Cobra Kai / Tropes I to R

Main Page | A-H | I-R | S-Z

---

I

• Idiot Ball:
  • Since Johnny tends to not think things through and prefers to settle things with his fists, he tends to not realize he has a legitimate legal beef with the LaRussos. Whether or not Daniel's gripe with him is valid or not doesn't change that Daniel tends to be the aggressor while Johnny tends to be more reactive. It was Daniel who went into Johnny's dojo and started making vague threats, it was Daniel's cousin Louie who torched Johnny's car as payback for disrespecting their family with the billboard graffiti, and it was Daniel who kicked in the door to Johnny's home and assaulted him. Particularly with the auto incident: had Johnny sat on Louie after catching him red-handed committing arson, called the police, and pressed criminal charges against him, the financial, legal, and even PR burden it would have put on LaRusso Auto would have quite effectively ended their feud for good in his favor, if not outright ruined their entire business by making the LaRussos look like rich mafiosos who sic hired goons on their enemies. Amanda even implies as much when she pressures Daniel into giving Johnny a new car to make things right. Heck, even the very fact Daniel teaches his Miyagi-Do classes for free in order to attract (potential and actual) students away from Cobra Kai is predatory pricing^note or dumping, if we're talking on an international trade level, which does not apply here and is highly illegal under antitrust law.
  • Amanda's plan to go to the police about Kreese about the arcade fight might have been more successful if she had gone straight to the police, and not first taken a completely unnecessary trip to his dojo to tell him what she was doing, giving him ample opportunity to beat her to the punch along with evidence to set himself up as the victim. More importantly, she's well aware at this point that Kreese is a dangerous psychopath yet still chooses to confront him alone, knowing full well that if he had decided to harm her, there wouldn't have been a thing she could do to stop him. Furthermore, throughout all of her arguments as to why Kreese should not be trusted, she always fails to mention the very important fact that her daughter and her friends are getting violently beaten on a constant basis, one of Kreese's students hurt Sam in the school brawl, and another one broke Demetri's arm.
• I Have No Son!:
  • Johnny's stepdad, Sid Weinberg, attempts to disown him due to his constant alcoholism and legal issues, even offering him money to do so. Johnny eventually turns it around by paying Sid with some of the dojo's proceeds and vowing never to return.
  • Played with between Johnny and Robby. Johnny wants very much into his son's life, but is utterly dismayed when he learns that Robby has become Daniel's protege.
  • Done spiritually when Daniel finds out that Robby was Johnny's son and knew full well their longstanding feud. Daniel cuts him off entirely for the bald-faced deception, but immediately has a change of heart when Robby enters the tournament as an unaffiliated fighter, and then gets injured right before the finals.
• Imaginary Love Triangle: When Miguel sees Sam with Robby, he assumes Robby is trying to move in on her and Sam is starting to fall for him and tries to fight Robby. The truth is while Robby had some interest in Sam, he was respectful of their relationship while Miguel saw him as a rival because he was friends with the family. He was only at the party with Sam because he was helping her escape from being grounded so she could tell Miguel about this.
• Improvised Weapon:
  • In the lunchroom fight, Miguel shoves a chair in the path of one opponent and uses a lunch tray as both a weapon and a shield.
  • In the school brawl the following season, Chris uses a textbook to finish off Mitch, while Tory uses her spiked bracelet as brass knuckles on Sam.
  • When Robby prepares to fight his old group of thieves on the beach, his replacement in the old gang, Derek, ambushes him with an oar.
  • True to the way of Miyagi-Do, Daniel uses rod fishing as improvised quarterstaff training for Sam.
• Informed Poverty: Johnny lives in a crappy apartment with a laundry list of problems that probably means it isn't up to residency code. He only manages to open Cobra Kai with a "severance" check from his rich stepfather, and only gets that up to code by exploiting Miguel for free labor and subletting to a yoga instructor for a period. Eventually, the dojo does turn a windfall (by the end of season 2, Johnny has to teach two classes), but then Johnny loses the dojo to Kreese at the end of season 2, and is apparently without any form of income for most of Season 3, eventually regaining only Miguel, Mitch, Bert, and about four other students for Eagle Fang. Yet he seems to have no trouble continuing to pay rent and his bills, buying new suits, going on expensive dates and constantly putting away packs of beer and bottles of liquor. (Maybe that expensive sculpture of Sid's that he pawned to raise money for Miguel's surgery was worth a lot?)
• Inherent in the System:
  • Despite Johnny's belief that the only problem with Cobra Kai laid with Kreese, as the first season progresses even he comes to realize that when taken to its logical conclusion, the Cobra Kai mantra of "Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy." is nothing but a recipe for creating aggressive and merciless assholes driven by chips on their shoulders or thirst for power... like he was.
  • Part of the reason Miguel and his high school friends became Cobra Kai students in the first place is that their teachers can't be watching over them 24/7 and are woefully ill-equipped to deal with modern cyberbullying. In Season 3, Miguel and Sam use this very argument to save the karate tournament. Bullying cannot be stopped so you might as well give these teens a place to compete fairly and safely and the concentration on the All-Valley generally has the physical bullying grind to a halt for a few months.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • Daniel asking his daughter's Asian boyfriend Kyler where his parents are from, right after mentioning Mr. Miyagi was from Okinawa. They're actually from Irvine ("I think"). Although it is possible that despite Kyler being of East Asian descent, doesn't know what sashimi is, so Daniel is curious where his parents originated from.
  • Johnny can't help himself but comment on Eli's cleft palate scar and recommends that he get it fixed as soon as possible. When he learns that this is what it looks like after it got fixed, he recommends that Eli sue the doctor, not realizing that he's leaning directly into Eli's insecurities. Prior to that, he tells Eli to "get off the autism spectrum pronto" when the latter reveals that to him. However, Johnny soon starts bullying Eli intentionally as a means of toughening him up.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Johnny's strong bond with Miguel mirrors Mr. Miyagi's with Daniel. Daniel attempts this with Robby with brief success (before the latter joins Cobra Kai).
• Intergenerational Rivalry: Kreese (a man in his 70s) is this to both Johnny and Daniel (both men in their 50s). To the former, he was Johnny's Evil Mentor and Broken Pedestal; to the latter, he was Daniel's Big Bad (being the one who mentored Johnny himself as The Bully to Daniel and sought help from Terry Silver as a means for revenge). Season 4 adds Silver himself to the mix, being Daniel's Evil Mentor during the events of The Karate Kid Part III.
• Internal Deconstruction: The series deconstructs Johnny's characterization as the spoiled, rich bully who embraced Cobra Kai's thuggery in the first Karate Kid movie by showing that he was actually an emotionally vulnerable youth who found an escape from his distant stepdad through the mentorship (even if it was wrong) of Kreese and the Cobra Kai dojo. While Daniel's victory at the All-Valley tournament was a great accomplishment for him, for Johnny the loss caused him to lose the girl he loved, his surrogate father figure, and the one thing in his life that gave him meaning.
  Johnny: Just because you live in a nice house doesn't mean nice things are going on inside.
• The Internet Is for Porn: Johnny has next to no knowledge about computers, having to spend a lot of time just trying to turn his first one on and set up the internet. Once he does go online, the first thing he checks out is "Hot Babes" and "Wet T-shirt."
• Ironic Echo: After the initial beatdown by Johnny, Kyler attacks him from behind with a chokehold, loudly remarking "What's the matter? Having trouble breathing?!" Less than thirty seconds later, Johnny has beat Kyler's gang down again, reversed Kyler's punch and is holding him in a chokehold of his own, from the front, looking him right in the eyes. He echoes, "What's the matter? Having trouble breathing?"
• Irony: In the Season 2 finale, Robby tells Johnny before the school brawl that he and Daniel really have a lot to learn from each other, which points to an indication of wanting them to team up in some form. By the Season 3 finale they realize he was right and they do indeed team up to take down Kreese once and for all, with Sam and Miguel further helping this out by helping their dojos' students bury the hatchet as well. However, by this point Robby himself, who made the suggestion in the first place, has turned against both Daniel and Johnny and sided with Kreese against them.

