Huge Avatar Fan and Korrasami OTP

[avatar-news]

Hey guys! Today, September 6th, 2018, is officially korranews’ fifth birthday!

Wooo!

Five years ago today, this blog was started to bring you all your Avatar & Korra updates, and what a five years it has been! To put it into perspective, on September 6th, 2013, Book 2 of Korra hadn’t started airing yet. Yeah. Time flies. But since then, we’ve had so much cool stuff to report on and discuss and freak out over, and it’s still full steam ahead with so much more awesome stuff coming our way!

To celebrate this big milestone, we’re doing something very exciting…

· · · ⛰️🔥🌪️🌊 · · ·

The korranews 5th anniversary GIVEAWAY!!!

· · · 💚❤️💛💙 · · ·

After five years of posting about so much amazing Avatar stuff it’s only fitting to get some in your hands. So we’re doing a giveaway to make that happen and say thanks for sticking with korranews for half a decade now.

🎟️ How to enter:

You must be following this here blog, @korranews on Tumblr.

You must reblog this post. That’s it!

📜 Rules:

Multiple reblogs won’t count.

Sideblogs are allowed.

You can live anywhere in the world!

Entry will be open for one month starting when this post was published.

You’re gonna have to be willing to give me your name and address so I can send you your prize(s)!!

You need to have either your ask box or messaging open so I can contact you!

So speaking of prizes… we’re leaving it up to you!

·⟢💖 PRIZES 💖⟣·

The prize is…

Choose from any one of these big items:

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Art of the Animated Series

The Legend of Korra - The Art of the Animated Series - Book One: Air

The Legend of Korra - The Art of the Animated Series - Book Two: Spirits

The Legend of Korra - The Art of the Animated Series - Book Three: Change

The Legend of Korra - The Art of the Animated Series - Book Four: Balance

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Promise Library Edition

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search Library Edition

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Rift Library Edition

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Smoke and Shadow Library Edition

Avatar: The Last Airbender - North and South Library Edition

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Poster Collection

The Legend of Korra - The Poster Collection

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Legacy

The Legend of Korra - An Avatar’s Chronicle (preorder) 🔥 hot

The Rise of Kyoshi (preorder) 🔥 hot

OR

Choose from any three of these smaller items:

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Lost Adventures

The Legend of Korra - Turf Wars Part One

The Legend of Korra - Turf Wars Part Two

The Legend of Korra - Turf Wars Part Three 🔥 hot

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Imbalance Part One (preorder) 🔥 hot

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Imbalance Part Two (preorder)

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Team Avatar Tales (preorder) 🔥 hot

Avatar: The Last Airbender - coloring book

The Legend of Korra - coloring book

Zen Monkey Studios Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra ⭐pin⭐ (you can get pins for two or all three of your choices!) 🔥 hot

Whew! There you go.

And because it’s our fifth birthday…

FIVE winners will be chosen!

The selection will be completely random from the reblogs, and each winner will have full access to the above prize list regardless of what the others pick.

So what are you waiting for??

One last thing: be sure to also follow korranews on Twitter! We’re gonna do another giveaway over there once we hit a special followers milestone.

Actually wait, this is the last thing: I just set up a ➡️ PATREON ⬅️ for korranews! If you want to, you can go be a patron over there and help support our next five years! 💖

Alright you got a month. Peace!

[avatar-news]

With all the crazy exciting news the past while, don’t forget this is still going on! 💖

[avatar-news]

About a week left to enter!

[bonni]

[theironweasel]

Give this to the dub, the NERV cast was great at shouting techno-babble in the most dramatic way possible!

[non-bender-world]

When Ursa declared her eternal love in the mirror scene, Azula rejected it, violently, believing it was a lie.

Now since the comics release that Ursa, in fact, erased her memories of her children to ease her conscience from their responsibility in order to have more convenient life, and start a new family of her own with her lover, then aknowledge the fact that she “didn’t love them enough” she choose to forget them, you know Azula was right.

Azula hates those hallucinations because she’s aware these are only hallucination, they’re not reality–it’s not the Ursa she remembers. These are only delusions and wishful thinking.

I mean neither Yang or Bryke bother proving Azula wrong, they validated her perspective completely.

If the comics follow any consistently, I see it’s hard for Azula to forgive Ursa while she keeps giving her layer over layer of resentment.

