History CobraKai / TropesAToH

** Terry Silver in both story and meta senses. In a meta sense, the show comes up with plausible explanations to Silver's improbable behavior in KK3, particularly that he was using a very 80's substance. In story, Silver appears to have indeed cleaned up his act in the intervening years. Unfortunately, Silver's character development was catastrophically un-developed when Kreese came back into his world.

*** The All-Valley has several of these. First, the major fighters against the nameless extras, particularly in the qualifying rounds (Miguel vs. Post, Demetri vs. Robson). Then, Eli gives an absolutely embarrassing one to Kyler, shutting him out 3-0 in quick succession. Tory breezes through Devon rather easily (though this might be mitigated given the ref advantage from Silver), it takes Sam adopting Johnny’s style to give one to Piper, and Robby delivers an absolutely brutal one to Kenny when Kreese gives him a pep talk. Sam and Tory easily demolish their semifinals’ opponents prior to their epic fight, same goes with Robby against Demetri despite the latter making him work a little.

*** Tory's sparring match against Miguel. Miguel was easily able to subdue Tory, but a few surprise attacks and unexpected take-downs from Tory was enough to impress Johnny and Kreese.

* DeconReconSwitch: The series takes a more realistic look at the original Karate Kid's moments and ideas for good and bad. For all the negative consquences and dismissal that Johnny and Daniel experience through the revival of Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do throughout the valley, they still manage to have a positive effect on the lives of the future generation, using karate to teach lost and weak-willed people to stand up for themselves and gain genuine strength both physically and mentally.

** The series looks at the typical bully character in [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties 80s]] teen movies (of which Johnny is considered one of the archetypal examples) and explores both what would have created such a person, and what would happen to them in the future. It's shown that Johnny was once a sweet kid, but with a [[DarkAndTroubledPast miserable home life]], where his stepfather alternated between criticizing and ignoring him. John Kreese was even more abusive (emotionally ''and'' physically), but at least gave Johnny attention and encouragement, causing Johnny to embrace his aggressive and violent worldview.[[note]]Interestingly, William Zabka apparently developed the basics of this backstory to guide his performance in the original film[[/note]] All of this caused him to peak in high school, leaving him with an attitude that doesn't work in the adult world, and an endless nostalgia for his youth. He ends up a miserable, alcoholic manchild in his 50's with neither a stable career nor family life. [[spoiler: And even when he tries to use his karate skills to build a stable life, his toxic conditioning continues to cause problems. As shown with [[ProtagonistJourneyToVillain how his students turn out]] by the end of Season 1]].

** In Season 2, Tory and Sam develop an animosity towards each other, mainly from Tory feeling jealous that Miguel still has feelings for her. It culminates in the season finale, where she publicly calls her out to a brawl after seeing Sam and Miguel kiss.

** Daniel is drinking a cup of coffee in his kitchen when he looks out of the window and sees Johnny standing in his backyard obviously pissed off, and the shock causes him to drop the cup which shatters on the kitchen floor.
** In Sam's nightmare at the start of Season 3 episode 7, she is shown practicing at Miyagi-Do alone, and drops her water bottle at the appearance of Tory in the backyard.

** When Sam is trying to fit in with the popular clique in season 1, she wears her hair loose and also pays a lot of attention to it. In season 2, she pulls her hair back more often, both because she's training again and because she's more humble now that she's not focused on being one of the popular kids. In season 3, while she's dealing with PTSD, her hair is very messy, as if she hasn't been taking much care of it, but once she gets through her fear of Tory and reconnects with Miguel, she begins taking more care in styling her hair.

** Notice the reactions from Cobra Kai's top four students (Robby, Tory, Kyler, Kenny) when Terry Silver makes his grand re-introduction as Cobra Kai co-sensei. Kyler and Kenny are smiling admirably when Kreese introduces another sensei to help them prepare for the All-Valley, whereas Robby and Tory look at each other with curiosity and uncertainty, perhaps regarding Silver himself. By the end of the Season 4 and throughout Season 5, Kenny and Kyler gleefully go along with Silver as part of his campaign in taking over the valley with a franchise of dojos, whereas Robby and Tory eventually become disillusioned from Cobra Kai due to Terry's corrupting influence.