J-K

• Jaded Washout: Played with. Johnny is a divorced handyman and binge drinker who lives alone, but still has excellent martial arts skills, as some bullies find out the hard way. Later he finds his calling by being The Obi-Wan to bullied kids.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • When Daniel accuses Johnny of beating up "a bunch of teenagers," Johnny correctly asserts that he was only defending Miguel from being assaulted by Kyler's gang. He has another good point when he further states that Daniel doesn't know his daughter as well as he thinks. Later, Johnny has a point again when he shows up, pissed off, at Daniel's residence because Louie's attempt to torch his car was not just an attack on him, but endangered his entire neighborhood. There's also the plot point of Johnny teaching bullied schoolkids how to defend themselves after the school system has proven totally useless.
  • Not a complete Jerkass, but Danny's antipathy toward Cobra Kai is clearly more intense than is justified, and he's quick to make negative assumptions about Johnny. Still, his insistence than the Cobra Kai philosophy was leading Miguel and the other kids down a dark path turns out to be right on the money. By the end of Season 3, Johnny, Miguel, and nearly every one of Johnny's original students realizes that Daniel was right and they team up with him and his Miyagi-do students to take down John Kreese and Cobra Kai once and for all.
  • Even if it is largely a self-serving way to dodge responsibility for being in her son's life, Shannon Keene is right in her criticism of Johnny as a father. At the point Robby is in, you don't get any do-overs, and he did give up on day one. Johnny himself is also right in his criticism of Shannon as a mother.
  • Johnny is quick to draw attention to Eli's for his cleft palate scar, and scoffs at the idea that he should be more sensitive about it. He tells Eli that the world isn't going to dance around his appearance, and it's up to him to change the narrative. It's a harsh lesson, but when Eli flips the script, restyles his hair in a mohawk and adapts a new persona, it's completely successful changing how he's perceived.
  • In Season 3, when Kreese visits Robby in juvie, he points out that sometimes you're going to have to strike first in the real world. It's a dangerous lesson, and Kreese is starting to manipulate Robby with the intention of getting him to join Cobra Kai, but in those particular circumstances, striking first allows Robby to get the upper hand over the bullies who'd been tormenting him, and earn their respect in the process. Which has the benefit of Kreese gaining Robby's trust.
  • Season 5: After he reveals his Face–Heel Turn, Mitch points out that he never wanted to leave Cobra Kai in the first place (he was only forced out by Kreese), and that the protagonists, both adult and teenager, have otherwise treated him like complete shit since then. Notably, no one on Miyagi-Fang offers any sort of rebuttal.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: If you are a victim of bullying and decide to enroll at the Cobra Kai Dojo and embrace its "No Mercy" philosophy, the chances are you will end up becoming as vicious and sadistic as your tormentors. Miguel (in season 2) and Hawk (in season 3) all realize how far they've fallen because of their darker impulses. Kenny, on the other hand, takes this to an extreme, as a result of being bullied by Anthony LaRusso. After pummeling Anthony at the end of the 2019 All Valley, Kenny promises him that he'll be in a world of pain. And Kenny wasn't joking, the bullying he puts Anthony through in season 5 are borderline sadistic and with murderous intent; all with the help from Kyler of all people.
• Karma Houdini:
  • In a series where the plot is often driven by reality from impulsive decisions, the utter lack of consequences from Daniel kicking a drink out of Tom Cole's hand in a momentary fit of anger and Johnny stealing a sculpture from Sid's house to raise money for Miguel's surgery are particularly notable oversights.
  • As of the end of Season 3, Hawk is fully this, as despite his various actions, he's forgiven after a simple apology.
• Karma Houdini Warranty:
  • Trey and Cruz escaped any consequences for their criminal behavior in Season 1, as they walked away shaken but relatively unhurt from their fight with Robby and were never arrested. In Season 2, they are on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle from Daniel when they're caught snatching wallets from a beach club, while Season 3 confirms they wound up in prison shortly afterwards, where Cruz gets a few more smacks from Johnny.
  • After stealing Johnny's dojo, corrupting his students, denying any responsibility for the school brawl and painting himself as a Villain with Good Publicity for most of Season 3, Kreese finally gets some measure of comeuppance in the Season 3 finale when Daniel and Johnny both kick his ass and Daniel uses Chozen's Pressure Point technique to briefly make him have traumatic flashbacks to when Miyagi held him in this position.
• Kick the Dog: The Cobra Kai at various points in the tournament, particularly in the final match. Even aside from repeatedly hitting Robby's injured shoulder, Miguel shows his opponent absolutely no respect whatsoever.
• Kids Are Cruel:
  • Kyler and his gang savagely bully Miguel and his friends at every opportunity, and neither he nor Yasmine have any issue with turning Sam and Aisha into laughingstocks on social media until the whole school is anonymously taunting them with crass memes and encouraging them to commit suicide. Even Johnny — the original vicious bully of the Karate Kid universe — can't help feeling appalled on Aisha's behalf.
  • Miguel and the Cobra Kai students prove to be no better, basically becoming as bad as, if not worse than, Johnny himself once was (i.e. getting into drunken fights over a girl, Aisha giving Yasmine a front wedgie and making it go viral, then being unable to take her loss at the tournament with dignity; Miguel and Hawk taking cheap shots at Robby, etc.)
    • Hawk is easily the worst of them all, going as far as to attempt to beat Demetri up over a Yelp review, vandalize the Miyagi-Do dojo (and steal Mr. Miyagi's Medal of Honor in the process), and more (prior to his defection from Cobra Kai).
    • Tory comes in as one of the most vicious of her generation, with her defining moments being starting the school fight and lacerating Sam's flesh, peer pressuring Hawk to break Demetri's arm, and leading the assault at the LaRusso house. It's no surprise she becomes Cobra Kai's top student (alongside Robby) under Kreese's regime.
    • Speaking of Kreese's Cobra Kai, they've pretty much reached new lows as outright criminals at this point. Examples include a series of antics at Golf n' Stuff (including messing with Chris during his shift) to bait Miyagi-Do into a fight, as well as the LaRusso house fight.
• Killed Offscreen:
  • Mr. Miyagi, of course. Daniel carrying on his legacy is a recurring theme throughout the series. Episode 5 even marks as a tribute to Pat Morita (who passed away in 2005).
  • Sato and Yukie from The Karate Kid Part II are established to have died in the interim (much like their actors) between that movie and Daniel's return to Okinawa in Season 3.
• Kitschy Local Commercial:
  • The TV ads for the LaRusso Auto Group feature Daniel doing some painfully cheesy martial arts moves, terrible special effects as one would expect from a late-night TV ad and caps the whole thing off by reminding the audience that all clients get a free bonsai tree with a purchase.
  • Daniel's business rival, Tom Cole, counters with have his own narmtastic "Yankee Doodle" commercial (with a Revolutionary War theme, and the promise of a free drought-resistant cactus).

L

• La Résistance: In season 3, Johnny opens a new dojo, Eagle Fang. For all intents and purposes, it's a splinter group since its ranks are made of kids that Kreese weeded out of Cobra Kai (Bert, Mitch), ones who were disillusioned by Kreese's teachings (Hawk), or stayed loyal to Johnny (Miguel). They eventually ally themselves with Miyagi-Do.
• Last-Name Basis: This happens regularly to Daniel and Sam, respectively thanks to Johnny and Tory.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Daniel states that karate saved him from bullying during the PTA meeting in Season 3, Episode 1, only for somebody to yell out, "Bullshit! I heard you were the real bully!"
• Leitmotif: Many characters and dojos have specific themes or styles of music associated with them.
  • Daniel is associated with orchestral Japanese music, calling back to the original films and reflecting his desire to uphold Mr. Miyagi's legacy.
  • Johnny's motifs naturally consist of '80s inspired hard rock guitar riffs and arena drums. He's also represented by the track "Ace Degenerate".
  • Daniel and Johnny's rivalry theme accompanies any scenes where the two come to blows, and gets an epic orchestral reprise in "Match Point" when the two have their long awaited rematch.
  • "Slither", the track that accompanies Miguel's Training Montage as he becomes Johnny's first student, also functions as his theme, especially in the first season's All Valley tournament.
  • "Quiver", which accompanies Eli revealing his transformation into Hawk, doubles as a theme for Johnny's Cobra Kai in general and Hawk in particular. It gets Call Backs in "The Call of the Cobra", which plays during his Heel–Face Turn, and when he defeats Kyler at the tournament in Season 4.
  • Miyagi-Do has a soft flute-heavy theme reflecting its status as a traditional Japanese influenced Pacifist Dojo. It gets a Triumphant Reprise in "Mall Fight", as Sam and Robby take their places as the next generation of Miyagi-Do students by defeating Hawk's gang.
  • Kreese's Cobra Kai is typically represented by "Awake the Snake".
  • Sam's theme gets several variations reflecting the different influences in her life. "Sensei Sam" is a gentle piece that doubles as a Love Theme for her and Miguel, an electric guitar version represents her relationship with Johnny and can be heard when she makes the rooftop jump and when she defeats Piper at the tournament, while a flute version plays when she embraces the best of Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang in the All Valley final against Tory.
  • Tory has a foreboding theme that accompanies her most unhinged moments such as when she starts the school brawl by attacking Sam or when she corners Sam in the LaRusso home dojo and prepares to assault her with nunchucks.
  • Terry Silver's theme from The Karate Kid Part III makes a return.
• Letter Motif: The series expands the one from the original film — the 1984 Cobra Kais were Johnny, Bobby, Jimmy, Tommy, and Dutch. To set them apart, Ali was "Ali with an I" and Daniel, who could have easily been "Danny", never once was.
  • Miguel is named with the same pattern as Daniel to mark him as the new Karate Kid and although it would seem to be a subversion for Cobra Kai, Carmen also calls him "Miggy".
  • Likewise Robby is Daniel's student but still Johnny's son.
  • "Tory-with-a-Y" fits in Cobra Kai to a T.
  • Season 4 introduces Kenny, who naturally joins Cobra Kai and ends up becoming the typical Cobra Kai psycho bully after taking the "No Mercy" creed too far.
  • When he first returns in season 4, Terry Silver now goes by Terrance, representing his having walked away from Cobra Kai and his old life. However, he returns to being called Terry once Kreese convinces him to come back to the dojo.
• Like Father, Like Son: Robby is just like his father Johnny when he was his age: a Delinquent with an aloof dad who would later take up karate under John Kreese. The big divergence comes from Robby having first trained with Daniel before he's trained by Kreese.
• Like a Son to Me:
  • Miguel and Johnny's relationship develops with this dynamic. Johnny is reluctant to admit he's using his relationship with Miguel as a means of having the father-son relationship he couldn't have with Robby.
  • Robby, Johnny's biological son, and Daniel develop this kind of relationship.
  • Kreese views Johnny as a surrogate son figure to him, and extends these same feelings to Robby when he gets Robby to join Cobra Kai.
• Love at First Sight: The "nerd" group of season 1 are all smitten with the "rich girls" clique when they first catch a glimpse of them at the cafeteria: Sam for Miguel, Yasmine for Demetri, and Moon for Eli. By the end of season 3, Sam and Miguel, and Yasmine and Demetri, are in relationships. Hawk has a brief relationship with Moon in season 2 that ends after she dumps him for turning into a bully, but they rekindle their romance in season 4 when Eli reforms and becomes a better person.
• Love Freak: In Season 1, Xander Stone, the reigning All-Valley karate champion, strays into this trope, to the point where the viewer is cheering when Johnny tells Miguel to pulverize him. It doesn't help his case that he's merely being announced, and instead snatches the mic away from the announcer to give a tedious speech about acceptance and call for a slacktivists' moment of silence.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Yasmine loosens up into one by Season 3 in light of her humiliation and the karatekas gaining so much social standing. She disapproves of Hawk ruining Demetri's science project, shows disgust when Kyler publicly humiliates Demetri by doodling a penis on his cast (which she corrects through writing an innuendo-laden compliment over it), and gets a relationship with Demetri in the process.
• Love Triangle: The Miguel/Sam/Robby triangle is a repeat of the Daniel/Ali/Johnny triangle. It gets more complicated when Miguel dates Tory, creating a Love Square because Miguel and Sam still have feelings for each other. So Sam/Miguel/Tory as a lesser extent. Arguably, when the triangle was Miguel/Sam/Kyler in Season 1, it was also a repeat of the Daniel/Ali/Johnny triangle given their social statuses.

