Mako


 * This article is about the character in The Legend of Korra. For the voice actor, see Mako Iwamatsu.

"fire"

- I did what I had to do to survive and protect my little brother.

Mako is a firebender from a multicultural family who grew up on the streets of Republic City as an orphan with his younger brother, Bolin. Mako always wears his signature red scarf that was once his father's, who was murdered along with his mother when he was a boy. He formed a pro-bending team with his brother and Hasook, but eventually Avatar Korra joined the team and took the waterbending position from Hasook. Mako, with the help of his teammates, was able to lead the team to second place in the championship. After the pro-bending matches were over, Mako joined Korra in her efforts to stop the Equalists.

Early life
Mako was born to a multicultural family in Republic City; his father being from the Earth Kingdom and his mother from the Fire Nation, two years before Bolin. When he was eight, Mako witnessed his parents being killed by a firebending mugger, leaving Bolin as his only family and his treasured red scarf as the sole memento of his father. Being the elder brother, he was forced to take on adult responsibilities from that point on, depriving him of the majority of his childhood.

As an orphan, Mako did whatever was necessary in order to survive along with his brother. He often resorted to his firebending to protect himself and Bolin on the streets. Both of them also ran small-time scams during much of their youth. This attitude brought him in contact with the criminal organization known as the Triple Threat Triad, for whom he collected money for bets and ran numbers. Mako even came into close contact with the leader of the triad, Lightning Bolt Zolt, and was able to learn the techniques of lightning generation and redirection from him.

One day in 167 ASC, during Mako's involvement with the Triple Threat Triad, the young firebender and his brother attempted to pull off a scam on an elderly woman. Posing as a thief, he ran toward the woman from behind and grabbed her purse, before leaving her sight by entering a side alley. When Bolin pretended to chase after him and fight, Mako willingly gave the purse to his brother, deceiving the woman into thinking that the young earthbender had stopped a thief. Bolin returned to Mako with a reward of two yuans and a loaf of bread he had stolen from the old woman; after Bolin gave a piece of the loaf to his brother, Mako reminded him that they had not eaten anything the day before.



Later that day, Mako went to the Triple Threat Triad headquarters with his brother and saw Shady Shin bribe Toza, a pro-bender. When Bolin expressed his disappointment about seeing Toza act this way, Mako became upset – Toza should be happy about being paid, Mako opined; after all, there had been no one to mourn for their losses when their parents died and had left them to fend for themselves, and that one must "hustle or be hustled". Afterward, Shin told them that if they did not acquire enough bets to recover the ten thousand yuans given to Toza, he would abandon Mako and Bolin on the streets, after which the two brothers speedily departed.

While the brothers were collecting bets at a pet shop, a fire ferret escaped and was restrained by its owner, Mr. Feng, because it was to be fed to a pythonaconda. Mako stopped Bolin from buying it as they could not afford to feed it, and felt his younger brother needed to toughen up and realize that bigger animals consumed those smaller than them. Mako collected the owner's bet while Bolin talked to Toza about that night's match; the firebender chastised him because he believed that doing so would get them in trouble with Shady Shin. Bolin angrily responded that Mako was being mean and walked away, leaving Mako to sigh.



That night, after Bolin broke into the pet shop to steal the fire ferret, he was strangled by the pythonaconda, but Mako arrived and yanked the snake away. After again criticizing his brother for getting into stupid situations, the two left, but, at Bolin's urging, with the fire ferret whom the earthbender named Pabu. Mako warned Bolin that Pabu's food would come out of half of his money.

After a while, the cooperation between the Triple Threats and the two brothers came to an end. Acknowledging the dangerous nature and moral ambiguity of their past, Mako was determined never to return to that life and explicitly forbade Bolin from associating with the Triple Threats in any way.

Mako and his brother first began competing in the Pro-bending Tournament when a former pro-bender, Toza, discovered them fighting in the streets and acknowledged their potential. Toza taught the brothers pro-bending, offered them a place to live in the attic of the Pro-bending Arena, and let them work odd jobs to pay rent which allowed them to focus on the sport. Mako eventually became the captain of a pro-bending team, the Fire Ferrets, which included his brother and his friend Hasook.

170 ASC


At age eighteen, Mako was trying to qualify with the Fire Ferrets for the Pro-bending Championship. However, when Hasook was a no-show on the last mast, he was forced to allow Korra, a green player, to take the waterbender's place. She eventually managed to help them win the match, and as such, a lasting partnership was formed. When Bolin got kidnapped some time later, he set out with Korra to find him. They tracked him down to an abandoned warehouse where they witnessed first hand Amon's ability to strip a bender of his bending abilities They managed to rescue him before Amon got to Bolin.

