History Characters / TheKarateKidDanielLaRusso

* ManlyManAndSensitiveGuy: While both are skilled karate masters, Johnny is the manly man to Daniel's sensitive guy.

* PapaWolf: Daniel is fiercely protective of his daughter Sam, especially in the Season 2 finale, when he realizes that she was drunk and spent the night at Johnny's apartment. He's also fiercely protective of his students (yet another thing he has in common with Johnny) and goes marching into Cobra Kai to fight Kreese when he finds out that Kreese's students attacked his Miyagi-Do students in the [=LaRusso=] house.
--> '''Daniel:''' Keep your Cobra Kai students ''away from our kids!''

* RedOniBlueOni: Johnny's headstrong and reckless Red Oni and Daniel's level-headed and rational Blue Oni.

* SlobsVersusSnobs: Johnny's a scruffy, boorish and lazy Slob and Daniel's an affluent, cultured, diligent Snob.

* PutOnABus: Doesn't appear in ''The Next Karate Kid''. TheBusCameBack in Series/CobraKai.

* RageBreakingPoint: In the Season 3 finale, Daniel has finally had enough of Kreese’s bullshit and beats the crap out of him for all he’s done.
-->'''Daniel:''' ''[after kicking Kreese off of Johnny]'' '''''YOU SENT THEM TO MY HOUSE?!''''' You came after my daughter?! You wanted a fight you son of a bitch, '''NOW YOU GOT ONE!'''

* AppealToFamilialWisdom: 99% of all life advice Daniel offers has him first citing Mr. Miyagi, to the point where it's practically a {{catchphrase}}.

* {{Catchphrase}}: Anything to do with "balance". Also [[AppealToFamilialWisdom "Mr. Miyagi always said..."]]

** Amanda ignores Daniel's claims about Kreese because she's seen that Johnny is a fairly level-headed adult and knows Daniel has exaggerated his stories about most things related to Cobra Kai (and Daniel is strongly implied to have never told her anything about his experiences with Terry Silver). It's only in Season 3 after Demetri gets his arm broken and Sam has a meltdown that she realizes that in this case, Daniel ''wasn't'' exaggerating how horrible Kreese is.

* TemporarilyAVillain: Considers his time training under Terry Silver this and uses it to convince his students to be more forgiving of the former Cobra Kai's since anyone can fall under a corrupting influence.

** He also gets this from seeing (or even thinking about) his other rivals, Chozen Toguchi and Mike Barnes, who were clearly much more vicious than Johnny when it came to bullying him in ''Film/TheKarateKid'' trilogy. Daniel has nothing but fear and anxiousness when Chozen calls him out in the bar at Okinawa (after Kumiko secretly invites him), followed by flashbacks of Chozen viciously beating Daniel and threatening to kill him. Daniel becomes hate filled when he thinking of Mike Barnes after Chozen suggests Daniel to reach out to a potential old friend of Terry Silver. All of this becomes moot when they both revealed themselves to have changed for the better, and are on cordial terms with him.

** Gets his worst one in Season 5. [[spoiler:After getting goaded into ruining a social opportunity for Amanda, she leaves and takes the kids with her after finally having enough of the Karate War. He decides to [[DrowningMySorrows drink himself to hell]] and is quite clearly not in his right mind for a while. He re-rights himself a bit after visiting Johnny, who sets him straight... before Silver beats him to a bloody pulp, which mentally breaks him further. While Amanda does come back and is wholly supportive of him, alongside Chozen, Sam, Anthony and Johnny, it takes him quite a while to break out of his depression and submission.]]

** Gets his worst one in Season 5. [[spoiler:After getting goaded into ruining a social opportunity for Amanda, she leaves and takes the kids with her after finally having enough of the Karate War. He decides to [[DrowningMySorrows drink himself to hell]] and is quite clearly not in his right mind for a while. He re-rights himself a bit after visiting Johnny, who sets him straight... before Silver beats him to a bloody pulp, which mentally breaks him further. While Amanda does come back and is wholly supportive of him, alongside Chozen, Sam and Johnny, it takes him quite a while to break out of his depression and submission.]]

!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/RalphMacchio