[theironweasel]

Wrong, the entire reason Ursa erased her memory was because she did love her children and being unable to be with them was too painful. The decision she made didn’t affect them at all for years and the moment she was told about what had happened and that her kids were free she chose to remember. And as that same comic showed that Ursa did love Azula despite some in the fandom blowing the glimpses we got in Zuko alone way out of proportion. The worst thing Ursa did in that episode was ask what was wrong with Azula to herself after Azula casually talked about her grandfather dying. People always forget how she encouraged her and Zuko to play together or how in the comic she asked to take both of them with her and made sure to kiss Azula goodbye. Yes Ursa is not a perfect mother, but she was put in horrible circumstances and still managed to love her children despite the fact that many in her situation would resent them for being forced upon her. She was even willing to kill a man to protect Zuko and be separated from both of them, even though it would hurt her. She only took the memory deal because living with the love she had for her children was to painful without being able to be with them. Remember her original plan was to go back and live in the city after changing her face just for a chance to see them again in passing. She even asks for forgiveness when she makes the memory deal and hates herself for doing it. And let’s not forget that Zuko was willing to let her stay the way she was. Because he understands the sacrifice she made and loves her deeply. He doesn’t resent her for making the deal because he understands how hard her life was and how much she sacrificed for him and because of all this, him knowing that she is happy is all he really needed. You know why? Because he loves her. Azula hates her mother and because of that is incapable of seeing what Ursa went through to keep her and Zuko safe. Yes, Ursa did not like Azula as much as Zuko and was afraid of what she was becoming. But those are understandable feelings given the horrible child Azula was. And she still loved Azula or she wouldn’t have demanded that she be able to take her away along with Zuko. Even when she had no memory of Azula, she still feels bad that she wasn’t able to save her from herself and not loving her enough to prevent her from becoming a monster. And in Smoke and Shadow she is moved to tears worrying about Azula’s safety and happiness. People except Ursa to be perfect, but as Azula’s own story showed, that is a terrible expectation. She is a human being that was forced into an arranged marriage with a horrible man, something women throughout history have dealt with and managed to love her children and sacrifice for them and act more admirably than many others would in her situation. She only gives into her own desires when basically any chance of being with her children is gone. If I was in Zuko’s position I would feel exactly the same, I would want her to be happy.

[evamonkey]

Just saw the trailer for #BohemianRhapsody, the Queen biopic, was instantly reminded of this classic AMV by ShonenDizzyCow, from all the way back in 2001.

[theironweasel]

Awesome!

[evamonkey]

Just saw the trailer for #BohemianRhapsody, the Queen biopic, was instantly reminded of this classic AMV by ShonenDizzyCow, from all the way back in 2001.

[theironweasel]

Awesome!

[kiwipuffs-blog]

[avatarparallels]

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." -Martin Luther King (1963)

[theironweasel]

Hey, MLK stoke that from the back of the Madoka Magica Manga! XD

[bolinfanboys]

“ I see a lot of myself in you ”

[theironweasel]

I love stuff like this!

[kohquette]

smoking weed in a hanbok = 100000000% my aesthetic. i think i will debut my 🌿 zine at flamecon this year 😎

[theironweasel]

I do love the fact that despite Nickelodeon’s every attempt to censor Avatar’s more controversial bits, the lead artist on the Korra books promotes pot and porn on her Tumblr. Not that I’m complaining mind you, I feel like Tenzin just sent us to live with Kya during her peak stoner years, (you know she was hitting the cactus juice at some point!)

[lunarmaster54-deactivated202005]

From Magi Record.

There are perfect things in this world after all.

[theironweasel]

Why hasn’t this game been translated?! Mami gets transfigured? Why? How? I need to know these things! I know other fans go gaga over new costumes and characters, but for me it’s seeing how PMMM reinvents Christian stories and concepts, because so far everything they’ve done is genius! Yes, I am a Religious studies student, how could you tell?

