Legend of Korra Book 4 Finale

[Amion]

(Apologies beforehand if there's controversy on whether or not this counts as an anime)

Legend of Korra has reached its end and the prominence of mecha in its last season was a particularly high note in a series that's been a roller-coaster. Spoilered temporarily

Spoiler

So, now that we've basically been given a giant mobile suit sized robot with a cannon that shoots pink energy, and is piloted in a way very similar to mecha from Break Blade and G Gundam,

I've decided that Book 4: Balance deserves a thread here, however late in the show or presumptuous that may be of me.

Anyone have thoughts on this series as a whole now that we've reached the inevitable end? It's my understanding this will be the last we see of the Avatar universe in the foreseeable future. Having Avatar as a fond childhood memory I was glad to see we got four more books. Thoughts on how it's ending and how Korra's series was received?

[Gundam420]

I think people have been mixed on Korra as a whole. I think it's overall a good series. Not as good as Avatar, but good in its own right. For me it goes like this:

-Book 1: Really good up until the very end.
-Book 2: Ended strongly but quality was very uneven throughout.
-Book 3: Managed to recover from Season 2
-Book 4: Has been pretty good so far.

It will be sad to see this series end yet again.

[Amion]

I personally never enjoyed book 1, though 2 was good in its own way. I think the backstory for the avatar could have gone differently.

I'm interested to see how this ends. They've got about two more episodes to finish everything. That's a bit of a tall order.

[Deathzealot]

Honestly, I hate the damn Super!Mecha-Tank. Gah! Don't know why it just rubs me the wrong way.

[Deus257]

So I'll just bump this since the Finale already aired, First off, the finale was excellent, you can tell they really made an effort to make it look good despite the small budget and Korra really matured as a character over the series run and Zelda Williams was awesome as Kuvira, now on to that one moment:

Spoiler

That ending, I mean I am one of the few who would like to leave it up to interpretation as I feel the writers kept it from going to far but dammit the lead up to it and the actual moment gave those darned Korrasami shippers every reason to jump for joy as the media soon started talking about it and making a big thing of, it I mean its open to interpretation but dammit its pretty damn obvious

And the music was phenomenal, the last song playing at the end had me teary eyed and on the verge of tears, it reminded me that this was probably the last animated Avatar and I'm gonna be honest its bittersweet but I'm glad it ended the way it did.

[SNT1]

This is what I hate about the fandom sometimes:

Spoiler

-Episode is 45 minutes long
-Stuff was just flying everywhere, some of the best action scenes of the season
-Yet 98% of the fandom is talking about the last 15 seconds of the show

Also,

Spoiler

No one seems to bother that Kuvira was taken down by a few words and surrendered ASAP when it's shown that she's too far gone that she would blow her fiance up if it means taking down the avatar

I honestly didn't like how it was all resolved, I thought it was way too rushed (Not Bryke's fault, budget was scarce). But hoo-ray, it's awesome and perfect and rainbows because of the last 15 seconds of the show, and if you don't like the finale then you're probably a

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bigot

, [sarcasm over 9000]

I do like the bending aspect of the series in general so Book 3 of LoK for me is the best season of all Avatar series.

[Amion]

I agree that book three was the best. Book 4's ending indeed felt rushed, particularly with Kuvira surrendering when she really had nothing to lose by callinga truce and retreating. I mean, realistically her empire isn't going to collapse because the man they refused to have as leader says so (Wu). I'd imagine someone of her ilk will mount resistance. *Shrugs*

It ended, so that's that.

[J-Lead]

Legend of Korra is just that show I kept up with eagerly because I kept telling myself "It's gonna get better..." I kept up that feeling throughout the entirety of the show's run. In the end though, it's just a cavalcade of wasted potential from creators that really just don't know what to do with the universe they set up. They try time and time again to delve into more mature, complex themes but often deal with them in a very simplistic manner. Then, to add to that, I'm not really sure the appropriate ending to your ENTIRE FRANCHISE should be "Your favorite ship is canon! Commence the fanart!" Wouldn't the ending be better punctuated with something a lot more thematically relevant? Like, something to do with the Avatar or Korra's legacy, y'know, the TITULAR aspects of the show? The smug tumblr post Bryke made after the fact just kind of made the whole deal seem a lot more self-congratulatory for a job poorly done. Just kind of goes to show what was really important to them as artists...

I dunno, I guess I'm just salty that this show was never nearly as good as it should have been. I was in love with the setting and characters, and still am to a degree, but they never do anything interesting with either of those aspects aside from Korra herself (and even then, she just kind of gets progressively less fun to watch.) Asami,

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ironically the endgame love interest,

got the worst of it. Throughout the entire show, she goes through maybe one and a half moments of genuine character development. A shame too, because she was my favorite character throughout Book 1, but even then that's only because she's the only character that didn't do anything to make herself unlikable. That's pretty bad when you're a fan favorite by simple virtue of being less of a tool than everyone else.

Except for the finale of Book 3. Holy sphincters, was this written by an entirely different crew? Did they get the ATLA writing staff back for a season? What gives? When did this show start to actually hit hard? Too bad that feeling didn't last long.

I guess I'm kind of relieved; it's over. I'm done being let down. At least we got a surprisingly good Avatar game out of it.

[Amion]

I have similar feelings, J-Lead. I kept expecting more. Of course, Book 3 did indeed deliver so I can't say it was a total waste...