Heading for the championship, the team needed funding to play, thus Mako got a job at Republic City Power Plant. When he returned home from work one day, Asami Sato nearly ran him over. To make it up to him, she took him to dinner at Kwong's Cuisine, marking the start of their relationship. Due to this connection, Future Industries took care of the Fire Ferrets' monetary issues by sponsoring the team. The team started to train hard for the Pro-bending Championship, and although they had some hard matches due to internal romantic struggles, they managed to reach the finale. However, after their match against the White Falls Wolfbats ended with their defeat due to cheating of the other team, Amon and his Equalists attacked the Pro-bending Arena, effectively destroying the building and leaving Mako and Bolin homeless. Asami offered them a place to stay, but after Hiroshi Sato was outed as an Equalist, both the bending brothers and Asami moved to live at Air Temple Island with Korra.



To make an insecure Avatar feel better about herself, Mako formed a team with her and the others to actively do something about the Equalists in the city. They were successful, though the team was broken up when an angered Tarrlok arrested Asami, and subsequently Mako and his brother as they came to the girl's defense. He was broken out of jail by Lin Beifong soon after, who alerted them, much to Mako's shock, that Korra had been kidnapped. Together with Tenzin, they all set out on a frantic search for the Avatar, and when they found her again, Mako tenderly took care of her, despite being in a relationship with Asami.



In the aftermath of finding Korra, Amon launched his grand attack on the city. Mako and his friends fought back for a while, but the sheer number and power of the Equalists forced them on the run. The foursome retreated into the tunnel system of the city, where they would await the arrival of reinforcements in the form of General Iroh and his United Forces. Mako and Asami's relationship grew more and more tense as he spent more time with Korra doing reconnaissance work by spying on the Equalists. However, after General Iroh too proved to be no match for the Equalists machines, Mako set out with Korra to confront Amon. After having learned that he truly was a waterbender from the Northern Water Tribe, they eventually found him at the Pro-bending Arena, where he was holding a victory speech. They freed Tenzin and his children, though when they were faced Amon, the Equalist leader managed to take away Korra's bending. When Amon moved to do the same to Mako, the firebender managed to temporarily overpower Amon, and run away with Korra. However, he was stopped by Amon and was on the verge of losing his bending, when Korra saved him with her newly unlocked airbending.

After the Equalists' defeat, Mako traveled to the Southern Water Tribe, hoping that Katara could restore Korra's bending. When it became clear that the old healer was unable to and a heartbroken Korra ran off to grieve on her own, Mako confessed his love to her, though was shot down. Unsure what to do, he followed her and witnessed how she got her bending back, after which she confessed her love for him too and they began their relationship.

Post-revolution
Sometime during the six months following the defeat of Amon and the end of the Anti-bending Revolution, Mako left the Fire Ferrets and became a policeman. Riding his motorcycle, he patrolled the streets of Republic City in order to apprehend criminals. In one instance, he chased a delivery truck with hostile waterbender thieves trying to evade him. After a lengthy chase which included a jump, he utilized a fire blast, which caused the truck to crash and flip over. Mako enjoys his job of chasing down members of the Triple Threat Triad and is aspiring to become a detective for the Republic City Police Department. Mako's romantic relationship with Korra underwent a number of struggles during this time.

Personality


Characteristic of his stoic and brooding personality, Mako is generally aloof and indifferent, though he is not incapable of genuine kindness and a protective demeanor. It is implied that Mako has excellent control over his emotions, as he is able to bend lightning - a technique that requires the user to have a calm and steady mind. He tends to act in a critical and controlling manner, stemming from a life on the streets and a drive to protect his little brother, which forced him to take on adult responsibilities at a young age. In light of the brothers' pasts, he cares deeply for Bolin and is very protective of him. After Mako lost his parents, he was willing to do whatever was required to help him and his brother survive in the rough urban environment of Republic City, even going as far as scamming and working for a notorious criminal organization. Eventually, Mako abandoned these immoral activities, but refused to admit the criminality of his past actions to Korra, as he firmly believed he was only doing what was necessary to survive. Mako has always put the interests of safety and survival ahead of other things, as exemplified by his reluctance to let Bolin keep a fire ferret as a pet, since that would put a strain on their low food consumption. Living on the streets has given him a "hard-edge", though he seems to relax when he is with Bolin, Korra, or Asami, or when he achieves something important. For instance, when Butakha gave him the winnings from their last match, Mako had a large grin on his face.

Going with his hard edge, Mako has a wrathful side to him as well. This is particularly evident when he threatened an Equalist chi blocker when seeking information regarding Korra's whereabouts. This more than likely stems from his fear of abandoning someone close to him due to the loss of his parents to a firebending mugger. His protective attitude toward his younger brother on the street in the years thereafter reflected this side of him as well.