** Season 4 shows Anthony [=LaRusso=] running with such a group bullying Kenny (though it's really Zack Thompson calling the shots). Season 5 reverses this with Kenny leading his own group of Cobra Kais (Kyler, Big Red, Edwin, Dieter) bullying Anthony, as well as hassling the Miyagi-Fangs.

* FiveManBand: Very well established with their core students in the reformed Miyagi-Fangs.
** TheLeader / TheHero: Miguel Diaz, being arguably their best fighter and the one who rallies the rest of his teammates — explicitly shown when he has them "Protect the Egg" (Anthony [=LaRusso=] and the iPad) in the FinalBattle at Terry Silver's Flagship Cobra Kai dojo.
** TheLancer: Robby Keene, being Miguel's ultimate {{Foil}}, former rival and the most recent defect from Cobra Kai at the start of the season. He re-joins Miyagi-Do to atone for his mistakes and tries to get his former Cobra Kai teammates (particularly Kenny) to do the same.
** TheBigGuy: Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz, being the recent All-Valley champ and the male representative of the Sekai Taikai qualifier who still show signs of a FightMagnet (particularly with Kenny and Kyler), despite embracing more of Miyagi-Do's teachings. He's still a GeniusBruiser when he helps Demetri hack the server in Silver's flagship dojo in the FinalBattle.
** TheSmartGuy: Demetri Alexopolous, still as a pop-cultured geek who takes his other talents with tech to the next level by working as a Tech Town employee and using his experience to hack the server's in Silver's flagship dojo.
** TheSmurfettePrinciple: For the vast majority of the season at least. Samantha [=LaRusso=] is the ActionGirl who plays a critical role in having the Miyagi-Fangs qualify for the Sekai Taikai by defeating Devon Lee in the exhibition bout.
** Since Tory Nichols joins the Miyagi-Fangs (albeit tangentially) in the season finale close to the FinalBattle, she would be considered as the SixthRanger.

*** [[HiddenDepths Stingray]], the shows comic relief, shows what he is ''really capable of'' by brutally defeating nameless Miyagi-Do students in the school fight with little to no effort.

* ForWantOfANail: The entire premise of the show depends on the absence of Mr. Miyagi. If he'd been present, it's extremely likely he would have been able to prevent the reigniting of Daniel and Johnny's rivalry and all the consequences of this.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Daniel and Johnny's [[spoiler:conversation early in season 4 about splitting up their dojos, with all of their talk about "telling the kids", plays strongly like a couple planning to tell their children about their divorce.]]

* DontYouDarePityMe: Even when he's down and out, Johnny would sooner die on the street than accept money from his dickish stepfather. Aisha wants none of Sam's sympathy after she was beaten at the All Valley tournament, although they still managed to reconcile with one another.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Terry Silver. Silver is a fairly common Ashkenazi Jewish surname. Sensei Rosenthal of Topanga Karate mentions that he and Terry brokered a deal while both were, "...attending Shabbat service." Silver even sends Sensei Rosenthal off with the traditional Jewish salutation, "Shalom".

** Season 4 continues down this trend, but with a less sympathetic light compared to Season 3. Many of the adult characters mean well, but personal egos and personality flaws prevent them from being as helpful as they would like to be. It is averted in one case however with [[spoiler:Amanda, who is able to help Tory finally start to come around by simply being there for her and consistently offering help and support, without bringing karate into the picture.]]

** Many bullies or people who are angry and cruel didn't become that way overnight but as a way to survive bad stuff that happened to them and the only way they can meaningfully change is through real help and better guidance as well as taking responsibility. Part of ending the rift between Sam and Tory involves Sam realizing that Tory, for all her flaws, has had a genuinely very hard life and becoming more sympathetic and Tory learning to accept help from Amanda and others while Kreese serves as an example of someone who never got the help he needed and whose bad impulses were reaffirmed over the years. And Robbie, Kenny and Tory's arcs and falling into Kreese and Silver's hands show that if people, especially young people, don't get help and guidance from a good source, they will get it from someone else, someone who isn't necessarily pointing them in the right direction or have their best interest at heart.

