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Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Blog 10: I have no idea what to write about again

Guess what I'm doing? Writing all of my responses to blogs. Yep. I should have them all done soon. I liked waiting till the last minute so I could comment on all of the best ones.
At least that's what I'll keep telling myself as I write 20 paragraphs of responses.

Watching Legend of Korra now. Maybe I'll talk about that.
I've already talked about the blend of eastern and western animation, and the Avatar series seems to fit in precisely with that. (http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/legend-of-korra-101-full-episode.html) for those who are interested.

Avatar definitely has an eastern feel. The main character is dressed and trained like an eastern monk, and much of the mythology is very similar to eastern themes, even the theme of reincarnation. The fire nation bears many ties to imperial Japan during the Meji period. The story promotes a main character who is contemplative, and the art focuses heavily on a sense of place. Even the art is more eastern based, especially with the eyes.

Legend of Kora strikes me different for many reasons. Although it is a continuation of the series the character shares more in common with American Superheroes as far as ego and will is concerned, and the sense of pacing is a little lost. This is not a bad thing, it is simply a more western thing. Even the art style bears a more western tinge. Cities and statues outweigh natural scenes.

I'm not sure what my animation point is here, maybe that some TV shows are really trying to find out where cultural differences can become similarities.

3 comments:

  1. I'm also at a loss for what to write about, and had considered writing about Legend of Korra as well(but didn't). This stem off series is just too new at the moment for me to really get much analysis into just yet.
    From just the season premiere, I'm thinking I'll like this series just as much (if not more) as the original. Among the differences between the two, the main character Korra has a more brute and forceful personality, which is a characteristic that's in common among most of my favorites. AND she's female! I can never get enough of strong females in any form of entertainment.
    To keep with the Asian theme you pointed out in the original, maybe as Korra continues on we might be able to see connections with the story of Mulan? So far it has the girl that leaves home to help the country/world and fights along side men to achieve her goals. I'd need to actually read translations of the Chinese versions of her story and not just use my knowledge of Disney's version to see any more possible connections than that. Either way, it would be interesting to find out the true inspiration behind her character.

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  2. I need to check out Legend of Korra, which I didn't know had premiered already as I thought that it would premiere in the Fall of 2012 for some reason. Anyway, the Avatar series does a great job of blending some of the Oriental, specifically Chinese, culture into its story and world. A good example of this is shown is the various real world martial arts styles which each of the elemental bending techniques are based off of. This YouTube video is pretty cool in how it explains what I speak of : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iisrUSi7Kgw

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  3. I was super excited to see that they made a new version of Avatar, but I have to admit that I can't help but think about the benders doing tai chi every time they start doing their bending moves. It seems a bit silly to me. The new avatar background scenes however were done quite beautifully.

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