Firebending


Mako has shown considerable skill in the art of firebending, implementing a modern style of fighting that he uses predominantly in the Pro-bending Arena. Critics of the sport note his use of a distinct "cool under fire" technique, which primarily involves a series of defensive weaving and dodging patterns quickly followed by successive spurts of offense, rendering Mako capable of defeating an entire pro-bending team by himself. Outside of pro-bending, Mako demonstrated great skill in traditional firebending combat. He can maintain his fire streams for a period of time for feats such as propelling himself through the air. He can also perform more advanced techniques such as the breath of fire.



Mako is also skilled enough to generate lightning and redirect it, having learned the skills from his former boss, Lightning Bolt Zolt. He has used lightning for a job at a power plant in Republic City and can effectively use it in combat. He is able to generate it quickly with little charging time and no arm movement and is also capable of maintaining the bolt for several seconds. He can also fire it with considerable aim, being able to hit speeding targets and controlling the charge of it to merely stun targets. While fighting several Equalist mecha tanks, Mako redirected the electricity channeled through their metal cables to disable them. When restrained by Amon's bloodbending, he was able to maintain enough focus and calmness of mind to generate lightning and score a direct hit against the Equalist leader. Amon admitted to Mako that he was impressed with his firebending skill, and that it was almost a shame that he would have to remove the bending of "someone so talented".

Other skills


Mako has displayed considerable agility, being capable of both jumping long distances and performing impressive flips, proving himself difficult to hit at a distance. Mako also has considerable raw strength: he effortlessly launched an Equalist agent a great distance, casually carried Bolin over his shoulder, and in anger hoisted an Equalist into the air with a single hand. He can also carry Korra in his arms rather easily and has done so twice: once after she escaped from Amon and Tarrlok and again when her bending was taken away. While under the control of Amon's bloodbending, Mako was able to move his body slightly better than others caught under this technique and managed to aim a bolt of lightning at Amon, something that took the masked man by surprise, considering his great skill in bloodbending. Mako is also shown to be quite level-headed in dire situations, and has quick thinking, which was exhibited when he came up with a plan to save his brother from the Equalists during Amon's revelation.

Mako is also good with maps, as he figured out where the Equalist Rally was located by looking at the maps he and Korra obtained from the Equalist protester. Mako demonstrated his abilities with a map again when he discovered where the Equalist airfield was hidden. He also appears to be at least an adequate cook, preparing meals for himself and Bolin.

Upon becoming a police officer, Mako uses a motorcycle as his vehicle of choice, displaying great skill with maneuvering it over slick terrain, and even incorporating his firebending as a booster to extend the distance of his jumps and to stabilize after a near crash.

Appearances
{{Scroll|

Republic City Hustle

 * "Republic City Hustle: Part 1"
 * "Republic City Hustle: Part 2"
 * "Republic City Hustle: Part 3"

Book Two: Spirits (神靈)
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Trivia

 * Mako is named after the late Mako Iwamatsu, the original voice of Iroh during Book One: Water to Book Two: Earth, as a homage. His name is a shortened form of the Japanese name Makoto (信), meaning "truth" or "faithfulness".
 * The creators commented that Mako reminded them of Zuko, but without the angst.
 * Mako's "cool under fire" style of pro-bending bears similarities to the defensive styles of boxing, and the styles of iconic boxers such as Willie Pep and Muhammad Ali.
 * Mako's dark childhood is similar to that of Sokka, Katara, Jet, Asami Sato and Aang as all six of them have lost family members to firebenders. However, while Katara, Sokka and Asami only lost their mothers, Mako and Jet's parents were murdered right in front of them, though on the other hand, Aang lost his entire people to firebenders while he was sealed in an iceberg. Jet and Mako also both lost their family at age eight.
 * Mako's history is similar to Batman's, in the sense that both of their parents were mugged and murdered in front of them at the age of eight. In addition, David Faustino, Mako's voice actor, has previously worked on an episode of the Batman animated series Batman Beyond, in his second voice-over role as the character Sean Miller.
 * Mako learning pro-bending from Toza and lightning techniques from Lightning Bolt Zolt were both cut out of the show for time saving purposes.
 * Mako seems to show no regret for his powers, even though his parents were killed by a firebender.
 * Mako's scarf is very similar to Katara's necklace in the way that it is the sole memento of a deceased parent, although Mako's scarf came from his father while Katara's necklace came from her mother.
 * He is the first bender shown to stop Amon from taking someone's bending away.
 * Mako has appeared in every episode except "Welcome to Republic City".
 * Mako is the fourth known person to break free of a bloodbender's hold by their own doing, and the first non-waterbender known to have done so.
 * Mako is the only member of the new Team Avatar to have never been seen crying.
 * Mako is similar to Katara in that both have mothers killed by firebenders, a memento of a parent (Mako's father's scarf and Katara's mother's necklace), both also raised their brothers as a parent would do, a personality contradictory to that of their brothers', and are love interests of their current Avatar.
 * Mako is the only named male love interest of an Avatar.