M

• Malicious Misnaming: In "Different But Same", Johnny says "Relax, Danielle" after Daniel asks him to slow down while test driving a car. This is also a Call-Back to the first movie, when Dutch mockingly addressed Daniel as "Danielle" right before the tournament.
• Mama Bear:
  • Carmen's reaction to Johnny bringing an unconscious Miguel to his home, telling him to never again come near her son, gives this impression. It is clear that despite being naive about the problems Miguel is having at school, she loves Miguel dearly. When Miguel is critically injured following the big brawl at the end of Season 2, Carmen lashes out at Johnny at the hospital and ends their burgeoning relationship.
  • Amanda is much the same way. She initially writes off the bullying and karate as kids doing kid stuff, but after the school brawl and the injuries inflicted on Sam by Tory, she certainly supports Tory getting expelled... and once the dust settles, is not content with Tory getting a slap on the wrist, and pissed that Sam got suspended for defending herself. After a follow-up brawl in which Demetri's arm gets broken and Sam breaks down in tears, Amanda goes marching into Cobra Kai to give Kreese a piece of her mind and slaps him, enough so to give him a justification to get a restraining order against her by describing the confrontation with exact words.
• Manchild: Stingray, after seeing a Cobra Kai demonstration, joins the dojo despite being several years older than the rest of the students. He attempts to become a security guard at their high school, despite having no training or experience other than his limited karate training, and uses the brief position to his advantage to take part in the school brawl. For this, he gets put on probation and can't go near children. And then deconstructed on how seriously to take this in Season 4. Stingray being such a manchild means that he's forced to coop up with his sister who, according to his neighbor, only took him in out of pity and otherwise isn't seen when he's around, implying that she doesn't want to be associated with him. It's clear he hasn't grown up a single iota since being put and eventually taken off probation. He heads back to try and rejoin Cobra Kai but it's clear that no one really wants him around anymore. His obsession with rejoining and becoming loved by his peers again causes him to both assault the neighbor in his own home to keep a prom after-party going, but more tragically get played by Terry Silver, who coerces Stingray into taking a beating and framing Kreese for it. All for the sake of getting back into the fold.
  • Season 5 does ease up on him a fair bit. Stingray makes it clear that while he absolutely enjoys the perks Silver has given him, he would give it all up in a second if he could as even he's not oblivious to the amount of damage the current Cobra Kai is causing. However, he's terrified that Silver would find out if Stingray did flip on him, and would come to finish the job he started last season. Considering how the majority of the season has gone, Stingray is 100% justified in feeling this way and we even know that Silver is making routine checks on him, mostly to keep him in line. He does finally decide to join back up with the protagonists by season's end and luckily for him, Silver is taken down before he could even discover Stingray's treachery. As a smaller detail, he's also shown trying to make friends with other adults in one scene.
• Married to the Job: Daniel becomes so passionate about teaching Miyagi-do that he puts aside his duties at the dealership, to the point of harming his marriage with Amanda and being Exiled to the Couch.
• Martial Pacifist: Daniel tries to live up to the standard set by Mr. Miyagi in trying to take the peaceful route, but admits he always had trouble being a hothead. While he demonstrates that he still has his karate skills and there are a few close calls, he doesn't get into a legitimate fight until Season 2.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: The show continues add more links to the chains of Miyagi karate and Cobra Kai karate:
  • One the one hand, we have the earliest known individual in the Miyagi chain, Mr. Miyagi's father, who having received the family tradition, passed it to his own son and his son's friend Sato Toguchi. Sato passed it on to his nephew Chozen, while Mr. Miyagi passed it on to Daniel, who passed it on to Sam, Robby and the rest of the Miyagi-Dos.
  • On the other hand, we have Kim Sun-Yung who developed his own branch of Tang Soo Do, which he teaches to George Turner during the Korean War. During the Vietnam War, then Captain Turner teaches it to John Kreese and Terry Silver, who create Cobra Kai. Later Kreese teaches it to Johnny Lawrence, who teaches it to Miguel and others. Season 5 reveals that another branch of the chain continued through Master Kim's own family, with his granddaughter Kim Da-Eun being the current master.
• Meaningless Villain Victory:
  • At the end of Season 4, this happens to Tory. Sure, she wins the All-Valley Tournament over Sam but thanks to Amanda helping her, she doesn't feel as satisfied with beating Sam as she would have before. She then overhears that Terry Silver bribed the referee to be biased in her favor and realizes she should have lost and the judge not seeing that foot go out of bounds wasn't just luck. Furthermore, John Kreese, the one person in the world she's actually willing to trust and rely on, gets sent to prison, meaning she once again has nobody to look up to.
  • Same goes for Kreese himself in season 4. Thanks to Tory's victory, the Cobra Kai dojo as a whole is awarded the Grand Prize, but he doesn't get to enjoy his victory for long. Silver soon reveals that he framed Kreese for aggravated assault and attempted murder, leading to his arrest and Silver acquiring full control of Cobra Kai, which he plans to franchise. Kreese had also made a gentleman's bet with Daniel to close down Miyagi-Do if they lost the tournament, which Daniel flat-out refuses to do and recruits Chozen to continue the fight against Cobra Kai.
• Medal of Dishonor: The All Valley Karate Championship trophy becomes this for Johnny in Season 1 after he realizes that all he did was create a new generation of thugs and become just like Kreese, as well as Tory in Season 4 after she finds out Silver bribed the referee to fix the final match of the girls' division in Cobra Kai's favor.
• Men of Sherwood: Far from being a Red Shirt Army, background members of both Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do are portrayed as being very competent fighters (which makes sense, considering they have the same level of karate training as the main cast). Even an unnamed Mook can put up a decent one-on-one fight against a named secondary character, although they will generally lose to top-tier fighters like Miguel, Robby, Sam, Tory and Hawk.
• Meta Twist: Episode 9 of both of the first two seasons have Daniel and Johnny having a heart to heart and realizing that they have more in common than they thought, only for circumstances to contrive to have them back at each others' throats by the start of the next episode. Episode 9 of Season 3 flips this on its head by ending on a note that implies another bust up between the two is imminent, with Johnny's Green-Eyed Monster flaring up when he sees Daniel hugging Ali at the Encino Oaks Country Club. However, in the following episode, this doesn't materialize, and the two end the season more closely aligned than ever and having apparently buried the hatchet for good this time.
• Miles Gloriosus: Jerk Jock and Bully Kyler talks a huge tough guy game, but he almost always gets his ass whupped in a one-on-one fight despite having both wrestling and karate training. Unless he's against an opponent with no fighting training, has a group of buddies to do the heavy lifting for him, or able to catch them off guard by playing dirty, he can't coax out a win to save his life. Even when fighting Miguel, who hadn't fully recovered from paralysis, Miguel beats him.
  • Lampshaded by Hawk and Dimitri in Season 5 finale. By that time, the only one of Kyler's victims who hasn't beaten him is Dimitri, who does so soon after.
• Mistaken for Masturbating: When Miguel starts training in his bedroom to loud music, his grandmother hears his exertions and immediately assumes he is masturbating.
• Mook Chivalry: This trope is played to pieces in all of Cobra Kai.
  • Season 1: Johnny defies this when he trains Miguel by hitting him with the ball machine without him expecting it, telling Miguel that his enemies aren't going to care about a fair fight and will be more than happy to gang up on him and attack him from behind. This comes in handy when Miguel fights Kyler's gang when they all try to attack him at once.
  • Season 2: When Daniel saves Robby from Trey, Cruz and their new accomplice, Trey and Cruz avert this at first. However, their new accomplice plays this straight, only joining the fight after Trey and Cruz get knocked out. Averted in the mall fight where Cobra Kai students Hawk, Mitch, Mikey, Doug and Chris fight Robby and Sam who defend Demetri. However, the Wheel Technique that Robby and Sam learned helps them defeat opponents in this exact scenario.
  • Season 3:
    • The leader of the chop shop gang just stands there and watches Daniel and Johnny beat the crap out of his minions, only deciding to get involved himself when they have all been taken down.
    • In the house fight when Demetri and Hawk pair up to take out Cobra Kai, they conveniently fight in groups of two so that the Binary Brothers can pick them all off in even 2v2 fights. Robby's first fight against Shawn's gang averts this as they gang up on him and take him down. The second fight is played straight as after Robby sneak-attacks Shawn, the other two attack him separately.
  • Season 4: Robby challenging the entire Cobra Kai dojo alone has them all avert this as they all rush him. However, Tory waits until they are all defeated so that she can see Robby's skills and challenge him one-on-one.
  • Season 5:
    • The Valley's greatest senseis hired by Silver does this when Chozen fights six of them at once. Actually justified as Silver promised the one who takes Chozen down to get the job of his right-hand man along with triple pay, so the senseis clearly did not want one of the others to defeat Chozen if it meant losing the job. Not that they had much of a chance anyway given how the battle went.
    • Inverted when Johnny and Chozen fight Hyan-Woo. Johnny fights Hyan-Woo alone before getting knocked down and getting saved by Chozen who briefly fights Hyan-Woo alone. Eventually subverted after seeing how strong Hyan-Woo, Johnny and Chozen decide to double-team him to take him down.
    • Johnny's fight against Kim Da Eun's five senseis averts this entirely as they all attack Johnny at the same time to give him no room to fight back. Johnny even lampshades how they aren't following this trope.
      Johnny: Damn it, wait your turn.
    • Averted in the flagship dojo fight with Cobra Kai outnumbering Miyagi-Fang by at least 3 to 1. Kenny and two other Cobra Kai students attack Robby at the same time but given how skilled he is in his tenure at Cobra Kai, Kenny wanted to make sure that Robby went down. The final part of the fight when Cobra Kai fights against Miyagi-Fang using the 'protect the egg' technique is probably the greatest example of this trope being defied in all of Cobra Kai as of Season 5.
• Moral Disambiguation: Double Subverted. At first, the series is very much based on Grey-and-Gray Morality. Johnny has some Jerkass traits and gives his students the same Cobra Kai training he had, but he's doing it so that they'll become more confident, assertive, and able to fight back against anyone who bullies them. Daniel is understandably wary of the rebirth of Cobra Kai, but he grabs the Jerkass Ball and goes out of his way to antagonize Johnny even though Johnny couldn't care less about his former rival. By the end of the first season, the series Reconstructs the Black-and-White Morality from the first The Karate Kid film. While Daniel's teachings turn Robby into a better person who's willing to let go of his anger towards his father, Johnny's only end up leading his students into the very path that ruined his life. Although Season 2 generally has Miyagi-Do as the good side and Cobra Kai as the bad side, Sam and Robby have their share of Jerkass moments while Miguel and Aisha remain good people, and the season ends with Robby losing his temper and putting Miguel in the hospital. The following seasons become a fight between The Good, the Bad, and the Evil, with Johnny and Daniel eventually joining forces to stop the morally black Kreese. However, Season 4 still ends up with some grey areas, as one of Cobra Kai's students is Kenny, a nice kid who is being bullied by Daniel's own son, Robby remains noble despite having joined Cobra Kai, Sam starts to become the instigator in her rivalry with Tory, and Hawk, Bert and Nathaniel act like total jerks to Kenny just for being on the wrong side of a dojo rivalry he didn't even know about. Season 5 is mostly black and white, with Kenny turning completely to the dark side and most of the good characters ending up in the Miyagi-Fang alliance, though the morality is still slightly complicated by Tory's attempts to redeem herself while assisting Kreese's revenge mission against Silver, and Devon joining Cobra Kai out of convenience while not doing anything particularly villainous.
• Morality Pet: Despite initially seeming like he only cared for the sake of gaining her Undying Loyalty, Season 4 shows that Kreese legitimately cares for Tory, going out of his way to check on her when her mood is off and threatening anyone that seeks to harm her. In the end, it's seeing Tory struggling with not wanting to cheat that has Kreese actually back off and allow her to fight as she wishes.
• More Diverse Sequel: The series features a significantly more diverse cast than the original The Karate Kid, where Mr. Miyagi was the only prominent non-white character, reflecting the increased diversity in the San Fernando Valley since 1984.
  • Just within the Cobra Kai dojo itself, you have the Ecuadorian Miguel Diaz, African-American Aisha Robinson, and the Jewish (and possibly autistic) Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz. Miyagi-Do has the African-American Chris, and the Asian-American Nathaniel.
  • The female representation is also heightened with Aisha, Sam and Tory as Action Girls, and Daniel's wife Amanda has a more important character role than any of the love interests in the prior movies. Miguel's mother Carmen (who happens to be the main love interest to Johnny) is also a prominent character in the series.
  • This also applies toward the bullies as well. The main bully at West Valley High School, Kyler, just so happens to be Korean-American, whereas Shawn Payne, the resident bully at the Sylmar Juvenile Corrections Center, is African-American.
• Motive Decay: All of the background Cobra Kai students that are holdovers from Johnny's run that are still loyal to Kreese's Cobra Kai by the end of Season 3 go through this, going from a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits who started learning karate to defend themselves to a thinly-veiled criminal gang who go around attacking people for seemingly no reason other than For the Evulz.
  • Dieter, Mikey, and Edwin accept Kyler into Cobra Kai without question, even though them watching Miguel beat Kyler up in the cafeteria back in Season 1 is what inspired them to join Cobra Kai in the first place. They ought to have had as much of an issue with Kyler's recruitment as Hawk did, yet apparently they didn't have an issue with that at all. A couple of them are even complicit in Kyler's bullying of Demetri, and Kyler going after Miguel again in the home invasion brawl at the end of the season.
  • Both Mikey and Rickenberger have history with Robby too, as Robby beat both of them up twice in Season 2 at the mall and the school fight, yet they seem to have no problem with accepting Robby into Cobra Kai. Hawk has issues with Robby joining Cobra Kai due to this history, so Mikey and Rickenberger ought to have had similar reservations as well, yet apparently they didn't.
  • All of them buy into Kreese's narrative that Cobra Kai need to attack Miyagi-Do for what happened to Miguel, while not noticing how ludicrous it is that he later tells them to target Miguel himself and welcome Robby, who injured Miguel in the first place, into the dojo. While Hawk realizes how ridiculous this is and defects as a result, these background Cobra Kai students that were both loyal to Hawk and holdovers from Johnny's Cobra Kai ought to have come to a similar conclusion and defected with Hawk, yet they inexplicably never question Kreese throughout all of this and stay loyal to him, which really makes them seem like robotic, brainless Mooks with no sense of agency whatsoever.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • In Season 1, Johnny finally realizes that the "No Mercy" training style from John Kreese only served to turn his students into old copies of him.
    Johnny: Look, I know you wanna win, but it's gotta be the right way. You don't have to fight dirty.
    Miguel: Dirty?! There's nothing dirty about winning, sensei. You taught me that.
  • Taken to absurdly high levels in Season 2, where both Johnny and Daniel realize the rivalry between both dojos resulted in a complete war, leaving most of the cast seriously injured and mentally scarred. Johnny even comes to realize Cobra Kai's philosophy is in no way a good one and admits resurrecting it was a terrible mistake. Daniel himself resigns from teaching karate in his own dojo and admits that he failed to uphold his late mentor's philosophy.
  • Season 3: Hawk sees just how far he has gone during the assault on Daniel's house to the point you can see him having an internal battle with himself right in the middle of it. Thankfully, his good side finally wins out.
  • Season 4: Amanda has this reaction every time she tries to get Tory to back down and it only antagonizes the girl further. At the Tournament, Kreese has a very belated Heel Realization about his treatment of Johnny when the latter was a kid.
    • Robby has this when he realizes his hatred and anger has caused him to unintentionally turn Kenny into a vengeful bully himself, Robby is completely distraught and his last scene in season 4 sees him crumbling to tears out of guilt in his father's arms.
• Mugging the Monster: The bullies assaulting Miguel take offense when Johnny tells them to knock it off. One of them — Kyler — shoves Johnny. Johnny then wipes the floor with them.
• My Beloved Smother: Miguel's mother is absolutely horrified by the thought of any harm coming to her son, and Miguel initially has to keep his involvement in Cobra Kai a secret from her. She eventually warms to the idea of him being a fighter — but even then, she can't help covering her eyes when it looks like his opponents have the upper hand.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Mr. Miyagi was named for famed Okinawan karate master Chojun Miyagi, the founder of Goju-Ryu Karate, with dialogue saying an ancestor brought it to Japan from China. When Daniel sets up the Miyagi-Do Dojo in Season 2 a picture of Chojun can be seen alongside Mr. Miyagi and drawings of other Japanese figures, implying that they were related.
  • The Miyagi-Do shrine from the animated series, which the producers have confirmed is not canon to Cobra Kai, is seen in Chozen's dojo in Season 3.
  • In "Bicephaly: (s4e4) Daniel introduces Miguel to 80's soft rock. Later Miguel name drops Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love" as an awesome song. "Glory of Love" was the featured track from the Karate Kid II soundtrack.

