Cobra Kai: The Degeneration of Karate Kid

Growing up, I was a huge Karate Kid fan. And when I mean huge, I mean HUGE! I would watch the first movie over and over again. In my head, the songs from the movie were spinning on repeat.

Sometimes, I imagined myself as the underdog, Daniel-san, being trained by the wise Master Mr. Miyagi. At other time, I wanted to be the bad boy, riding along with Johnny and the gang on their motorcycles. It was a great time to be alive!

The movie itself came out at around the time I was born, and I saw it for the first probably several years later, around the time I was entering first grade, but it always felt fresh in my mind. After all, the 80's were a cool decade, with cool music, and many classic movies. And even in the 90's, as a small kid I could feel the nostalgia.

After having seen the first Karate Kid a gazillion times, imagine my happiness when I discovered that it actually had a sequel. In the second movie, Daniel-san and Mr. Miyagi went back to Okinawa to discover the wise sensei's roots. While it was not as good as the first one, the sequel was pretty decent as well.

I was not a big fan of the third movie, but it did have its moments. I felt some of the plots were over the top, and Daniel-san turned Daniel-whining kid. But OK, still watchable. I also the Next Karate Kid, but that one I kind of discarded from the canon in my head.

Imagine my surprise when a few years ago, I discovered they were going to a series based on the movie. It was titled Cobra Kai, and was taking place 40 years later after the events of the movie.

I binge watched the first season when it came out. I was not the biggest fan of the premise of Johnny being a down-and-out loser, but OK. I had always imagined him as a smart-ass preppy, who would go on to be some sort of a corporate raider or something like that.

However, it was funny. While the original films were gritty action dramas, the series itself was more of a comedy. That's how I took it. I was also not impressed with the level of karate, and some of the stories were a bit over the top.

Being a Karate Kid fan, I binge watched every season of Cobra Kai straight as it came out. And the same thing with Season 5. I have to say, I was hugely disappointed with this season. While I liked the redemption aspects of Johnny, Chozen, and Karate's Bad Boy Mike Barnes becoming good guys, the opposite is true of the way Kreese and Terry Silva were portrayed.

While in the movies both were complex characters, with assholish tendencies, their personalities were believable. Kreese was an intense guy, but his negative side was somehow believable. Terry Silva also passed the test, even though I was not so enamored with the third film.

In the Cobra Kai series, they try to explore the origins of these two characters. And as young guys, they seem likeable, even if the backstory of them doing death duels over pits of snakes is not really believable.

This over-the-topness gets worse as the series continues in subsequent seasons. Kreese and Silva turn into some evil cartoonish villains, with strange plans to take over the world. As if they were Bond villains.

Season 5 was a bit strange. Miguel, one of the new characters, and from the current crop of high schoolers, goes to Mexico to find his dad. He does, but then this entire story arc gets forgotten in a jiffy. Maybe, they will pick it up in the next season, but it felt a bit weird to set this up, and then just abandon it so quickly.

The entire season was a bit over-the-top, and that's a lot say in a series which was a bit over-the-top straight from the beginning. They did throw in some nods to other classic 80's movies like Back to the Future here and there, but overall the season lost its funny bone.

I guess I will continue watching future seasons as well, out of pure nostalgia, but for me there will always be just one Karate Kid. The original movie. Nothing can beat that.