** [[spoiler: Tory]] was very interested in the secondhand Miyagi-Do techniques [[spoiler:Robby brought to Cobra Kai, in the interests of closing the skill gap with Sam and finally beating her fair and square. Not conincidentally, this coincides with Tory getting genuine, non-karate-related help from Amanda, making Tory a much more balanced fighter and person. Silver bribed the ref to ensure Cobra Kai won, but Tory and Sam's fight was the most even one they've had yet, and Tory very nearly won legimately.]]

** Season 4 also ends like this, though it only barely avoids DownerEnding this time around. [[spoiler:Cobra Kai wins the Grand Championship at the All Valley thanks to Tory's victory over Sam, thus Daniel and Johnny are no longer allowed to teach karate and this will allow Cobra Kai to expand. Miguel, who almost reaggravated his GameBreakingInjury ends up running off to Mexico to find his father after the stress of the season has built up with his relationships with Johnny, Sam and Carmen come to a head. Kenny is completely corrupted by Cobra Kai, and Terry Silver has gone 100% off the deep end, getting Kreese arrested and taking over Cobra Kai completely. Tory also finds out that Silver paid off the ref so her victory is tainted. However, Robby realizes how far he's fallen and has reconciled with Johnny, Tory seems to be coming around after getting a lot of help from Amanda, Eli has found some inner peace and won the All Valley in the boys' division, finally beating Robby, and Daniel enacts some LoopholeAbuse to have Chozen take over teaching Miyagi-Do.]]

* BoyfriendBlockingDad: Daniel has shades of this when he asks his daughter Sam if there are any guys she knows he should be worried about. He also tries to make his daughter promise she will stay away from anyone who's a member of the Cobra Kai dojo. [[WomenAreWiser His wife Amanda has to be a more calming voice for Daniel]], who just wants to fix things. Daniel is proven right on a lot of Sam's bad choices (like Kyler), but she has to learn that first hand. While Sam has to prove her dad wrong about Cobra Kai.

** Daniel comes off this way when he uses his influence to increase the rent on the strip mall where the Cobra Kai dojo is located in the hopes of driving Johnny out of business. He at least has the decency to realize that he's becoming unbalanced after Amanda [[WhatTheHellHero calls him out on it]], although this does nothing to help the people hurt by his actions. (It's worth mentioning that because of laws passed in the 1960s, when UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan was governor of California, just ''becoming'' a car dealer in Southern California requires, at ''minimum,'' shades of this through territorial exclusivity)

** After joining Cobra Kai, Eli flips the script, shaves the sides of his head and styles the middle into a blue mohawk, taking on the nickname Hawk. Hawk dyes it red partway into Season 2 [[RedIsViolent to signify his increased aggression and brutality]] (even changing the color of his tattoo's mohawk to complement it). Hawk [[spoiler:has his mohawk forcefully shaved off by Cobra Kai in an act of revenge. This kills his confidence for the majority of the season and returns him most of the way to his ShrinkingViolet persona. He eventually gets over it after Moon gives him back his confidence with a passionate kiss that reaches its peak by defeating Kyler and Robby en route to the All-Valley Boys' championship. Season 5 has him re-grow his hair and puts Hawk back to the confident persona he was early on in the show (albeit this time with more humility.]]

** Robby is introduced with longer hair and keeps it throughout his entire tenure as Miyagi-Do's star male pupil. Then after he kicks Miguel off the balcony, he cuts his hair short as a means to escape the police, and eventually styles it upward while in juvie; he keeps it during his tenure as Cobra Kai's star male pupil, and eventually as he goes back to Miyagi-Do.
** Miguel's hair takes on a pompadour during his "bad boy" phase. Miguel wears his hair in a far messier way and loose in Season 4, reflecting his deteriorating mental state over the course of the season.
** When Sam is trying to fit in with the popular kids in season 1, she wears her hair loose and also pays a lot of attention to it. In season 2, she pulls her hair back more often, both because she's training again and because she's more humble now that she's not focused on being one of the popular kids. In season 3, while she's dealing with PTSD, her hair is very messy, as if she hasn't been taking much care of it, but once she gets through her fear of Tory and reconnects with Miguel, she begins taking more care in styling her hair.
** When Silver is re-introduced, his hair (while still long) is unkempt, and he has revealed to completely move on from Cobra Kai and living a mindful, peaceful life after years long of therapy and self-rebuild. Then when Kreese comes back to his life, pushes his [=PTSD=] buttons via Vietnam War flashbacks, and successfully convinces him to re-join Cobra Kai, he reverts back to the diabolical mastermind he was in ''Part II'', signified with the return of his iconic ponytail.

