.

- I'm still not too keen on the probending bit, but I found the game a tad bit engaging. I found myself paying attention to how the game was played. Didn't see how they got back onto the platform after being thrown off though. There was an elevator on the far wall, but how did they get onto the platform?

- Pabu is a cute little guy but he doesn't have all the lively quirks that Momo had. Same story with Naga, who's lacking that "something" that Appa had which made him a rich character for an animal.

- I was just reading up on Mako, Bolin and Amon on Avatar Wiki. Interesting that both parties lost their family at the hands of a fire bender.