N

• Negated Moment of Awesome: During the final, Robby looks like he's going to heroically overcome the odds despite his shoulder injury, the way Daniel did in the first film, only for Miguel to exploit the injury and end up taking the win.
• New Kid Stigma: This was Kenny's situation in his debut episode. He recently came to the neighbourhood and was dancing his way to the bus stop. However, he ended up making himself a target for Anthony and his friends. Their tormenting him was what drove him to Cobra Kai and becoming just as bad as them through their training.
• Nice Girl: Sam is genuinely polite and friendly, and inevitably draws the line at the jerkass antics of Kyler, Yasmine, Miguel, and Robby.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The sheer amount of disasters unwittingly caused by the heroes is such a long list, it needs its own page.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: On the other hand, the villains sometimes (unwittingly!) cause cases of Heroic Second Wind.
  • Best demonstrated in the third-season climax, when Tory smashes the portrait of Mr. Miyagi next to a heavily-struggling Sam, and Kyler makes the mistake of bragging that his side has the upper hand on a still-recovering Miguel.
  • Tory's decision to lead her gang in a home invasion of the LaRusso house to begin with ends up being a mistake, as it gives the Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang students something to bury the hatchet over. It also is the final straw needed to convince Hawk to change sides.
  • Season 5 subverts this, then plays it straight. Silver's endgame is to have Cobra Kai join the Sekai Taikai, a worldwide Martial Arts tournament he plans to have broadcasted worldwide. If Cobra Kai wins that, his inflence expands across the entire world. However, it being a tournament, gives Miyagi-Fang an actual avenue to combat Cobra Kai on despite their sheer numbers and corruption. You would expect that this would be the way out for the protagonists and several episodes are spent getting both dojos into the tournament. However Silver is dispatched and Cobra Kai cut off at the knees before the tournament even gets close. Instead he ultimately screws himself by not deleting incriminating evidence that he bribed the ref in Season 4 off of his own security cameras, despite him doing so with his assault on Stingray. If he had been more thorough he would've won.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Subverted with Sam, Moon and Yasmine. In Season 1, Sam is the nice, being complicit only by inaction in the bullying perpetuated by the other two and clearly ashamed of their behaviour. Moon is the in-between, as an Innocent Beta Bitch who particpates in and laughs along with Yasmine's cruel treatment of Aisha, but does so without malice and apologizes when she realizes how badly Aisha was hurt by it. Yasmine is the mean, as a spiteful and unrepentant Alpha Bitch. In Season 3, after Yasmine's return from being Put on a Bus, Moon is now the nice, as a naive and cheerful All-Loving Hero, Sam is the in-between, being much more aggressive in her role in the dojo rivalry but still at heart a good person who wants to stand up for herself and her friends against Cobra Kai's bullying, while Yasmine remains the mean, despite having mellowed out, as a rude and cynical Lovable Alpha Bitch.
• Noble Demon: What Johnny has become over the years. He's still a Jerkass, but has a soft spot for people trying to improve themselves. His new Cobra Kai dojo even reflects this aspect of his personality. He shows that the aggressive mindset taught in the dojo can have positive effects on students with poor confidence or crippling passivity. His primary flaw also manifests in the dojo — that people get corrupted by power and aggression if taught only to exploit it, not control it.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Reconstructed over the course of the show. Some grudge elements aside, all of Johnny and Daniel's actions are with the best in mind for their students, and yet it results in an Escalating War between the two dojos that leaves everyone worse off by the end of Season 2. However, as Bobby points out to Johnny, it's important to do the right thing simply because it's the right thing to do, even when it doesn't always work out, and Johnny and Daniel both face up to the consequences of their actions and turn things around for their students by the end of Season 3, which highlights their Determinator traits and the positive influence they have had on their students.
  • What is Johnny's reward for intervening to save Miguel from Kyler's gang? Being maced and arrested by the police — and the incident serving as further ammunition for Daniel to rib him with.
  • Subverted with the lunchroom fight. At first, it seems Miguel will be punished for standing up for Sam to Kyler and beating up him and his gang. However, when the school calls his home his grandmother answers instead of his mom, and agrees to keep the incident a secret, and this helps him to win Sam's affections, meaning that ultimately he was rewarded for his heroism.
  • Robby sportingly offering Miguel a hand up in the final of the All Valley gives Miguel the opportunity to further aggravate his shoulder injury.
  • Johnny releasing Kreese from his chokehold during their fight in the Season 2 premiere allows Kreese to cheap shot him and knock him to the ground.
    Kreese: Showing mercy to an old man, that's very honorable. And stupid!
  • Miguel offers Tory a hand up in their sparring match when she first joins Cobra Kai, which she takes advantage of to take him to the ground.
  • Moon's well-meaning but ill-advised attempts to end the dojo rivalry by inviting members of Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do to a Wild Teen Party at her house only serves to increase tensions between them. She also gets the cops called to her house to break up the party.
  • Miguel's decision to show mercy and apologize to Robby when he has him pinned to the ground in the school brawl winds up putting him in the hospital with a life-threatening spinal injury when Robby, enraged by Miguel throwing his love for Sam in his face, attacks him and accidentally kicks him over a second floor railing.
  • Deconstructed with Kreese's flashbacks in Season 3. Kreese joined the army and shipped out to Vietnam with good intentions, wanting to serve his country and be a hero. He and his squad were captured by the Vietnamese and put in a nightmarish prisoner camp where they were forced to fight each other to the death when Kreese refused to set off a bomb and blow up their mission target because his friend Ponytail was too close and would have been killed. To make matters worse, Ponytail was killed minutes later anyway. Then Kreese discovered that his girlfriend had been killed in a car crash while he was away. All of these experiences led Kreese to adopting the worldview that mercy and altruism are a weakness, and all that matters is who is strong and weak, turning him into the violent sociopath he is in the present.
  • At the end of season 4, Anthony apologizes to Kenny. Rather than de-escalate the situation, this only seems to galvanize Kenny into assaulting Anthony then and there, and promising to bully him when they start high school that Fall.
• Noodle Incident: Johnny is hesitant to go to Applebee's because of something that happened involving loaded potato soup.
• Not a Date: In Season 1, Miguel has to use the pretense of "not a date" to get Sam to go out with him when she initially turns him down saying that she's putting off dating in light of Kyler trying to date-rape her. This makes the strength of her feelings for him more apparent when she kisses him at the end of the date.
• Not Me This Time:
  • Sam's major introduction to Tory comes when the latter approaches her (and Aisha) at the country club with a stolen bottle of liquor, much to Sam's dismay. Later, when Amanda's wallet goes missing, Sam is quick to accuse Tory of stealing that, as well. Tory is pissed off by the accusation both because her personal experiences (as revealed in later episodes) make getting accused of theft a sore subject for her, and because the wallet was actually stolen by Robby's delinquent ex-friends.
  • When Hawk and his gang vandalize the Miyagi-Do dojo, Daniel storms into the Cobra Kai dojo to confront Johnny, who firmly (and honestly) denies any knowledge of the trashing. Despite the fact that Johnny has previously vandalized one of Daniel's billboards, he had nothing to do with this vandalism.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • In "Different But Same", after grabbing a drink together while taking Johnny's new car for a test drive, Daniel and Johnny come to the realization that they actually have a lot in common: both had to grow up without a father, found a new father figure in their senseis, and like REO Speedwagon.
  • In "Feel the Night", Miguel and Daniel finally have a heart to heart, and it's clear the two finally come to see how similar they are, with Daniel telling Miguel that he too grew up in Reseda.
  • In "December 19", Ali calls Johnny and Daniel out on being more alike than they are willing to admit, and the two grudgingly accept that she has a point.
    "And the truth is, you guys are more alike than you want to admit. Maybe you recognize parts of yourselves in each other, and maybe you don't always like what you see."
• Nostalgia Filter: Johnny sees the Cobra Kai philosophy through this. He remembers how Cobra Kai empowered him and gave him an escape from his miserable home life, while blaming all the bad things that happened on Kreese and his corrupting influence. Johnny is thus completely unprepared for the inherent problems in such a philosophy until he is an adult and sees the reaction as someone wiser and through the actions of his own students. The other alums of Cobra Kai, who immediately call out Johnny for bringing back Cobra Kai (and especially Kreese), comment on how toxic Kreese's influence was on their lives and that the "no mercy" mentality fails horribly in the real world.