[jumpingjacktrash]

a trope subversion

when noblewomen try to refuse an arranged marriage, it’s always because the man is “fat, old, and ugly.”

someday i will write a princess refusing to marry a young and beautiful prince because he’s cruel and stupid. choosing instead to marry a king who is fat, old, and ugly, but also sensible and a good statesman, because she knows her marriage is a political alliance and she can always get her jollies with pretty courtiers if it comes to that. “my petticoats are full of politics,” she will say. “my royal booty is much too important to waste on handsome jerks.”

the business of getting an heir is awkward, because her husband tends to act like an indulgent uncle and that’s not at all sexy. but he’s happy to mentor her in statecraft, knowing his age means he’ll leave her in an awkward position. when he does die, they’ve solidified her standing enough that she can rule in her own right.

her second marriage is for love. as a stately middle-aged queen, she can marry prince charming, and make him prince consort rather than king. his gentle nature makes him a fine diplomat, and he’s not inclined to try taking power.

her daughter, raised by political maestros, never marries at all. she handles power with such a deft hand that she can name a well-educated cousin as heir and take him to apprentice without more than token grumblings from the nobility.

and that, i say, closing the storybook, is how our kingdom came to elect its royalty from a pool of candidates based on aptitude scores. now go to sleep.

[theironweasel]

Avatar: The Last Airbender already kinda beat you to it. Not every detail but Princess Yue doesn’t want to marry Han even though he is handsome because he is cruel and stupid and is instead attracted to Sokka despite him being kind of an awkward dork. It does ultimately end tragically as Yue sacrifices her life for the sake of her people (the only reason she agreed to marry Han). Similar idea though there are differences.

[lmpandora]

10 Days To Halloween

Dark!Katara

Originally posted in instagram [x]

[theironweasel]

Forget that meme THIS is the creepiest Katara I’ve ever seen!

[bryankonietzko]

'Avatar: The Last Airbender' comic gets new creators, new designs

EW has an exclusive look at Faith Erin Hicks and Peter Wartman’s take on the fantasy world

VERY EXCITED to welcome Faith Erin Hicks as the new writer and Peter Wartman as the new artist of the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics with Dark Horse! Mike and I have been working closely with Faith on the next story arc, and Peter has been turning in some awesome early artwork (some of which you can see if you click the link above, as well as reading some kind words from Faith).

Mike and I are so grateful for the many years and beautiful books our former team—Gene Luen Yang (writer) and Gurihiru (art/color)—gave to the Avatarverse, and we wish them all the best in their many exciting future endeavors. We are so lucky to have had the chance to work with you three luminaries for so long!

[theironweasel]

YES! YES! YESSSSSS!

[neverleavefootprints]

“Find the light in the dark.”

[theironweasel]

I love how this quote works on multiple levels. First, and most importantly it refers to how Korra has to find her true nature amidst the illusions of life that have clouded her identity. Second, it refers to how Raava can still be found within Vaatu. Third, and most brilliant, it refers to itself as it was originally spoken by Unalaq. One must be able to find the wisdom and good in anything even if it comes from something dark and evil. This becomes even more important in the next two seasons as Korra begins to realize the humanity of the people opposed to her.

[theironweasel]

Terror in Resonance: A More accurate title would be V for Vendetta

Spoilers!

So, again I’m talking about an anime I just watched but this time it's not because it had a huge impact on me but because my feelings are very simple. Let me put it this way for an anime titled Terror in Resonance I felt no terror or resonance and I think a better title for this show would be Generic and Boring. Seriously this show has so many generic thriller tropes I lost count, from the villain singing a children’s song menacingly to a secret government conspiracy, and this really stinks because I could have seen it going in a much different and more interesting direction with Lisa becoming an effective part of Sphinx but becoming more caught up in the thrill and creating a dangerous dynamic. Instead, she’s worse than useless and what could have been the most interesting character is just kind of annoying.

Also, this anime rips off a ton of plot points from V for Vendetta (The Movie version at least), from the government conspiracy to perform experiments on human subjects which winds up creating a terrorist threat that seeks vengeance on the people involved, to the cop who’s a part of the system but ultimately wants the truth. Except take out most of the stuff that made that movie interesting like the fascist government, the charismatic terrorist, the female lead with an interesting arc, cool and effective quotes, a mystery that is not completely obvious, and the cool action scenes. The only thing they did right was the cop. I know some people have a lot of problems with that movie, especially how it changed the plot from the comic, becoming less of a nuanced philosophical debate about anarchism vs fascism and more a straight up good vs evil, but at least it was interesting!

