The series' final scene, intended to depict the beginning of a same-sex romance between Korra and Asami Sato, was unprecedented at the time and has been credited with paving the way for LGBT representation in children's television.

Nickelodeon declined the creators' pitch for an Avatar: The Last Airbender follow-up animated film based on what then became the three-part comics The Promise, The Search and The Rift, choosing instead to expand Korra to 26 episodes.

The 1920s-inspired metropolis is described as "if Manhattan had happened in Asia" by the series' creators,[7] and its residents are united by their passion for "pro-bending", a spectator sport in which two teams composed of an earthbender, waterbender, and firebender throw each other out of a ring using bending techniques.

Rapid technological growth has displaced the spirituality of bending, and what was considered a renowned martial art in Avatar: The Last Airbender is now commonplace, with benders in Republic City using their abilities to commit crime, compete in spectator sports, and fulfill everyday jobs.

[3] The other main characters are the airbending master Tenzin, one of Aang's grown children (J. K. Simmons), and his family, which include his wife Pema (Maria Bamford) and their daughters Jinora (Kiernan Shipka) and Ikki (Darcy Rose Byrnes) and sons Meelo (Logan Wells) and Rohan.

Book 2 also introduces John Michael Higgins as the corrupt businessman and inventor Varrick, with Stephanie Sheh voicing his assistant Zhu Li, along with Korra's uncle Unalaq (Adrian LaTourelle), aided by his twin children Desna (Aaron Himelstein) and Eska (Aubrey Plaza), and Vaatu (Jonathan Adams), the spirit of disorder.

Set six months after the events of the first season, Book Two: Spirits sees Mako as a police officer, Asami in charge of Future Industries, and Bolin leading a new pro-bending team with little success.

The anarchist antagonists introduced in Book Three: Change, the Red Lotus, comprise the new airbender Zaheer (Henry Rollins), the armless waterbender Ming-Hua (Grey DeLisle, who previously voiced a dark spirit),[25] the combustionbender P'Li (Kristy Wu), and the lavabender Ghazan (Peter Giles).

New airbenders are also introduced in the season including the young thief Kai (Skyler Brigmann) and Suyin's daughter Opal (Alyson Stoner), both of Earth Kingdom origins and the love interests of Jinora and Bolin respectively.

The cast is also joined by Sunil Malhotra as Prince Wu, the vain heir to the Earth Kingdom throne, and Todd Haberkorn as Baatar Jr., Suyin's estranged son who is Kuvira's fiancé and second-in-command.

[34][35] Tentatively titled Avatar: Legend of Korra at the time, it was intended to be a twelve-episode[36] mini series set in the same fictional universe as the original show,[35] but seventy years later.

[41] Joaquim Dos Santos and Ryu Ki-Hyun, who worked on the animation and design of the original series, also became involved with creating The Legend of Korra, as is storyboarder Ian Graham.

[49][50][51] Concerning the development of the much-discussed final scene intended to show the friends Korra and Asami becoming a romantic couple, Bryan Konietzko explained that at first he and DiMartino did not give the idea much weight, assuming they would not be able to get approval for portraying their relationship.

For The Legend of Korra, Zuckerman is the sole composer while Wynn is the lead sound designer; the two collaborate with Foley artist Aran Tanchum and showrunner Mike DiMartino on the soundscape of the series.

[62] The Escapist compared The Legend of Korra to Firefly as "a Friday night genre series with a loyal fan following built up from previous works by the creators that is taken off the air after the network fails to advertise it properly or broadcast episodes in a logical manner.

[44] After declining TV ratings in the third season, Nickelodeon stopped airing the series on its main network and shifted its distribution to sister channel, Nicktoons and online outlets.

[91][92] David Hinckley of the New York Daily News wrote that the "visually striking" series is "full of little tricks and nuances that only true fans will notice and savor, but nothing prevents civilians from enjoying it as well.

"[93] Writing for Vulture, Matt Patches highlighted the second season's loose, handheld-style cinematography—challenging for an animated series—and the "weird, wonderful", wildly imagined spirits fought by Korra; "a Kaiju parade with beasts that mirror velociraptors".

Club, characterized it as a "truly magnificent season of television, delivering loads of character development, world building, socio-political commentary, and heart-racing action, all presented with beautifully smooth animation and impeccable voice acting".

[96] Before the first season's finale, Scott Thill of Wired hailed The Legend of Korra as "the smartest cartoon on TV," able to address adults' spiritual and sociopolitical concerns while presenting an "alternately riveting and hilarious ride packed with fantasy naturalism, steampunk grandeur, kinetic conflicts, sci-fi weaponry and self-aware comedy.

"[97] In The Atlantic, Julie Beck characterized the series as "some of the highest quality fantasy of our time", appreciating it for combining nuanced social commentary with Avatar: The Last Airbender's "warmth, whimsy, and self-referential wit".

[100] Covering the third season, Scott Thill at Salon described Korra as one of the toughest, most complex female characters on TV, despite being in a cartoon, and considered that the "surreal, lovely sequel" to Avatar "lastingly and accessibly critiques power, gender, extinction, spirit and more — all wrapped up in a kinetic 'toon as lyrical and expansive as anything dreamt up by Hayao Miyazaki or George Lucas".

"[104] Beck wrote that The Legend of Korra used magic to illustrate "the growing pains of a modernizing world seeing the rise of technology and capitalism, and taking halting, jerky steps toward self-governance", while portraying no side of the conflict as entirely flawless.

And, Hoffman wrote, by showing Korra to suffer from "full-on depression" at the end of the third season, and devoting much of the fourth to her recovery, the series helped normalize mental health issues, a theme generally unaddressed in children's television, which made them less oppressive for the viewers.

[107] Summing up Book Four, Joanna Robinson for Vanity Fair described it as "the most subversive television event of the year", noting how much of the season and series pushed the boundaries of what is nominally children's television by "breaking racial, sexual, and political ground": It featured a dark-skinned female lead character as well as a bevy of diverse female characters of all ages, focused on challenging issues such as weapons of mass destruction, PTSD and fascism, and was infused with an Eastern spirituality based on tenets such as balance and mindfulness.

Club noted that the series had "consistently delivered captivating female figures"; he considered it to be first and foremost about women, and about how they relate to each other "as friends, family, and rivals in romance and politics".

"[116] The Washington Post and Vulture have since credited The Legend of Korra with changing the landscape of LGBT representation in western animated children's cartoons, paving the way for more overt queer content in shows such as Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

Club and io9 noted that the live-action TV series Warrior, for which NBC ordered a pilot in early 2015, has a premise almost identical to that of The Legend of Korra: It is to be about "a damaged heroine" who "works undercover with physical and spiritual guidance from a mysterious martial arts master to bring down an international crime lord" in a "contemporary multicultural and sometimes magical milieu".

[142] In March 2013, PixelDrip Gallery organized a Legend of Korra fan art exhibition in Los Angeles with the support of the series's creators, and later published a documentary video about it.

[153] In 2013, before the premiere of Book Two: Spirits, Nickelodeon released three animated short videos online titled Republic City Hustle that cover part of the lives of Mako and Bolin as street hustlers before the events of the first season.