A new Legend of Korra-related webseries has been released by Nickelodeon, giving viewers a glimpse at Mako and Bolin’s hard-luck childhood.
A new short webseries called Republic City Hustle debuted today on Nickeldeon.com. Republic City Hustle serves as a small prequel to The Legend of Korra, focusing on the characters of Mako and Bolin as young orphans trying to survive in Republic City.
The beautiful paper-cut animation style of Republic City Hustle is very distinct from The Legend of Korra‘s visual identity. However, the consistent character design and voice work by Korra‘s David Faustino (Mako) and PJ Byrne (Bolin) – as well as the use of music from season 1 – help Republic City Hustle remain perfectly in tone with the Avatar universe.
Republic City Hustle will be told in three parts, and will continue next week. Check out the first installment right here:
In part one of Republic City Hustle, a young Mako and Bolin make their way on the streets of the cold, hard city by “stealing” and then returning an old woman’s purse, along with a loaf of bread. (In a simultaneously funny and heartbreaking exchange, Bolin exclaims that the bread is much better than what the brothers ate yesterday. “We didn’t eat yesterday!” Mako says. “So much better!” Bolin sighs with a wobbly smile.)
The brothers then witness a gang member bribing the famous pro-bender Toza to throw his match. Though Bolin is saddened by the cheating, Mako insists that, “Life is hard, and you either hustle or be hustled.” Mako and Bolin are then revealed to be working for the criminal, and they must collect bets against Toza if they don’t want to be tossed back out on the street. “Don’t worry bro,” Mako assures a worried Bolin. “We’ll be fine.”
According to The Legend of Korra co-creator Mike DiMartino, Republic City Hustle was written by Tim Hedrick (now a member of the writing staff of The Legend of Korra) and was designed by Evon Freeman. It’s always exciting to see new material from the show’s creative team, and we can’t wait to see what the next installments of Republic City Hustle have in store.