The Popular Netflix series “Cobra Kai” has proven to be a successful sequel series to the “Karate Kid” film franchise, with five seasons fully released, and the first half of season six recently premiering.
It should be noted that this series has obviously come a long way since its initial YouTube TV premiere in 2018, as Netflix bought the rights to have the show on its streaming platform and have future seasons premiere on it.
This move of the show to Netflix meant a different direction for the show. The show started off being centered around Miguel Diaz, a high school teenager having a rough life, and his karate sensei, Johnny Lawrence, who after being beaten by Daniel LaRusso in the first Karate Kid movie, still has yet to recover from the embarrassment over thirty years later and is now a poor loser who’s life is going nowhere.
Johnny brings back the Cobra Kai Dojo, the dojo he was a major part of, and ends up competing dojos with Daniel LaRusso, who brings back his old sensei’s dojo too, Miyagi-Do.
Now, the show is really centered around a countless cast of characters built off of throughout the series, stretching the plots of each episode to a point where they are just plain unrealistic, which is a noticeable change of pace to how the show started off, and it is really displayed to us in its later seasons.
To start off, it is very crucial to mention that this show has always been really entertaining, especially excelling with its fight scenes, which in my opinion, has improved throughout the show’s run. Episodes continuously have me on the edge of my seat, anxiously anticipating for the next episode. The drama factor in this show is very prominent and really helps build out the story of each episode. However, this comes with a negative side, too.
The drama gets a little bit too excessive and unrealistic, to the point where I feel like I am watching a Disney Channel or Nickelodeon sitcom.
Yes, this is inevitable to happen as it is centered around high schoolers, but not only them, but the adults too, are really overly dramatic and make a big deal out of the smallest of things, even if it’s a small misunderstanding. This leads to multiple breakups and friendships ending that just leave you frustrated.
Another thing that is very annoyingly prominent in the show is that everybody seems to go a bit overboard with karate, making it center around their entire lives which just is not realistic to real high school. For example, we see John Kreese, Johnny’s former karate sensei from when he was a teenager, get framed and arrested just so his old karate pal from the sequel movies, Terry Silver, can take control of the dojo.
The next season proceeds with Kreese breaking out of prison. Being on the run in season six, he refuges to a Korean to recruit new students for the Sekai Tekai, the biggest karate tournament in the world, which is also where now friends, Johnny and Daniel’s dojo that they combined, “Eagle Fang,” will enter as well.
This is all very excessive just for karate for teens. Kreese even goes to the next level where he gets bitten by a cobra in a cave to find his true purpose for his karate passion. Afterwards, he proceeds to kill it with his bare hands. He also seems to compare karate to war a lot, making his students train as if they were fighting for their future lives, which again, is just a bit overboard for something as small as karate.
While Cobra Kai remains an entertaining watch, the shift from its original tone to increasingly dramatic and unrealistic plotlines may leave some fans longing for the more grounded and relatable storytelling of its earlier seasons. The series’ evolution from a compelling drama to a melodramatic spectacle reflects a broader trend in entertainment where high stakes sometimes overshadow the original charm that made a show stand out.