Also, the actions taken by the American and Japanese government, especially in regard to Five’s actions, are cartoonishly stupid and evil. Another major missed opportunity is having a character with synesthesia and only having them mention it once and never actually showing it except for maybe a few scenes with floating feathers I think.

I will give the show this, the production was really well done, looking and sounding great which is no surprise given that it was directed by Shinichirō Watanabe and the music was done by Yoko Kanno. However, I think the writing is what ultimately lets the show down, and pretty hard. I think if there had been more introspection and a darker tone this could have worked better as I felt that the darkest moments of the show were often the best as we got some real humanity out of the characters.

I think this premise could have done a lot of interesting things but it instead chooses to mostly go for the easy, more cliched options in terms of the story and characters and while I don’t think it’s bad, I do find Terror in Resonance to be a rather mediocre story that is my least favorite Anime I’ve watched to date and something I don’t see ever wanting to rewatch or recommending to a friend.

[theironweasel]

Future Diary: The Danger of Codependency

Spoilers!

Again I feel the need to talk about a series just after finishing it even though I have other anime I want to review. However, this isn’t going to be a normal review because I feel there is one aspect of the show that is done extremely well and had a pretty huge impact on me. For the most part Future Diary is a pretty flawed series with a number of good points. It can get too edgy, but it had a number of interesting characters, characters often don’t act like real people would especially in how quick people are to forgive others, but the plot is pretty engaging, there are likely many plot holes (though I have difficulty spotting them because I suck at temporal mechanics), but there are a lot of interesting concepts that are raised. One last thing I want to note is my favorite character Akise, as he is the smartest and most charismatic character. He also lasts longer than pretty much anyone else and even though his love of Yuki isn’t entirely healthy given the nature of his creation, it is much more healthy than Yuno’s as Akise doesn’t demand things in return for his love and treats Yuki like a regular person for the most part.

Now I want to get into the strongest aspect of the series and what impacted me the most. The “relationship” between Yuki and Yuno and the commentary this has on codependent relationships. I saw a lot of myself in Yuki to a sometimes uncomfortable degree. While I think a lot of people are too hard on him given the insane situation he finds himself in, but there are a number of legitimate character flaws he has that he even admits to. He is too scared of failure and rejection to take the risk of reaching out to other people. And he uses Yuno to keep himself safe despite knowing how insane she is and how encouraging her is a terrible idea, though again it is somewhat understandable given the insane situation he finds himself in. Yuno though is far, far worse. She doesn’t actually love Yuki, at all. After having lived an awful life of abuse and finally snapping and killing her parents she was left with nothing. Yuno had no reason to live and she latched on to the first person who caught her attention likely due to him also having issues with his parents and her subconsciously recognizing an easily exploited target. What Yuno wanted was not to have a relationship with Yuki, but to simply have someone, anyone, love her and she is obsessed and willing to do anything to create her ideal fantasy. Throughout the entire show, she keeps escalating her actions to the point of repeating the exact things her parents did to her, such as demanding Yuki be the perfect boyfriend and keeping him prisoner.

I could go into a deeper analysis, but I want to talk about myself and how this story affected me. Like I stated above I saw a lot of myself in Yuki even today, but especially how I was in high school. I was and still am a socially awkward person and it has always been difficult for me to make and keep friends. However, in high school, I had a small circle of friends, one of whom introduced me to a girl who I rather quickly got into a relationship with. Even before watching Future Diary I realized that we had both been rather immature and not ready to be in a relationship but that may be part of growing up. However, after watching Future Diary, I realize that to varying degrees we were both using each other for our own emotional needs. While I could speculate on how exactly she did this to me, but I think that would be inappropriate and I think reflecting on my own failings would be more constructive. Obviously, there was a lot of social pressure as a guy to get into a relationship and my previous experience with a girl left me with an unfortunately flawed perspective. I pressured the girl I was dating into doing things I wanted though I didn’t really realize what I was doing at the time and I’m glad looking back I didn’t go too far with that behavior. I also wanted to be in what I thought to be an ideal relationship without considering the feelings of the girl I was dating. To be a little less harsh on myself I do think I genuinely wanted to make her happy, but I don’t think we exactly loved each other. Again, maybe that’s normal for our age at the time but I didn’t appreciate how real emotional desire and compatibility were necessary for a healthy relationship. I thought by just doing the right things I could make a good relationship. Ultimately she broke up with me and I didn’t handle it well as I just skulked, felt sorry for myself and didn’t speak to her for a long time. Eventually, I reached out to her and I apologized but it was much later than I should have. And while I realized some of the mistakes I had made, watching Future Diary really drove home all the things I messed up. I made a lot of the same mistakes both Yuki and Yuno made, though to obviously a far lesser extent. I know this was a very unusual review but the ultimate point I’m trying to make is that despite not being the best or even a really great anime, I think Future Diary is something important to see, especially for people who are socially awkward or have made mistakes in past relationships. At the beginning, part of me couldn’t help but want some of what Yuno was giving to Yuki even despite how insane she was. For someone like me it is very tempting to be attracted to someone who seems so devoted, but the more I watched the more I realized how shallow it was, based on nothing but the need to be loved and not really anything else. I hope anyone reading this can learn from this anime and the mistakes I see reflected in my own life, don’t seek love purely for its own sake as it can be a very dangerous road.

