The Wild Blog in the West

Last time, I focused on the ways in which The Legend of Korra was intertwined with its predecessor, The Last Airbender , to the point where it's almost useless to compare them (though many will try).  This time, I want to focus on what made Korra such a great, and at times frustrating, show.  In many respects, it's more difficult than I thought because since the final Korrasami moment, news outlets have tripped over themselves (many of which had previously shown no interest) to glorify every aspect of the series.  Coming up with something unique and non cliched is rather difficult.  Maybe it would be easier if I began with the less impressive aspects of the series... The Less Good Some Choppy, Underdeveloped Plot Points.   I am mainly referring to the Season Two arc, but the same is true of the other seasons to an extent.  Season Two suffered from Nickelodeon's sudden reward of three additional Korra  seasons, forcing the Korra creators to scram...

Beware of spoilers... When I did my first review for The Legend of Korra , I had seen only Book One and had no previous exposure to the Avatar  universe.  What little I knew about Avatar: The Last Airbender  came from the Nostalgia Critic review praising the series while rightfully ripping on the movie adaptation.  Now I come with a richer perspective, having having watched both series in their entirety, and I have one thing to say: Korrasami!!!!!! Just kidding.  I do want to talk about that, but it can wait.  First I want to focus on what else made The Legend of Korra such a memorable show. Background I already gave basic background about the Avatar universe in my previous review.  Both Avatar  series are set in a world parallel to our own, divided into four nations based on the elements: earth, fire, air, and water.  Inhabitants of these nations who can manipulate an element are known as "benders."  The Avat...

A few days ago, the 15th anniversary of a milestone passed: I had my first fanfics published on a major fan website.  They were Daria fanfics on the now departed Outpost Daria, then the mecca of all things involving the MTV cartoon.  I remember trembling when I saw my fanfics listed among the two dozen under the "New Updates" header.  Now it was official!  I feared abusive comments, but mainly expected to be ignored. Days passed and comments trickled in... and not only were they positive, but two of them even came from  Daria fanfiction's top dogs at the time!  I printed out each email and tucked them into a folder, which I still keep around.  The positive feedback left me warm and floaty, and dying to write more!  Burnt out from revising my historical novel (ironically, a proto version of my current one ), I found writing scripted "episodes" of my favorite show to be invigorating. The stories in my head began to multiply and form the bead...

I thought I would be one of the few to avoid saying anything about Frozen , but I was intrigued by the reasons given for why Frozen  was such a mega-hit while Tangled  was merely a box office success.  So I decided to look at both movies and see whether I agree with some of the prevailing assumptions. First, let me say that there is no loser in this race.  Both movies are good -- really good.  In fact, both even have identical ratings (89 percent) at Rotten Tomatoes .  The only way that these movies "lose," in my mind, is being CGI instead of 2D, but that's for later. Some of the reasons given for Frozen's success include better songs, a deeper and more compelling story, and a rare female-centric storyline. The Soundtrack.   Few would argue that Tangled  has a better list of songs than Frozen .  While Tangled 's "When Will My Life Begin" was clever, the Mother Gothel songs a blast, and "I See the Light" touching mainly for the visual ...

Sometime after writing my review for Serial Experiments Lain , I visited an IMDB message board.  One of the threads was "Which anime series are like Lain?", and one suggestion was Monster .  I will sometimes watch the opening episode of an anime series out of curiosity.  But Monster  was the first time I did it and was hooked. That is saying something, considering that getting hooked meant committing to a 74-episode series, far longer than any other anime I had watched.  But one episode led to another, which led to another, and before I knew it, I had finished the entire series in less than a week. The anime is closely based on Naoki Urasawa's manga series of the same name, which ran between 1994 and 2001 in 18 volumes.  The anime series aired in Japan in 2004 and 2005, then in the United States in 2009 and 2010 on the SyFy Channel. Plot Synopsis Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a Japanese man living in Dusseldorf, West Germany in 1986, at a time when Germany s...

Since I'm on this animation kick, I might as well get something off of my chest that I've been thinking about for a while: is it possible that the creators of MTV's Daria sent the wrong message in the end? Daria  premiered on MTV in 1997 as the rare portrayal of a social outcast.  Not someone who was an "outcast" while looking and acting like a fashion model, but a genuine introvert with no interest in wider social approval.  The first season established a pattern where Daria Morgendorffer and her friend, Jane Lane, stood off to one side and criticized the activities that people their age were taught to embrace. At the same time, these episodes -- frequently referred to as "fish in a barrel" episodes -- started to feel a little stale.  Were Daria and Jane really the only two smart ones in the city of Lawndale?  Were other people really so stupid?  And even if they were, would they just stand by, grinning vacantly, while getting insulted?  The onl...

... Though being anime, that almost goes without saying. I'm not a great devourer of anime.  There are some that I truly like, but I'm indifferent toward the rest.  Because my greatest exposure to anime occurred about 10 years ago, all of my favorites date from the 1990s and early 2000s... so apologies if some truly great anime series have premiered since then.  I enjoyed  Neon Genesis Evangelion ,  Cowboy Bebop , and a quiet little series called Serial Experiments Lain . While the other anime involved giant monsters and space travel, Lain was a 13-episode series about a lonely girl.  The setting was the present -- or the near future.  Or was it?  One of the intriguing things about Serial Experiments Lain was that it posed questions about human connection, what was and was not real, and this strange new thing called the "Internet." Lain premiered in 1998, when the Internet as a public resource was still fairly new.  Remember how exc...

When it comes to television series, I'm almost always late for the party.  I tend to hop on board the love train after one or two seasons have passed, when the show is safely critically acclaimed and therefore worth investing my time. Such was the case with Avatar: The Last Airbender  and its sequel, The Legend of Korra .  I learned about Avatar  at the same time as its much-maligned film version, and thought little more about it.  But after Doug Walker from That Guy With the Glasses did a review of the film/series, I became intrigued enough to check it out.  While Avatar  was not readily available,* Korra was.  And oh my God, after one episode, I was in love. A little context: since childhood, I have been an absolute nut for great animation.  Until I was 10 or 11, I was convinced that I would become an animator, and spent my afternoons doodling comical dogs and dragons on large sheets of paper.  Disney was the default style, though...