O

• Obstructive Code of Conduct:
  • Averted with Cobra Kai's "strike first, strike hard, no mercy", which is meant to liberate people of their fears and inhibitions and change their lives for the better (even though sometimes this means taking immoral actions, like deliberately injuring your opponent in a tournament to win). Miguel, Aisha and Hawk are the best examples of that, especially for the fact that Miguel showing mercy to Robby during their fight was what ultimately got him paraplegic and in a coma.
  • Played straight with Miyagi-Do's "karate only for self-defense". Robby, who was taught that by Daniel, is constantly bullied at juvie until Kreese visits him and talks to him about the Cobra Kai philosophy, which he puts into use to finally get the upper hand on the bullies. While Sam spends season 3 realizing that "defense takes on many forms," and also can include "striking first" to stop a problem before it can start.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: How Demetri reacts to realizing Hawk is going to pummel him in the season 2 finale.
• Old Master: Daniel comments several times how confident and wise Mr. Miyagi always came across, and now that he is approaching Miyagi's age when they first met he wonders how much of that was an act and he only looked all knowing and unstoppable. (His encounter with Chozen filled in some of those blanks.)
• Once a Season:
  • The first episode of each season sees Johnny get into a fight (Kyler's gang in season 1, Kreese in season 2, some bar patrons in season 3, Hawk — though for a lesson in Season 4, and a group of scammers in Season 5).
  • The fifth episode of each season has a semi-major fight scene which is the culmination of everything building throughout the season in a moment that drastically changes the flow of the story
    • Season 1: Kyler and his gang get clubbed by Miguel, who they'd bullied. This fight is what causes Cobra Kai's membership numbers to skyrocket.
    • Season 2: Hawk and Demetri's growing tension comes to a breaking point with the mall fight. The events leading after it (particularly Hawk's vandalism of the Miyagi-Do dojo) is what led to a defection of Cobra Kai students into joining Miyagi-Do.
    • Season 3: The Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai tension reaches a second peak since the school fight during the arcade fight, and the breaking of Demetri's arm. This becomes a major factor in Hawk eventually leaving Cobra Kai five episodes later. Shawn and Robby's fight in juvie is also mixed in, which results in Shawn gaining respect for Robby after finding out neither of them snitched. This eventually has long-term impacts, with Shawn directing his brother, Kenny, to Robby in the following season.
    • Season 4: Johnny and Daniel have a tournament-style rematch and Hawk has his head shaved by Cobra Kai, leading to Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang splitting up.
    • Season 5: Miguel and Robby fight it out, "like men" to use Johnny's words. The sheer intensity of the situation is enough for both boys to make peace with each other. Later, Daniel gets demolished by Silver at Stingray's apartment — which puts him in a Heroic BSoD but leads to the entire good guy side of the cast rallying with him to oppose Silver.
  • The ninth episode has a party scene of some sorts (in Season 3, it's cut short as the country club party is mostly in the next episode, though it's sorta made up for by Sam's fake "keg party" that's just a pretense for her get all the Miyagi-Dos and Eagle Fangs gathered at her house). In Season 4, this instead happens with the prom in the eighth episode, as both of the last two episodes focus on the tournament. Season 5 makes it up for it with Daniel, Amanda, Johnny, Chozen, and Carmen celebrating the latter's pregnancy at Louie's club.
  • Every ninth episode has Johnny sitting down and eating with somebody (Daniel in season 1, Carmen and the LaRussos in season 2, Ali in season 3. Season 4 skips it due to the tournament. Season 5 instead has Johnny drinking with the LaRussos, Carmen, and Chozen)
  • In the ninth episode, something drastic happens with Sam and Miguel (the breakup in season 1, them cheating on Robby and Tory respectively in season 2, them making out in the dojo and getting caught by Daniel in season 3). Again, Season 4 has this occur in episode 8, as they have a major argument at prom due to Robby and Tory showing up together to mess with their heads. Season 5 also has this in episode 8 where Sam catches Miguel kissing another girl.
  • The tenth episode has a major fight scene of sorts (obviously).
    • Season 1: The All Valley Tournament, culminating in a showdown between Cobra Kai's Miguel Diaz vs. Miyagi-Do's Robby Keene.
    • Season 2: The high school brawl between Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do. Prior to the fight, their senseis (Johnny and Daniel) face off against each other at Johnny's apartment.
    • Season 3: The LaRusso house fight between Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do against Cobra Kai, followed by a face-off between Daniel and Johnny vs. Kreese (and Robby to an extent). The latter fight is mixed with a flashback of Kreese's showdown against his captain.
    • Season 4: The All Valley Tournament again, culminating with Hawk vs. Robby in the boys' final and Sam vs. Tory in the girls' final.
    • Season 5 A double example: The adults (Johnny, Chozen, and Mike) stage a home invasion this time, with opposing senseis fighting at Silver's home. The kids go to the Cobra Kai dojo, attempting a non-violent solution, but ending up fighting again. All of this culminates with one final showdown between Daniel and Silver at the dojo.
  • The final episode of each season has a scene that involves Johnny going into the dojo after hours and finding Kreese there.
    • Season 1: Kreese arrives at the dojo to congratulate Johnny on his victory.
    • Season 2: Kreese reveals to Johnny that he took over the dojo and its students during the latter's absence.
    • Season 3: Kreese fights Johnny, but not before revealing Robby Keene as his top student.
    • Season 4: Subverted. Johnny heads to the dojo after the tournament, clearly intending to confront Kreese, but instead only finds Robby, and ends up reconciling with him.
    • Season 5: Also subverted. Silver goes to the Cobra Kai dojo and finds Daniel there. Johnny then comes to the Cobra Kai dojo and learns that Kreese has escaped from prison.
  • In keeping with the tradition of the movies, each season has a Miyagi-Do student learn a new Signature Move which comes in handy in a fight later in the season:
    • Season 1: Robby uses the double leg handstand kick to score a point against Miguel in the final of the All Valley Tournament.
    • Season 2: Sam and Robby use the Wheel Technique to fight off Hawk's gang at the mall.
    • Season 3: Daniel uses the pressure point technique taught to him by Chozen to defeat Kreese in the finale. Daniel teaches Sam in quarterstaff use, which she uses to fight back against Tory. And Sam teaches Miguel the drum technique, which he uses against Kyler.
    • Season 4: In a twist on this, Sam does use her new flying tornado kick to score a point against Tory in the tournament, but she learned the move from Johnny, not Daniel. Miguel also attempts to use the same move, only to re-injure his back in the process.
    • Season 5: The entire dojo forms a circle around Anthony to defend him from Cobra Kai while he uploads a video of Silver admitting to cheating at the tournament, using the technique they learned to defend eggs in a training exercise with Chozen. Inverted as a Cobra Kai member learns a move that helps them in a fight. Kenny learns the Silver Bullet move from Terry Silver which helps him force a forfeit on Hawk in the Sekai Taikai and temporarily disables Robby in the final fight at the dojo.
  • Johnny's TV getting broken by beer bottle (Season 1), fight (Season 2), sex (Season 3), and presumably an offscreen drunken meltdown (Season 4). In Season 5, Johnny is instead responsible for breaking Terry Silver's TV.
  • Sam and Miguel both have a case of getting hot and bothered by violence once a season. In 1 and 3 with each other, in Season 2 with Robby and Tory respectively.
  • Someone makes a Precision F-Strike. Robby in Season 1, Hawk in Season 2, Nathaniel in Season 3. Season 4 breaks the tradition by having two F-Bombs dropped, one in the 5th episode and one in the 9th, while Season 5 blows it out of the water by having F-Bombs dropped left, right and center throughout the season, including several in Spanish.
  • Robby gets into a real non-tournament fight and ends up losing.
    • Season 1: Robby fights against Trey and Cruz at LaRusso Auto and loses, the security cameras being the one thing to stop him from being beaten to a pulp.
    • Season 2: Again, Trey and Cruz fight Robby but ambushes him with a third guy who holds Robby down after hitting him in the head with an oar. Zigzagged. Robby and Miguel fight at the end of Season 2 and although he loses against Miguel, he was so Blinded by Rage that when Miguel let him go, Robby keeps fighting which ended in Miguel's spine being broken.
    • Season 3: Robby's first fight against Shawn Payne ended in him losing and beaten up from playing too defensively.
    • Season 4: Averted in Season 4. The fights he does lose are both within a karate setting rather than a real street fight. Robby loses against Terry Silver in a sparring match and the All-Valley Tournament's finals against Hawk.
    • Season 5: Happens twice. The first time is against Miguel as per Johnny's suggestion to 'fight it out like men'. Downplayed, but the second time is when he was temporarily disabled by Kenny using the Silver Bullet technique on him. However, he was able to recover quickly and resume fighting.
  • Similar to Robby, Miguel finds himself on the losing end of a fight from either distractions, circumstances beyond his control or his opponents playing dirty.
    • Season 1: Miguel's first fight against Kyler during the Halloween fight was admittedly a poor decision to make, but he still loses as Kyler's group gangs up on him four-to-one along with Miguel only being new to karate at the time.
    • Season 2: Happens twice. The first time was against Tory where he clearly outmatches her in a spar, but she surprises him with a sneak attack to take him down after he conceded the fight. The second time was against Robby Keene. This is zigzagged as Miguel did win the fight but when he let Robby go, he continued fighting and (unintentionally) kicked Miguel off a balcony and broke his spine.
    • Season 3: Averted dramatically. Miguel's during the house-fight was this at the start where his back injury severely inhibited his performance while his opponent Kyler was more than happy to Attack the Injury. After a Heroic Second Wind, Miguel was able to defeat Kyler.
    • Season 4: The All-Valley semi-finals against Hawk. Miguel reaggravates his back-injury and forfeits the match to leave for Mexico as he felt he wasn't fighting for the right reasons.
    • Season 5: When training with Miyagi-Do, Miguel's task was to protect an egg from Chozen. Miguel got distracted talking to Sam as they both hid inside the dojo and was ambushed from behind and got his egg broken.
  • Each season ends with a Sequel Hook teasing the return of a classic character from the film series: Kreese in Season 1, Ali in Season 2, Terry Silver in Season 3, and Chozen in Season 4. Though he appears frequently enough throughout the season, Season 5 ends with Kreese escaping from prison, hinting that he will have a more direct impact on the story once again.
• The One That Got Away:
  • It is very clear that to varying degrees, neither Daniel nor Johnny ever fully got over Ali Mills. Johnny constantly reminisces about the time they were together, and Daniel knows a little too much about her current life from her Facebook despite being Happily Married and not having friended her. One of the few things both men can agree on is that Ali's husband must be a total asshole. Unsurprisingly, both of them reuniting with her in Season 3 and being able to actually talk through their issues is enough for them to move on.
  • Daniel himself becomes this to Kumiko when it is revealed that the latter never married since Daniel was the only one that "fought to the death" for her. As The Karate Kid Part III and the interim between the film and Cobra Kai shows, Daniel and Kumiko never got in contact again since the former's visit to Okinawa; Daniel himself eventually moved on and fell in love with Amanda.
• Official Couple:
  • Daniel and Amanda LaRusso, both of whom are officially married long before the events of the series.
  • Johnny Lawrence and Carmen Diaz. There were hints of it in Season 1, but confirmed in Season 2, and taken to the next level in 3, 4, and 5 (the last of which results in Carmen being pregnant). Seems like Johnny completely stuck with Carmen after moving on from his past from Ali.
  • Miguel Diaz and Samantha LaRusso. Their relationship drama is as much a contributor to many plot points as Johnny and Daniel's rivalry is.^note And notably, when auditioning, Mary Mouser and Xolo Maridueña only did chemistry reads with each other and with the actors playing their characters' respective senseis.
  • Hawk and Moon. Unfortunately subverted, with Moon breaking up with Hawk after the latter Took a Level in Jerkass. They hook back up at the tournament in Season 4 after Moon kisses him to help him regain his confidence, and by Season 5 are back to becoming an Official Couple.
  • Demetri and Yasmine, even though the latter doesn't want to admit it in public. She seems to have gotten over this by Season 4, having no issue openly flirting with him in front of others, even grabbing his ass at the prom.
  • Robby Keene and Tory Nichols. It was already hinted in Season 3, given their similar backgrounds and positions as Cobra Kai's top students, but finally confirmed during prom night where they kiss.
• The Oner:
  • The battle royale at the end of "No Mercy" is filmed with long tracking shots through the school hallways, moving between several different fights all taking place at the same time.
  • A similar long tracking shot is used during the brawl at the LaRusso's house in "December 19".
• One-Steve Limit: Averted with Johnny Lawrence and John Kreese. Freeze-Frame Bonus averts this with Doug Rickenberger and Big Red as Season 4 Episode 9 shows Big Red's Cobra Kai gi has his name as Douge. There is also Robby Keene and background Cobra Kai student Rob, although Rob's name is never said out loud. While the latter's name is never said out loud nor do these two appear in the same season, Mike Barnes and Mikey counts too.
• Only Sane Woman:
  • Daniel's wife, Amanda (well, whenever status isn't brought up). In episode eight, she doesn't give a damn about family ties and tries to speak out against Louie and his horrible irresponsibility. And after Louie's antics result in yet another confrontation between Johnny and Daniel, the two are ready to throw down in LaRusso's back yard until his wife intervenes with some pretty epic Deadpan Snarkery.
    Amanda LaRusso: Yeah, you two seem to have this pretty well in hand. Just a normal Saturday afternoon and a couple of grown men about to kick each other into a pool. You know, as much as I would love to watch you and your childhood karate rival duke it out, I kinda don't want to get any blood on the patio. So what do you say we try to resolve this over some breakfast instead?
    Daniel LaRusso: (To Johnny) Wanna go inside?
    Johnny Lawrence: I could eat.
  • Season 3 shows though that even this has its limits against someone like Kreese. She still snarks against a lot of what's going on but she's far more willing to accept the situation for what it is and actively support Daniel's efforts (plus he's actually showing up to work this time which helps). Another thing shown is that once it starts harming your family directly such as traumatizing Sam, it can cause one to go start going out of their way that won't work long term; such as slapping Kreese which, as well deserved as it was, ended up working against them later on making it impossible to prosecute him. Even acting overly emotional when Amanda spots Sam practicing karate even though she was not allowed to do it anymore.
• Opposing Combat Philosophies: The series goes into this a bit more than the original movie.
  • In practical terms, Cobra Kai focuses on Combat Pragmatism street fighting with overwhelming offense, while Miyagi-Do Karate is more of a traditional style that places an emphasis on defense first and balance in all aspects of life.
  • In training philosophies Cobra Kai is all about going as hard as you can, pushing yourself to your breaking point and coming out stronger on the other side. Miyagi-do is about letting your mindful efforts flow through your entire life. Acting mindfully in certain areas of life will bring benefits in other areas of your life, bringing balance to your life. Cobra Kai is a fighting method that can be applied to life. Miyagi-do is a life philosophy than can be applied to combat.
  • Discussed in Season 3 Episode 9 when Sam brings Miguel over to Miyagi-Do to spar.
    Miguel: [looking at a picture of Mr. Miyagi] So this is the guy that founded Miyagi-Do?
    Sam: That's Mr. Miyagi. Taught my dad everything he knows.
    Miguel: Oh. Like how Sensei Lawrence learned everything from Kreese.
    Sam: Mr. Miyagi was nothing like Kreese. Miyagi taught karate the right way, focusing on defense.
    Miguel: Yeah, but sometimes the best defense is more offense.
    Sam: This is the problem. The styles are so far apart. Your sensei will never see eye to eye with my dad.
    Miguel: I think it's the other way around.
  • In Season 4 both sides of the conflict do their best to actually start learning techniques from the opposing philosophy. Robby teaches Cobra Kai Miyagi-Do Karate to more effectively counter them, and Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do do their best to learn how the other fights. Eli and Sam end up doing the best in the All-Valley because they were the most willing to learn each style.
• Ordered to Cheat:
  • Notably inverted. Johnny, unlike his former teacher Kreese, doesn't want his students to fight dirty. Unfortunately, they do so anyway because Johnny has already taught them to do whatever it takes to win.
  • In the first episode, Johnny says Daniel only won the tournament because of an illegal kick. Come Episode 10, he teaches Miguel how to do it, and it's scored as a point. It's played with in that according to the rules as stated by Ali in the original movie, the kick itself was legit; the only off-limit targets were below the belt.
  • Ironically enough in Season 4, despite Silver being up to his old tricks and ordering Tory to take some cheap shot elbows to stay ahead, Kreese is the one to ultimately reassure her that she doesn't need to cheat and can fight how she wishes. She chooses not to.

