Cobra Kai Season 6 Perfectly Sets Up A Spin-Off For A Beloved Karate Kid Character

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With its dramatic Sekai Taikai tournament, the final three-part season of Netflix's martial arts comedy-drama "Cobra Kai" is proving to be a fittingly epic conclusion to the series. As it happens, however, the "Karate Kid" franchise may yet continue on the small screen once the dust settles. In fact, "Cobra Kai" creators and showrunners Hayden Schlossberg, Josh Heald, and Jon Hurwitz already have a lock on the character they want to explore next — and in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, they revealed that it's none other than the series' centerpiece, Mr. Miyagi.

What's more, the trio has already started working towards the goal of a potential Miyagi prequel series by briefly digitally resurrecting "The Karate Kid" actor Pat Morita with AI on "Cobra Kai," in addition to dropping numerous clues that Miyagi's past might be far more complicated than his prize pupil Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) ever knew. Here's how Schlossberg described the showrunners' decision to include a strong Miyagi storyline in "Cobra Kai" season 6, and how it might lead to a spin-off centered around the character:

"It opens up all these questions about Mr. Miyagi and what his life was like, and that's been something we've been wanting to do for a while. We've talked to Robert Mark Kamen, the writer of the original 'Karate Kid' who based this whole movie off his sensei who studied Okinawan karate; we've been talking about all this Miyagi backstory with him, which helped us with season 6 stuff. Now that we're done, we can actually start getting into this stuff. We've just been focused on 'Cobra Kai' and finishing it off. And right now, we're in the process of editing the last couple episodes. Once that's done, we'll hopefully have some exciting things ..."

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Before "Cobra Kai," Mr. Miyagi's history was explored in the original "Karate Kid" movies. In a nutshell, Naritoshi Miyagi is a WWII veteran who escaped from his native Okinawa after butting heads with his best friend Sato Toguchi over his love for Yukie (characters that are played by Danny Kamekona and Nobu McCarthy in "The Karate Kid Part II," respectively), and later lost his young family in the war before eventually settling in the United States. There, he lived a humble life, tending his garden and practicing Miyagi-Do karate, until the events of 1984's "The Karate Kid" saw him take a student in the form of Daniel, who becomes something of a surrogate son. Mr. Miyagi would thereafter go on to find happiness as part of the extended LaRusso family before passing away in 2011. Oh, and he also trained a teen girl named Julie Pierce (Hilary Swank) during the events of 1994's "The Next Karate Kid."

That abbreviated history, of course, left many years entirely unexamined. "Cobra Kai" season 6 suggests that he spent some of the unaccounted time as a dangerous Sekai Taikai fighter who actually killed a man, and may have been involved in criminal activities. This, it seems, is the crux of the mysterious Miyagi era that the "Cobra Kai" showrunners want to focus on with a prequel series. While nothing is certain until the potential Miyagi series is officially announced (which may not happen until "Cobra Kai" is truly over), it's worth noting the series' creatives have already found a very capable actor to portray the younger iteration of the iconic character. After all, Brian Takahashi ("Outer Range"), who briefly plays Miyagi in a dream sequence from "Cobra Kai" season 6, episode 10, "Eunjangdo," looks a whole lot like a young Pat Morita, and captures the few Miyagi mannerisms he has time to show off unnervingly well.

"Cobra Kai" season 6 part 3 will premiere February 13, 2025, on Netflix.