** [[spoiler:Before getting into an argument with Kreese, Silver is reading "Leviathan" by Thomas Hobbes, a book about a sovereign being given power in exchange for security and peace. Silver gets Cobra Kai on his side with new, fancy uniforms, a car rental for Tory and Robby, faux subordination for Kreese and plans to expand Cobra Kai to new areas. By the end of the season, he takes over the entire thing. He was planning on stabbing Kreese in the back the entire time.]]

** Notice the reactions from Cobra Kai's top four students (Robby, Tory, Kyler, Kenny) when Terry Silver makes his grand re-introduction as Cobra Kai co-sensei. Kyler and Kenny are smiling admirably when Kreese introduces another sensei to help them prepare for the All-Valley, whereas Robby and Tory look at each other with curiosity and uncertainty perhaps regarding Silver himself. By the end of the Season 4 and throughout Season 5, Kenny and Kyler gleefully go along with Silver as part of his campaign in taking over the valley with a franchise of dojos, whereas Robby and Tory eventually become disillusioned from Cobra Kai due to Terry's corrupting influence.

** [[spoiler:A good chunk of Mitch's appearances are signs that he's going to betray all the Miyagi-Fangs into rejoining Cobra Kai]]. Bert, Nate, and Chris finding Mitch hanging near a Cobra Kai tabling event eating [[ProductPlacement Jack Links Jerky]] provided by said dojo. During the Pizza Party at the [=LaRusso's=], Mitch complains that the Miyagi-Fangs don't have enough students, to which Bert rebuffs him off. At the Sekai-Taikai qualifier in Terry's flagship dojo, Mitch is openly envious that the dojo has a smoothie bar, followed by expressing admiration to a trio of female Cobra Kai students (to Bert's displeasure).
** In Season 5, during the final episode half the teen group shows up considerably late despite time being of the utmost essence, with Mitch mentioning that he had to get ready, though others note that it's the middle of the night and it was unnecessary. [[spoiler:We find out later that Mitch had already pulled a FaceHeelTurn and rejoined Cobra Kai at an earlier date, which means that the earlier tardiness for him "getting ready" was likely him calling in to let Cobra Kai know about Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang's plan.]]

** Season 5 goes back hard into BlackAndWhiteMorality the most since the first movie. Cobra Kai is made explicitly evil with little to no redeeming factors beyond the perks you get for joining, while all the protagonists have all completed most of their CharacterDevelopment over the last 4 seasons and are much kinder, calmer people (when their BerserkButton isn't pressed at least). The nuance instead comes from all the lingering issues that started back when characters were back in the gray. [[spoiler:Tory may be in Cobra Kai, but she's blatantly TheMole and she makes it clear in private moments that she wants nothing to do with them. Kenny is so far gone that he barely resembles the nice, outgoing kid he was back in early Season 4. Mitch flips over to Cobra Kai in a FaceHeelTurn but he had very little to no sympathetic qualities to begin with, and his friends didn't seem to like him very much either. The only character who would even mildly qualify is Devon who joins Cobra Kai midway through the season, seemingly to play up AmbitionIsEvil, but she doesn't really do anything intentionally mean-spirited up until the final battle... in which she immediately turns against Cobra Kai about 5-10 minutes into it anyway.]]

** Slightly downplayed with Yasmine. While she still has a bitchy attitude throughout Season 3, she's far less malicious compared to her pre-wedgie personality, distancing herself from Kyler and actually able to empathize with Demetri when the latter is picked on. She becomes even nicer in Season 4, going out of her way to interrupt an expensive holiday in Australia so she can surprise Demetri by showing up for prom. Season 5 has her become a legitimately good friend to Sam, offering her advice in navigating her relationship with Miguel (in stark contrast to going along with Kyler slut-shaming her after Sam refuses the latter's sexual advances).
** A good number of Cobra Kais (particularly Chris and Nate) defect to Miyagi-Do after Daniel comes into the dojo and successfully convinces them to defect.