P

• Pac Man Fever: Averted. Kenny in Season 4 is shown playing an internet MMORPG called Dungeon Lord: Legacies. Aside from a lack of texture mapping, the graphics, animation and interface all pretty much look like those of a real game in the same mold.
• Pacifist Dojo: The Miyagi-do is supposed to be this on paper, but in practice the students don't deescalate conflicts or attempt to make peace insomuch as they goad their opponents into attacking first so they'll feel justified in fighting back. Daniel realizes this in the aftermath of the Mob War at Sam's school.
• The Paralyzer: The secret Miyagi pressure points Chozen teaches Daniel involve striking an opponent on certain parts of their body and numbing their arms and legs, to prevent them from fighting back. Daniel uses the technique successfully against Kreese, who tries to slice him with a shard of broken glass during their battle in the Season 3 climax.
  Chozen: If an enemy insists on war, then you take away their ability to wage it. Yeah?
• Parental Substitute: Johnny ends up as such for Miguel, and later on, Daniel ends up being this for Robby without realizing he was replacing Robby's actual dad Johnny. In a moment of truce, Daniel and Johnny talk about how Mr. Miyagi and John Kreese served as their parental figures too.
• Parents Walk In at the Worst Time: In Season 3 Episode 9, Daniel happens to walk in on Sam making out with Miguel in the Miyagi dojo. He's too stunned by sight of his daughter French-kissing Johnny Lawrence's star student to ask anything more than "Is that my drum in your pocket?" (Miguel having stuffed the Okinawan hand drum into his shorts pocket while Sam demonstrated the drum technique on him.)

  Sam: Look, I'm sorry, Dad. I should've told you that I invited Miguel over.
  Daniel: All right, new rule. If you're gonna bring boys over to the dojo, leave the door open.
  Sam: Come on, Dad, it's not 1984...

