The Legend of Korra: Welcome to Republic City

The Legend of Korra: Welcome to Republic City
Nickelodeon
April 14, 2012
Cartoon, Action, Sci-Fi, Fantasy
DVD
B

Regular voice cast:

• Carlos Alazraqui as Protestor, Tonraq, and Ruffled Police Officer
• Dee Bradley Baker (who did voices for Adventure Time and Blaze and the Monster Machines) as Naga, Oogi, and Additional Voices
• Maria Bamford (who worked on Adventure Time for eight years) as Pema 
• Steve Blum as Amon
• Darcy Rose Byrnes as Ikki and Additional Voices
• Richard Epcar as Saikhan and Two Toed Ping
• Lance Henriksen as Lieutenant
• Alex McKenna as Senna
• 87-year-old Eva Marie Saint as Katara
• Kiernan Shipka as Jinora
• J. K. Simmons as Tenzin and Additional Voices
• Mindy Sterling (Frau Farbissina in the Austin Powers movies) as Lin Beifong
• Janet Varney as Korra
• Logan Wells as Meelo

Also, Stephen Root and Michael Yurchak would once more play respectively Hobo and Viper, while Amy Hill does Additional Voices here and would later be an Air Acolyte.  Cora Baker would once more voice Young Korra.  Dave Thomas, then 62, wouldn't appear on any other episodes, but I'm tagging him anyway.

This is the first episode of the sequel series to Avatar: The Last Air Bender, which I enjoyed the little I saw of.  I think this stands on its own, although perhaps regular ALAB viewers would get more out of it.  And I don't think it's only that the previous show I watched, Legend of the Dragon, was so subpar that this one feels superior in every regard, from character design and world design to plot and humor.  I was a bit reminded of Zootopia, with the heroic young female character leaving the country (here the South Pole) to go to the wondrous big city, where she finds that things are more complex than her sheltered upbringing told her.  I almost went with a B+, but I felt like the beginning was a little slow, even with the prologue.  (Like in Zootopia, we first meet Korra when she's a kick-ass little girl.)  I've got my fingers crossed that I can finally make it to the double digits on a series again, which I haven't managed since Hiccups, a program I was ambivalent about.