tek's rating: ½

Republic City Hustle (originally on nick.com)
Wikia

This three-webisode miniseries was released on Nick.com in August 2013, the month before Book Two of The Legend of Korra premiered. However, I guess I wasn't aware of that until I saw the first webisode as a bonus feature on the Book Four DVD, in 2016. (The Blu-ray has all three webisodes, but since I only got the DVD, I'd have to watch parts 2 and 3 online... which is how they're meant to be seen, anyway.) Each webisode is just about three minutes long, and the webseries features simpler animation than TV series, but the voice actors from the show also do the voices in the webseries. It's set a few years prior to the show, and focuses on Mako and Bolin engaging in petty crime, to survive on the streets after being orphaned. In part 1, we learn that they're working for the Triple Threat Triad. Their boss, Shady Shin, pays a pro bender named Toza to throw an upcoming match. In part 2, Shin sends Mako and Bolin out to collect bets, in order to make his payoff pay off. One guy who makes a bet has a fire ferret he's planning to feed to a pythonaconda, so Bolin later returns to break the ferret out of the shop, and names him Pabu. In part 3, we see Toza's pro bending match, and the aftermath, which leads to Mako and Bolin quitting the triad to start training to become pro benders, themselves. Anyway, it's a fairly amusing little story, and it's nice to see a bit of what Mako and Bolin's life was like before they met Korra.