• Party Scheduling Gambit: "Different But Same." The Cobra Kai throw a Wild Teen Party to spite Yasmine. They succeed in royally pissing her off.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • While the Cobra Kai students becoming bullies themselves is a horrible thing, nobody is going to feel sorry for Kyler and Yasmine when they get their asses kicked by the kids they bullied.
  • Let's be clear, while Kreese is not exactly a saint, good luck finding anyone that wasn't cheering when he threatened finger amputation on Tory's landlord who was essentially trying to coerce her into selling her body to him so she can avoid eviction (reminder that she's a minor as well). While he was doing it for the real purpose of gaining Tory's unconditional and absolute loyalty, it was still very cathartic to see.
• Percussive Maintenance: Apparently, to fix a broken back involves lots of training with repeated impacts and falls.
• Perspective Flip: The entire point of the show is to do this for the Cobra Kai.
  • In the original film, the Cobra Kai were the villains, and their creed ("Strike first, strike hard, no mercy") was a mantra of brutality. Now the Cobra Kai are the protagonists — and often the heroes. Their creed, too, is examined in a more nuanced light, as bullying victims can apply it to gain confidence and initiative ("strike first"), apply themselves 100% to everything they do ("strike hard"), and keep fighting back even when life is unfair ("no mercy"). By the end of Season 1, however, Johnny's students are going too far, transitioning from bullying victims to being bullies themselves — and Johnny knows it. In Season 2, he makes an earnest effort to rein them back in and succeeds with Miguel, but Kreese successfully corrupts the other students even further.
  • We also get to see how insufferably smarmy and self-righteous Daniel appears to Johnny. While it doesn't excuse Johnny for his actions back in school, it's suddenly a lot easier to understand why he wanted to beat this guy up so badly.
  • In Season 3, we finally see the other side of the puzzle. Before, we saw how Cobra Kai itself could find a home for many students. But how could a psychopath like Kreese when he's given full rein to do as he pleases? He weeds out the ones he knows won't stomach his worst tendencies and actively recruits teenagers with a nasty mean streak, but he makes sure to provide the right amount of positive reinforcement at the perfect times to gain his students' Undying Loyalty. With how he treats Robby and Tory, it's very easy to see why Johnny viewed him as a potential father figure. And how does he manage to keep operating when so many people outside the dojo know first what a toxic monster he is? By Playing the Victim Card every chance he gets and selling the image of a humble veteran trying to help his community.
• Perspective Reversal:
  • In Season 4, Terry Silver is initially reluctant to join Kreese in his renewed crusade against Daniel and Johnny, and when he does rejoin him as co-sensei of Cobra Kai, he uses his influence to try to keep the Cobra Kai students from antagonizing Miyagi-Do/Eagle Fang until the All-Valley Tournament, while even making an ambiguous but seemingly sincere apology to Daniel for his previous actions. However, as the season goes on, Silver becomes increasingly unhinged, deploying more psychological warfare techniques against his opponents, ambushing Johnny with physical brutality as a way to torment Miguel and Johnny's other students while getting revenge for their defection from Cobra Kai, attempting to force his own students to cheat and purposefully injure their tournament rivals (while bribing the tournament referee for good measure), and ultimately framing Kreese for his assault on Stingray to usurp control of the dojo from him. Meanwhile, Kreese begins the season wanting to be more directly and physically confrontational toward Miyagi-Do/Eagle Fang even before the tournament, but seemingly mellows out over time, preventing Silver from going further with his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Johnny in favor of focusing on the tournament itself, unsuccessfully attempting to reconcile with Johnny at the tournament while diplomatically expressing concern for Miguel's well-being after the latter temporarily re-injures his back, and encouraging Robby and Tory to win the tournament on their own terms without being pressured to cheat.
  • In Season 5, a poignant scene after getting beat up by Terry Silver has Daniel realizing exactly why Mr. Miyagi always tried to run away from fighting even though he's such an accomplished martial artist: everyone around him keeps getting hurt even if he's able to win against his opponents through his superior strength and Miyago-Do skill. They both just "don't want no trouble."
• Plaster Cast Doodling: Played for Drama. Demetri shows up to school with a cast in episode 7 after Hawk breaks one of his arms in episode 5. He then gets picked on by Kyler, who draws a penis on his cast, causing everyone to laugh at him. In an act of compassion, Yasmine fixes Demetri's cast by writing, "I love your big dick," and signing it.
• Police Are Useless: In Season 3, Amanda tries to file a restraining order against Kreese, and a helpful policeman tells her that Kreese has already filed one against her, and there's nothing he can do to resolve the matter. The police are conspicuously absent throughout the series, even when Miguel is crippled, and later when Kreese tackles Daniel through his dojo window. Robby goes to juvie and is put on probation, but that's it.
• Political Correctness Is Evil:
  • Once Johnny gives the demeaning nickname of "Lip" to Eli, Demetri tells him he can't make fun of others' physical appearance, and when Johnny says the real world doesn't care, Demetri says the real world can call the police on him and makes fun of his age. Two scenes later, Demetri is riding along the bullying campaign against Sam and making fun of her.
  • Counselor Blatt spends more time worrying about students wearing culturally non-inclusive costumes at the school Halloween party than the violence and cyberbullying that are rampant among the students. Unsurprisingly, none of the students take her the least bit seriously.
    Counselor Blatt: Instead of "sexy nurse," how about "gender neutral hospital worker"?^note "Nurse" is a gender-neutral word already, so Counselor Blatt is effectively reinforcing the negative stereotype of nurses being women
  • In Season 2, Daniel is accused of cultural appropriation by people online after they see his YouTube commercial for Miyagi-do, which heavily uses Japanese imagery and music. Daniel, of course, is actually very respectful and knowledgeable of the culture due to the Japanese native Mr. Miyagi passing down the traditions to him... but random YouTube viewers would have no way of knowing that and would rather call him "Daniel LaRacist".
  • In Season 3, Hawk exploits Counselor Blatt's personality by invoking physical immunity and "safe space" to get away with bullying.
    Blatt: Did [Sam] enter your personal bubble without your verbal consent?
    Hawk: Yeah, she definitely triggered me in my safe space.
  • Twice during the Los Angeles city council meeting covering the All-Valley Tournament's cancellation in Season 3:
    • A man named Carter complains that the Valley wants manholes to be renamed "maintenance covers".
    • Kreese asserts on Roberts being addressed as "Councilperson", not "Councilwoman", having learned about this from the discussion the council had two minutes earlier about gender neutral address. He's really only doing this to get on her good graces and make Daniel look bad.
      Daniel: I apologize, Councilwoman Roberts. But this man—
      Kreese: "Councilperson" Roberts.
      Roberts: Thank you, Captain Kreese.
• Poor Communication Kills: Communication failures are so utterly rampant in this series, they need their own page.
• Politically Incorrect Hero:
  • Johnny is shown as a xenophobic, sexist, alcoholic jerkass at various points throughout the series, not to mention completely insensitive to Hawk, who has a cleft lip and is on the autism spectrum. With that said, it's shown that his attitude is born out of ignorance rather than true hatred, and he does become more open-minded as the show goes on (correcting people about the Diaz family's country of origin and fully opening Cobra Kai to female students). In Season 4, Johnny seems to have embraced feminism and tries to recruit a girl in his Eagle Fang dojo, telling her how he intends to empower women and help "tear down the neo-masculine hierarchy to confront internalized sexism". Once the girl joins Cobra Kai instead though, he angrily and dismissively says he had to learn feminism, implying he doesn't really believe in the words he said.
  • Downplayed, but Daniel is not immune to this either, asking Kyler (who is Asian) where his parents are from, thereby automatically assuming they must be immigrants. It goes to show that despite their differences, both Daniel and Johnny are ultimately products of their generation.
  • When Aisha rises in Cobra Kai, her adoption of Johnny's sexist insults ("What a bunch of pussies!") raised more than one reviewer's eyebrow.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Kreese is dismissive of Miguel, referring to him as "that Mexican". At the same time, he's also progressed in some other ways, as he has no problem having female students in Cobra Kai and even lets a female netball player try out for a spot in the dojo when he's talent-scouting for new recruits in Season 3. He also seems more educated on mental illness than Johnny (likely due to his mother's suicide).
• Posthumous Character: Miyagi has been dead for years by the time the series starts, though Daniel still aspires to live up to his legacy, and would yearn for his late father figure to be there for him in the flesh during an emotionally troubling time.
• Power Trio: Minoring in Freudian Trio, Aisha, Miguel and Hawk are the Superego, Ego and Id, respectively. Aisha is the most intellectual of the three, and the one who spends most time reflecting over her actions. Hawk revels in the power and status Cobra Kai membership gives him and is entirely driven by raw rage. Miguel drifts between the extremes, capable of extreme violence but also shows something resembling awareness at his own capacity.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Terry Silver prefers this to John Kreese's usual mentality, and in stark contrast to the last time he was seen in the Karate Kid franchise. His visits to Daniel are explicitly to get in his head and nothing more, preferring to let him self-destruct as he knows he has a tendency of doing. He also orders Cobra Kai to not retaliate against any provocation for Miyagi-Do or Eagle Fang, preferring to let them harbor the anger and stew in it until they unleash it in the tournament. He even tells Kreese that his biggest mistake the first time around was giving up the Villain with Good Publicity status they had for petty attacks and revenge and repeating the same mistakes would be foolhardy.
• Precision F-Strike: Once a Season. At least up until Season 4.
  • Season 1 has Robby seeing an ad for Cobra Kai (featuring Johnny Lawrence) and going, "It's my fuckin' dad". Johnny also has a very subtle one at the LaRusso Auto showroom in the first episode, although the YouTube subtitles do not pick up on this.
  • Season 2 has Hawk calling Demetri a "fucking nerd" during an argument with Moon.
  • Season 3 has a bloodied, exasperated Nathaniel yell, "They kicked the fucking shit out of me!" when he shows up at Sam's front door after being beaten up and robbed by Hawk's gang.
  • Season 4 has two: Johnny tells a bartender to "shut the fuck up" in episode 5 and Eli declares that he is "the guy who's gonna win the whole fucking" tournament.
  • Season 5 has several of them, the first of many in Spanish, and the last few in English (with three instances from Daniel himself).
    • The wrong Hector Salazar delivers a Cluster F-Bomb to Miguel when the latter asks about Carmen (though it's all in Spanish).
    • Even Miguel's Hector Salazar isn't safe from this, as he delivers one to Miguel (also in Spanish) when ranting about the people in his past disapproving of his crimes.
    • When discussing Silver's plans on recruiting old friends to help him with Cobra Kai's expansion, Daniel speculates "Mike Fucking Barnes" is one of them.
    • Daniel offers an imprisoned Kreese his lawyer's number in exchange for information on Silver's plans for Cobra Kai. After Kreese upholds his end of the bargain, Daniel hands him a note which supposedly contains his lawyer's number; Kreese is instead greeted with a merry "NO MERCY, MOTHER FUCKER!" and left to his own devices.
    • Johnny, Chozen, and Barnes propose storming Silver's residence to get back at him, despite their drunken state. Daniel claims that the three are "out of their fucking minds."
    • Silver details the contents of the message he plans to send to Miyagi-Do/Eagle Fang prior to the Sekai Taikai, where he tells them "Stay the fuck out of our way, or someone will get hurt."
• Product Placement:
  • Johnny is rarely seen drinking anything (alcoholic or otherwise) other than Coors Banquet beer. Daniel even mocks him for it when he orders one at a Mexican restaurant while everyone else is drinking a classy cocktail.
  • Daniel also specifically asks for Ketel [One] vodka for his martini.
  • YouTube is featured quite prominently in the show. After all, the company did produce the first two seasons.
    • When Johnny discovers the Internet, he spends most of his montage watching movies and videos on the site.
    • YouTube ends up playing a huge role in the Final Battle as the key to exposing Terry Silver as the fraud that he is. Certainly helps that the incriminating video was uploaded on the Cobra Kai dojo's iPad that Anthony uses to cast it on to the TV screens.
  • Johnny uses Facebook to reconnect with Ali.
  • Johnny acquires a new Dodge Challenger that factors significantly into the plot.
  • Johnny's new TV and smartphone (as well as the TV he hangs up in the pilot episode) are prominently Sony.
  • Anthony plays on a PlayStation Vita in the first season (and orders a new one from Alexa when his dad takes his away). Daniel accidentally breaks Stingray's PS4 and arrives back at his house carrying a new one in a box as a replacement.
  • Anthony plays a Nintendo Switch in the second season.
  • Every laptop in the show is a Dell.
  • Season 3 makes it clear to anyone doubting that it's being sponsored by Microsoft.
  • Champion sportswears are clearly sponsoring Cobra Kai's new apparel and merchandise in Season 4.
  • And in season 4's episode 4, can you believe they have Mr. Pibb and Dr. Pepper at the drive-in? And Butterfingers and whatever else Kenny is sent to buy.
  • XMA (eXtreme Martial Arts) has its own team representing itself in the 51st All-Valley Tournament. In Season 5, XMA has two senseis appearing as potential recruits for Cobra Kai teachers, one wearing a red gi and one wearing the traditional black and silver gi.
  • Cobra Kai sells Jack Link's Jerky in their tabling event, which becomes very important later on in the season, especially when it involves a traitor eating them.
  • Season 5's episode 5 features Johnny taking Miguel and Robby to Olive Garden to make amends. He sings praises for the restaurant, and the waiter gives a protracted sales pitch. Later, Johnny gets some take-out from the restaurant, and the boys are shown gobbling it down appreciatively. It's all laid on so thick that you'd expect some Biting-the-Hand Humor to come into play, but it's played completely straight.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain:
  • Over the course of the first season, most of Johnny's students (particularly Miguel and Hawk) go from being bullied outcasts in need of help and guidance to being a hyper-aggro Gang of Bullies themselves. Hawk is arguably the worst to suffer from this trope, as he becomes an outright psychopath who terrorizes his best friend, Demetri, just for the heck of it (at least until his redemption in the Season 3 finale).
  • However, Robby Keene also eventually suffers from this trope, being a star-student of Miyagi-Do who looked to be moving on from his delinquency days, only to end up in juvie after letting his rage get the best of him against Miguel, and joining Kreese's Cobra Kai under the impression that both Johnny and Daniel betrayed him.
  • Kenny Payne as well, jeez. A new student at West Valley Middle School is just trying to adjust himself only to be mercilessly bullied by his peers, the most notable being Anthony LaRusso. Although Robby takes him under his wing in Cobra Kai and tries to neutralize his anger, Kreese and Silver’s influence corrupts him further to becoming the absolute worst next generation student Cobra Kai has to offer.
• Put on a Bus:
  • This happens to Anthony LaRusso after season 1. Although Daniel offers to have his son study karate over the summer, Anthony chooses to go off to camp. And in season 3, he only appears for one scene in "Miyagi-Do" scolding Sam like a disappointed parent for teaching the Miyagi-Do kids in secret (and is conveniently away at a sleepover when the Cobra Kai gang attacks the LaRusso house).
  • Yasmine is off vacationing in France during the summer, although Moon sees one of her vacation photos.
  • Aisha is put on one in Season 3, as her parents immediately transferred her to a private school and got the hell out of the Valley after the brawl.
• Put on a Prison Bus: Stingray's fate after the school brawl is being placed on probation and not being allowed within 500 feet of minors^note In real life, Paul Walter Hauser had been cast as the titular character in Clint Eastwood's biopic of Richard Jewell.