** Mitch becomes less of a bully after Kreese kicks him out of Cobra Kai and the former joining Eagle Fang. [[spoiler:However its viciously subverted when he rejoins Cobra Kai under Terry Silver over a petty nickname and worthless luxuries]].
** Throughout Season 3 [[spoiler:Hawk eventually becomes disillusioned with Cobra Kai's change in culture under Kreese and (with some persuasion from Johnny and Miguel) defects from the dojo midway through the [=LaRusso=] House Fight.]]
** Also [[spoiler:[[Film/TheKarateKidPartII Chozen]] had an off-screen one. He was able to salvage his relationship with Sato and find peace with himself to the point that he was willing to teach Daniel new Miyagi-Do techniques that Mr. Miyagi was unwilling to teach him. When Daniel recruits Chozen to stop Terry Silver in the Season 4 finale, Chozen willingly accepts and becomes Daniel's main ally (and co-sensei) in Season 5]].
** Subverted ''very heavily'' with '''Kreese''' [[spoiler:throughout Season 4. Kreese eventually has his standards and draws the line when Silver viciously abuses Johnny at the old dojo, and even allows Tory to fight her own way despite Silver pressuring her to fight dirty. However, Season 5 shows that Kreese hasn't changed much in prison — still expressing bitterness toward Daniel and eventually breaking out of prison in a brutal fashion despite opening up his internal struggles with his therapist and tangentially aligning with Johnny and Daniel in taking down Silver]].

** Mike Barnes is revealed to have completely changed for the better after Daniel initially interrogates him — believing he is still aligned with Silver. As a matter of fact, Barnes just so happened to reform far better than Daniel's other rivals — genuinely wanting to apologize to him instead of trolling (unlike Chozen) or still expressing resentment (unlike Johnny).
** Tory [[spoiler:also defects from Cobra Kai under Silver after finding out her victory was all for naught thanks to Silver's bribery, and the constant abuse she received under Kim Da-Eun]].

**

** Season 3 we see this in real-time with [[spoiler: Hawk. After Kyler is laying more of a beating nearby on Miguel, he starts looking around at the carnage. His former friends are getting the absolute shit kicked out of them by guys he never tolerated before, and outright hated in some cases. He sees Demetri getting put in the same armbar he himself used earlier to break his arm and with that, plus the words of Johnny and Miguel fresh on his mind, finally sees what he has become.]]

* FreudianExcuse: Martin Kove's condition for signing onto the series was to expand on Kreese's past so that he wasn't just a one-note cartoon villain. In Season 3, the horrors he and Terry Silver experienced in Vietnam are explored via flashback sequences. The pair of them suffered horrific ordeals as POW's, which is TruthInTelevision.

* HeelFaceDoorSlam: Johnny makes more than one attempt to leave behind his grudge with Daniel and/or patch things up with his biological son. [[spoiler:It never works. Though by the end of the first season, they're at able to tell that Johnny is trying to be serious.]]

* AlternateContinuity: ''Film/TheKarateKid'' ends with Johnny getting up and giving Daniel the trophy, accepting defeat ad being a gracious sport. This series asks "What if he didn't?"

** Kyler and the other bullies are evidently wrestlers and do show some techniques from wrestling in their fight scenes, but they are easily overcome by the primarily striking-based karate students and Johnny, even when they have those characters in wrestling holds that would be very difficult to escape from such as a rear-naked choke position - something against which karateka would likely not do much better than untrained people. Partially justified as the Cobra Kai students, and Miguel in particular, are taking their training extremely seriously and training frequently and hard while Kyler and his friends are shown as slackers.

** In a holdover from the original films, Season 1's tournament only has a kumite (point sparring) competition, when real-life karate tournaments would also have kata (empty hand form) or kobudo (weapon form) events. This also gets addressed in Season 4, as a skills competition including kata and weapons displays is added to the tournament.

