By Reanna Fogelman
Cobra Kai is a karate show released on May 2, 2018, by director Hayden Schlossberg, Jon Hurwitz, and Josh Heald. Cobra Kai takes place 35 years after the original film The Karate Kid and is a direct sequel to the movie where kids learn how to fight.
In 1984, the All Valley Tournament was a tournament where the best of the best karate fighters fought. The two main characters, Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence — played by Ralph Macchio and William Zabka — have different dojos.
LaRusso and Lawrence are two characters who create immaculate dojos for kids who want to learn how to fight. These characters spent long months preparing these kids for the battle to see who is the best in the California Valley.
LaRusso runs Miyagi-Do, an inheritance from his ancestor, Mr. Miyagi or Shimpo Miyagi. He teaches the kids how to fight that way with specific defense mechanisms and lets the legend of Miyagi-Do live on. Lawrence runs Cobra Kai with Kreese, where they try to make these kids the best of the best. Kreese would train the kids to fight dirty, which was bad, and within time in the seasons, this is what Cobra Kai did to win the tournaments.
One mechanism that Cobra Kai would teach the kids to use to fight was punching right in the chest that would knock out people, a move that is illegal and wrong. Therefore, from time on, Kreese started to run Cobra Kai, then Terry Silver, and so forth.
Lawrence eventually opened up his little dojo called Eagle Fang. Lawrence reopened Cobra Kai to get payback with his rival Daniel LaRusso. Back in time, they were friends and lost friendship when LaRusso beat Lawrence.
Season six of Cobra Kai was released on July 18, 2024, where three parts of five episodes were released, and the second part was released on Nov. 15, 2024.
“Mainly the action and drama, I thought all that stuff was cool,” said Nicolette Maietta, junior criminal justice major at The University of Tampa. “I also like the whole character development and fatherhood aspect of it, and also it’s connected to the Karate Kid movies so that was a nice little throwback.”
“I like Johnny Lawrence. He was the main protagonist, and he was also seen in The Karate Kid as well, and I like him because he’s badass and great at fighting and also has a nice backstory,” said Maietta. “I actually really liked how the fight scenes were filmed. I thought they were really cool. They could’ve been a bit more realistic. But besides that, I don’t really have any complaints.”
Maietta likes the way the show was filmed. This is one of her top shows.
“I myself did jujutsu, tae kwon do, and wrestling, which was also one of the reasons why I wanted to watch the show so bad along with the great music that they play, but it was really a different experience for someone like me watching it because I felt it was a bit more relatable and made it 10 times more interesting for me,” said Maietta.
“Oh god, I barely remember it.” said David Dubin, a senior economics major at UTampa. “I think the first season came out like 3 or 4 years ago, lemme think. What drew me in was the energy and the storyline and also that I’ve seen the original movie. And Miguel I like a lot. I think that’s probably the character I like the most because he’s supposed to portray the original.”
“I thought the fight scenes were some of the best I’ve seen and they were very in-depth and creative,” said Dubin. “I definitely think the show has an impact on people who are interested in martial arts, it has had an outreach to a huge amount of people, and it has a great storyline, and I think both of those would help get people interested.”
Dubin likes the way the show was portrayed as a way to compare it to the original.
“[I] saw it was popular on YouTube and then moved to Netflix, and I heard a lot of people saying it was good,” said Vinny Chiaravalle, a senior marketing major at UTampa. “I like the kid with the mohawk the most. I think he was funny and has a good arc.”
Chiaravalle has enjoyed the show from when he first started watching it until now.
“I thought the fight scenes were choreographed really well, you can tell the actors put a lot of effort into it,” said Chiaravalle. “I don’t think this show has an impact on people who want to do martial arts. I think the show is solely for entertainment.”