Republic City Dispatch

Yup!

I recently rewatched “Tales of Bah Sing Se” from Book Two of A:TLA and the Iroh story there is dedicated to the memory of Mako as well as having the full performance of “Leaves from the Vine.”

Such a good episode and Mako was such a good voice actor. 

-Da7e-

It’s true we haven’t seen a Grey DeLisle character yet and she did say she was playing a Dark Spirit.

As of this moment, my best guess is that Vaatu was trapped in his Spirit Tree at least up until Unalaq could physically get in there during his brief “The Sting” scene.

Unalaq also has some erroneous ideas about the history of those Spirit Portals. Assuming what we saw in “The Beginning” was true, Unalaq’s talk about how the Water Tribe used the portals to move back and forth probably isn’t. Unalaq also has some sort of spirit calming power we haven’t learned the details of (it makes sense the Avatar can do it because s/he’s just using Raava to change the spirit’s mood).

Overall: it seems like Unalaq has SOME idea of what’s going on. 

What seems likely is that there is a middle-man dark spirit, possibly the Dark Spirit Grey DeLisle is voicing, that is working with Unalaq as an agent of Vaatu. Like a Wormtongue or a Saruman. 

A serious middle-bad, but a mini-boss compared to the apocalypse that is Vaatu. 

Or Grey DeLisle and everyone totally got us and Azula’s still alive. That could be fun.

-Da7e-

This twist would make me happy, but it would also surprise me. I guess I’ve placed Varrick and Unalaq in the “lying” category and everyone else in the “one step behind” category. 

I’m sure Devindra would also love to see more Lin being awesome. Me, I’m sad we got distracted from going to the Fire Nation by having to prevent Harmonic Convergence.

-Da7e-

Hello Anonymous!

This season’s animation has left some people a little miffed, to be sure (hopefully Beginnings was as pleasant a departure for you as it was for me), but I’m not sure if we’re seeing less Martial Arts Reference work in Book Two or if we just haven’t seen that much direct bending in Book Two. Outside of fighting the Dark Spirit in the premiere, most of Korra’s bending has been in restricted space, even using that rope like a ribbon dagger when she thought her father was part of the rebellion.

The first season had reference, but since this is far in the future from A:TLA’s nation-specific type bending, the styles were re-defined and mixed with some MMA for Book One:

Featuring:
Sifu Kisu – Traditional Chinese Martial Arts
Mac Danzig and Jeremy Umphries’s Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)
Steve Terada and Jake Huang’s “Tricking” Martial Arts

Book Two has had a different and less fluid look to it thus far. I don’t think they’d go as far as to abandon all animation reference for the battle scenes, but the one “Epic” battle we’ve gotten this season was between Wan and Vaatu and was animated by Studio Mir, so it’s hard to make a call at the moment.

-Da7e-

Teaser!

-Da7e-

Yes.

We were being coy. : )

But because Beginnings showed at NYCC, we kinda know what happens.

-Da7e-

No, it’s not just you.

I keep wanting to bring this up on the podcast, but the Japanese-based animation company Studio Pierrot is handling the majority of this season where as A:TLA and Book One were done by Korean-based animation company Studio Mir. 

Studio Mir is going to be taking over The Beginnings episode, which means the flashback sprit world could be a return to form.

Studio Pierrot simply uses fewer character keyframes, so there isn’t a lot of motion while people are talking. They are a big fan of panning across scenes and switching the blur effect to give the illusion of a focus-pull, but those are movements that don’t involve actually drawing the character again.

So, the dialogue scenes have been missing some dynamic movement, but when it comes to the battles, Studio Pierrot hasn’t shied away from some cool looking bending (Korra using the rope in Civil Wars comes to mind), so it’s hard for me to tell if what we’re looking at is Studio Pierrot having a less-dynamic style or Studio Pierrot working under budget constraints and having to reduce the number of drawings in non-action scenes. 

Anyway. I’m not happy about it, and I’m noticing. Especially last week when everyone was on the docks and NOT MOVING except for their mouths. UUUUUUUGH.

-Da7e-

I think we pointed out that Unalaq line that ended with a focus on Varrick in the podcast! Which just makes me happy that we noticed it. Though it’s still unclear if Unalaq knows or if that’s a camera motion meant to foreshadow just to the audience.

And I think the Mako/Bolin heartbreaker exchange is still totally funny. Mostly because I see Mako and Korra ending up together at the end of the series as a whole, so this just feels like mutually-assured suffering on both sides. 

They’ll grow and learn and kiss again someday.

-Da7e-

Is this the same cartoon that ended in a murder/suicide last season?

-Da7e-

We’re just used to Patches being crazy. : )

-Da7e-

It’s one of the more important quotes of understanding why the US is at war all the time.

And on a side note, my “OR WALT DISNEY” in reference to Varrick got stomped on a bit while we were talking about Nazi Propaganda. Before we demonize Varrick as a villain, war profiteering and propaganda happens on all sides.

What I brought up (but it got kind of smushed in the mix) was Walt Disney’s Victory Through Air Power about how we should build the world’s most advanced air force and keep building lots and lots of bombs.

It’s in the public domain, and if you have about 30 minutes to look at some amazing American propaganda:

-Da7e-