** Season 4 also ends like this, though it only barely avoids DownerEnding this time around. [[spoiler:Cobra Kai wins the Grand Championship at the All Valley thanks to Tory's victory over Sam, thus Daniel and Johnny are no longer allowed to teach karate and this will allow Cobra Kai to expand. Miguel, who almost reaggravated his GameBreakingInjury ends up running off to Mexico to find his father after the stress of the season has built up with his relationships with Johnny, Sam and Carmen come to a head. Kenny is completely corrupted by Cobra Kai, and Terry Silver has gone 100% off the deep end, getting Kreese arrested and taking over Cobra Kai completely. Tory also finds out that Silver paid off the ref so her victory is tainted. However Robby realizes how far he's fallen and has reconciled with Johnny, Tory seems to be coming around after getting a lot of help from Amanda, Eli has found some inner peace and won the All Valley in the boys' division, finally beating Robby, and Daniel enacts some LoopholeAbuse to have Chozen take over teaching Miyagi-Do.]]

** Season 4 [[spoiler:ends with Robby realizing what Hate and Cobra Kai did to him and, through him, to Kenny. He seems to realize he's become someone he doesn't like anymore. He rips of his gi mid-fight, choosing to fight for himself instead.]]
** In the tournament in Season 4 [[spoiler:Tory decides to fight fair in defiance of the usual Cobra Kai mentality, and is disgusted to discover that her victory over Sam in the final was the result of Terry Silver bribing the referee.]]

** Season 4 [[spoiler:ends with Robby realizing what Hate and Cobra Kai did to him and, through him, to Kenny. He seems to realize he's become someone he doesn't like anymore.]]

* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: Season 5 features a reconstruction of this trope. Johnny and Carmen have been perfectly happy together, until Carmen thinks she's pregnant. While she is more than ready, Johnny is scared he'll make the same mistakes he did with Robby, despite wanting to be there for her. This causes a temporary rift between them, but Johnny decides Carmen means too much to him to let his past demons get in the way. He spends the rest of the day working tooth and nail to get ready for the baby by shaping up his apartment and removing anything that may be hazardous for the baby. Carmen is touched by the gesture and reveals she is pregnant. While this fixes the rift between them, Johnny soon realizes there are other things he needs to fix before the baby comes. He finds a temporary job as a rideshare driver and [=DoorDash=] delivery driver, and while he hates it and sucks at it, Lyle, of all people, assures him that even if his job sucks, a good family makes it worth it. Johnny commits to the job far more seriously upon hearing this. The hardest part, though, is fixing the rift between the baby's eventual half brothers, Robby and Miguel. Daniel inadvertently convinces him to resort to some drastic measures that prove effective. He doesn't tell them about the baby until ''after'' the two forgive each other. While the baby does make things better, it only serves as an incentive for Johnny to try to fix things; everything else was Johnny putting the work in rather than everything being washed away because of the baby.

** In Season 4 [[spoiler:Terry Silver eventually becomes this to Kreese. While one could say it's Kreese fault that him constantly pushing Vietnam flashbacks on Silver has the latter undergoing SanitySlippage, it gets to the point where Silver become morally worse. His CurbStompBattle toward Johnny was bad to the point where Kreese draws the line, he bribes the referee for Cobra Kai's advantage behind everyone's back, and he ultimately makes a successful BatmanGambit in giving Stingray a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown just to have Kreese framed and arrested, so that he can take full control of Cobra Kai right after Kreese starts softening up. Season 5 has Silver committing unbelievable actions never seen in Kreese (i.e., burning down Mike Barnes's furniture store, getting into Daniel's marriage) and takes his plan in expanding Cobra Kai to global levels; something Kreese himself originally never committed to back in 1980]].

** Bert, Nate, and Chris finding Mitch hanging near a Cobra Kai dojo eating [[ProductPlacement Jack Links Jerky]] provided by said dojo is a sign [[spoiler:he's going to betray everyone later on]].

** Also [[spoiler:[[Film/TheKarateKidPartII Chozen]] had an off-screen one. He was able to salvage his relationship with Sato and find peace with himself to the point that he was willing to teach Daniel new Miyagi-Do techniques that Mr. Miyagi was unwilling to teach him.]]