[theironweasel]

Tanya Degurechaff: There is no dere-dere there is only yamu!

[theironweasel]

Saga of Tanya the Evil: The Second Coming of Azula!

Spoilers!

Ok, so I’m doing this even though there are two other anime I’ve already watched and want to talk about but I just finished this and there isn’t that much to go over so I will. 

Everything other than Tanya: So this is an ok anime for the most part but it also smartly focuses on it’s strength, the main character which I will get to. For the most part the other characters serve as exposition dumpers or only have development to further Tanya’s character. I will say that when it wants to be it can quite funny in a dark way. The train station scene was legitimately hilarious. Unfortunately, they stop attempting humor for the most part about half way through the season, something I hope they go back to if they do make a second season. One thing I will give the series credit for was the commentary of having all the different military leaders doing very businessmen things like sitting around a board table smoking or stamping forms while going over military information. Finally, the fight scenes when they happened were pretty damn amazing, up there with the Zaheer vs Korra final fight with the last fight between Tanya and Anson being the best. I really love aerial fights and the way the magic is used in the series makes the fights look awesome. I also appreciate that aside from the magic aspect and the fact that there are a couple of young girls in the army everything else is pretty realistic. And the WW1ish setting gives us the ability to have no real heroes or villains, keeping a very gray morality. A problem I had was that the OP music really didn’t fit. I kinda get that they were going for a Black Lagoon sorta bad guy feel, but I think the ED music LOS! LOS! LOS! would have been much better. Other than that I felt the music in the show was quite good and was nice and epic!

Tanya: This is what I’ve wanted but never realized, a show all about an Azula like character. While there are some key differences in personality such as Tanya wanting at first to have a cushy job, though that changes by the end. But at the end of the day, they are both ruthless, intelligent and intimidating young girls. Even when “Tanya” is a man she is still awesome having no patience when talking to God, giving him nothing but condescending sass. And as Tanya proper she is manipulative, scary and brutal, blowing off arms, decapitating people and riddling fools with bullets. All of my favorite moments in the show are when Tanya does something insane and fucked up such as stabbing Anson while telling him “But for me, it was Tuesday” or again when she again faces Anson and after stabbing him riddles him full of bullets with the gun his own daughter gave him. And the last minute of the show was amazing with her speech defying God, with that ending it would be a real shame if we never got a second season. That being said, the show has its weaknesses. Mostly it comes from what I think may be a misplaced desire to get us to “like” Tanya by not having her be too blatantly evil. But that I think that’s a misunderstanding of character appeal. With a show like this we want to see her be as evil and manipulative as possible within certain limits, but generally, the more despicable she acts the more we’ll like her as long as she remains charismatic which she is. With her declaration at the end of the first season, I’d like to see a much more blatantly evil Tanya in the second season where she would actually use the trust of her men to exploit them for her own ends. In fact given the loyal attitude we see from Viktoriya, I’d love to see a relationship between her and Tanya because I’d love to see a fully realized Azula/Ty Lee relationship where Tanya exploits the fuck out of her, making her all the more despicable. 

Ultimately I feel this was a pretty good first season of a show with two solid strengths in its main lead and action and it needs to devote pretty much everything to those two aspects in a second season to become truly amazing. But this is one series I truly hope gets a second season.