* EvilerThanThou: In Season 4 [[spoiler:we find out that Terry Silver is this to Kreese. While it's debatable for how long he was planning it, he ends up completely a gambit to have Kreese arrested and to take full control of Cobra Kai right after Kreese starts softening up.]]

** After joining Cobra Kai, Eli flips the script, shaves the sides of his head and styles the middle into a blue mohawk, taking on the nickname Hawk. Hawk dyes it red partway into Season 2 [[RedIsViolent to signify his increased aggression and brutality]] (even changing the color of his tattoo's mohawk to complement it).

** Miguel's hair takes on a pompadour during his "bad boy" phase.

** Miguel wears his hair in a far messier way and loose in Season 4, reflecting his deteriorating mental state over the course of the season. Hawk [[spoiler:has his mohawk forcefully shaved off by Cobra Kai in an act of revenge. This kills his confidence for the majority of the season and returns him most of the way to his ShrinkingViolet persona.]]

** Terry Silver surprisingly takes this to the extreme, with his new bodega in Season 5 consisting of expensive alcohol and accessories from Japan, in addition to sharing stories of his experience (with a good amount of knowledge) from the same country, as well as incorporating Korean language in his lessons. While studying under Kim Sun-Yung (as well as maintaining contact with Kim Da-Eun) certainly helps, it's also rather [[{{Irony}} ironic, considering he displayed even more racist stereotypes to Mr. Miyagi than Kreese]].

* GracefulLoser: [[spoiler:Robby loses the final match -- but his mentor Daniel takes it ''much'' better than Kreese took Johnny's original loss.]]

** Slightly downplayed with Yasmine. While she still has a bitchy attitude throughout Season 3, she's far less malicious compared to her pre-wedgie personality, distancing herself from Kyler and actually able to empathize with Demetri when the latter is picked on. She becomes even nicer in Season 4, going out of her way to interrupt an expensive holiday in Australia so she can surprise Demetri by showing up for prom.
** In Season 3 [[spoiler:Hawk finally sees what Kreese is making him do and thanks to some earlier prodding by both Johnny and Miguel, rejoins the protagonists.]]

** Veteran character actor [[Creator/EdwardAsner Ed Asner]], who plays Johnny's stepfather Sid Weinberg, gets this credit.

* HardTruthAesop: Although anyone theoretically ''can'' redeem themselves for their past behavior, but they have to ''want'' to redeem themselves for it to stick. Johnny, for all his faults and baggage, sincerely tries to improve his life and make a positive impact on his students, making him much more sympathetic than in the original ''Karate Kid''. However, Kreese, no matter how traumatic his backstory or how difficult his life since, appears not to learn from his past mistakes and remains as destructive and unpleasant now as he was three decades ago. Johnny means well when he decides to give Kreese a second chance, but this ultimately turns out to be a terrible mistake, as Kreese takes advantage of his goodwill to steal his dojo.

** TheChick: Samantha [=LaRusso=], the ActionGirl and SmurfettePrinciple (at least for the vast majority of the season) who plays a critical role in having the Miyagi-Fangs qualify for the Sekai Taikai by defeating Devon Lee in the exhibition bout.

* FiveManBand: Very well established with their core fighters in the reformed Miyagi-Fangs.

** TheBrute: Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz, being the recent All-Valley champ and the male representative of the Sekai Taikai qualifier who still show signs of a FightMagnet (particularly with Kenny and Kyler), despite embracing more of Miyagi-Do's teachings. He's still a GeniusBruiser when he helps Demetri hack the server in Silver's flagship dojo in the FinalBattle.

** Terry Silver surprisingly takes this to the extreme, with his new bodega in Season 5 consisting of expensive alcohol and accessories from Japan, in addition to sharing stories of his experience (with a good amount of knowledge) from the same country as well as incorporating Korean language in his lessons. While studying under Kim Sun-Yung (as well as maintaining contact with Kim Da-Eun) certainly helps, it's also rather [[{{Irony}} ironic, considering he displayed even more racist stereotypes to Mr. Miyagi than Kreese]].

* ForeignCultureFetish: Daniel has a large appreciation and closeness to Japanese culture, which seems to stem both from his closeness to Mr. Miyagi and the latter's death.