Q-R

• Quantity vs. Quality: What Season 5 boils down to. With Silver's influence, Cobra Kai has expanded all across the Valley, giving them an army of students. However, the three aces of the show, Miguel, Robby, and Hawk, are all in Miyagi-Fang at this point and no one in Cobra Kai save Kenny registers as more than a mild inconvenience to any of them in a straight fight, and even with Kenny's rapid growth, he's hopelessly outclassed by the three if they ever decide to take the fight seriously. While Cobra Kai has Tory, she's really The Mole so it's basically In Name Only (and she avoids fighting Miyagi-Fang at all during the season when she can avoid it). However, the show makes it clear that despite the drastic ability gap, the sheer numbers of Cobra Kai make it nearly impossible for Miyagi-Fang to win a straight fight with them and they can only fight on an axis where CK is forced into 1v1s (eg. in a Tournament) or in a position where Miyagi-Fang only needs to hold out to win.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: While Season 4's ending is mostly bleak, there are a few hopeful spots. Both Robby and Tory have finally realized they were led down the wrong path with Robby coming to realize how hard being a mentor figure is and letting go of some of his resentment towards Johnny, Eli regained his confidence with his tournament win and has patched things up with Moon, Kreese is in jail and won't be a threat any time soon, and Daniel has decided to enlist Chozen's help so they can end Cobra Kai's influence.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Because of Pat Morita's death in 2005, the character Mr. Miyagi passes away as well (albeit 6 years later). This also applies to Nobu McCarthy (Yukie) and Danny Kamenkona (Sato).
  • Due to other commitments preventing Chad McQueen from reprising his role as Dutch, the character's role was written such that he ended up behind bars for an unspecified crime at some point following the disbandment of Cobra Kai in 1984.
  • Tragically reversed with Rob Garrison, who played Tommy. His Season 2 guest episode ended with his character's death, and Garrison himself passed away shortly afterwards. However, the episode was not written with any certainty that Garrison would soon pass, and in fact both Garrison and the showrunners had expressed interest in Tommy returning for Season 3.
• Red Herring: Both John Kreese and Terry Silver get this treatment in Kreese's flashback.
  • The audience is led to believe that the jock bullying the waiter is Kreese, given his despicable personality, his talk about showing "no mercy" to the opponent, and the fact that he is played by Jesse Kove, Martin Kove's real-life son. When really, the waiter being bullied is Kreese.
  • The fellow soldier with the ponytail in Vietnam alongside "Twig" should be Terry Silver, right? He has the ponytail that Terry Silver donned in The Karate Kid Part III, along with a bit of that boisterous personality. He's killed off during a special-op mission, with the reveal that "Twig" is actually Terry.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Season 2 with the Rival Dojos: Cobra Kai remains firmly red, while Miyagi-Do is doing its absolute best to stay firmly on the blue end. This also applies to each of their fighters and their rivals, which include...
    • Cobra Kai's Johnny Lawrence (Red) and Miyagi-Do's Daniel LaRusso (Blue)
    • Cobra Kai's Tory Nichols (Red) and Miyagi-Do's Samantha LaRusso (Blue). While the pair hated each other from nearly the start, Tory has generally been the more aggressive one against Sam.
    • Cobra Kai's Mitch (Red) and Miyagi-Do's Chris (Blue). While both joined Cobra Kai in Season 2, Chris was always the reluctant fighter, and was the first one to defect when Daniel came into the dojo.
    • Cobra Kai's Hawk (Red) and Miyagi-Do's Demetri (Blue). Interestingly, Eli (before becoming Hawk) starts out as the more meek, quieter Blue Oni to Demetri's mouthier Red Oni.
    • A gradually inverted example with Cobra Kai's Miguel Diaz and Miyagi-Do's Robby Keene. While they initially were the Red Oni, Blue Oni respectively in Season 1 (Miguel being the aggressive brawler willing to fight dirty, Robby being the peaceful fighter who fights fairly), Season 2 has Miguel slowly becoming more of a Internal Reformist (thanks to Johnny's guidance)—ending the season as the Blue Oni, whereas Robby possesses an Attack! Attack! Attack! personality that makes him the most aggressive of all the Miyagi-Do students—ending the season as the Red Oni. This reaches its climax at the end of the school fight in which Miguel shows mercy after managing to pin Robby down, only for the latter's rage to get the better of him and knock Miguel off the balcony. By the end of Season 3, the two had sort of switched sides, with Robby joining Cobra Kai under Kreese while Miguel followed Johnny to Eagle Fang, who have sort of merged with Miyagi-Do.
    • Also inverted with Cobra Kai's Bert and Miyagi-Do's Nathaniel. Bert is the Blue Oni, being Cobra Kai's Token Good Teammate and the least vicious student (which unfortunately gets him kicked out of Cobra Kai), whereas Nathaniel is the Red Oni, being Miyagi-Do's Token Evil Teammate who still carries on the Cobra Kai mindset to Miyagi-Do (much to Daniel's chagrin).
• Redemption Quest: Johnny is seeking redemption for himself, and Cobra Kai. His son Robby begins a redemption journey of his own, from thieving dropout to Daniel's protege. It doesn't stick.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: When Johnny makes his appeal to get Cobra Kai entered into the All-Valley tournament for season 1, he claims that Kreese passed away sometime after the original trilogy. Daniel clearly doesn't believe him since Terry Silver used this exact same lie on him in The Karate Kid Part III. Sure enough, Kreese reappears after Cobra Kai wins the tournament. The Season 2 opener confirms Johnny genuinely did think Kreese had died.
• Reformed Bully:
  • All of Daniel's original rivals from The Karate Kid trilogy become this, and it gets more profound when each one of them is re-introduced. Even better, all of them team up in the Season 5 finale to take down Daniel's ultimate nemesis, Terry Silver.
    • Subverted on introduction, but eventually played straight over time with Johnny Lawrence. While Johnny heavily resents Daniel mainly due to his life crashing down after his 1984 defeat, he gets better and better as he finds a new purpose in becoming a karate sensei and teaching his students how to fight and be "badass" but in an honorable way. Yes, he does have his moments with Daniel throughout the series, but Season 5 finally puts him in a position where he's shed his resentment toward Daniel and has nothing but concern for him when the latter acts up.
    • Played much, much better with Chozen Toguchi though, as him being set on a correct path by his uncle, Sato, has finally brought peace in his mind, especially upon his first encounter with Daniel after their death match. He is prone in pretending to be his old self to troll Daniel, however.
    • However, Mike Barnes clearly has the best of it all, given he doesn't even want to prank Daniel by pretending to be his old self and genuinely wants to apologize to him after everything that happened in Part III. His lifestyle after the trilogy clearly shows a man at peace the most out of the three, given that he's married and living his life as a furniture store co-owner... at least until Silver returns to his life.
  • This also extends to Johnny's old Cobra Kai friends, given that they have all matured, regret their past behavior, and plainly see Kreese's "No Mercy" training as the unrealistic and ultimately useless bullshit that it was. Bobby Brown (who's always been the Token Good Teammate to the Cobra Kais) has gone all the way to become an ordained minister, Jimmy has grown into a family man, and Tommy has also changed for the better prior to his death. Subverted very heavily with Dutch who is currently serving time in prison for burglary.
  • This also applies to the younger generation of characters, with Character Development playing a role.
    • When Miguel Diaz becomes Cobra Kai's #1 student, he fully embraces the "Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy" mindset, which turns him into a vicious hothead brute that alienates Sam and disappoints Johnny. Seasons 2 and 3 are about Miguel shedding the worst of the Cobra Kai mentality that Johnny had instilled into him, regaining his relationship with Sam in the process.
    • Hawk is far worse though, as he becomes an outright psychopath — especially when Kreese slowly takes over Cobra Kai. However, his time under Kreese's tutelage throughout Season 3 has him second-guessing the motive behind his actions and Cobra Kai's creed, which culminates at the end of season 3 when he decides to come to Demetri's aid, and spends season 4 patching things up with the people he drove away when he gave in to Kreese's philosophy.
    • Yasmine becomes one in season 3 after her front-wedgie experience with Aisha, distancing herself from Kyler and hooking up with Demetri. She still has her moments though.
    • Downplayed with Robby. While he does join Cobra Kai (who are basically a pack of bullies), he maintains a sense of honor unlike the others karatekas at the dojo (even though he seems to not show any remorse for what he did to Miguel, and led an assault on Hawk at the tattoo parlor). He eventually defects from the dojo after realizing Kenny has become worse than he thought. In season 4, like Hawk, he reconciles with Johnny, and in Season 5, with Daniel, Sam and the people he hurt and pushed away.
    • It took three seasons, but Tory has tamed heavily from an outright psychopath to a far more sympathetic character, thanks to Amanda LaRusso empathizing with her rough upbringing and helping Tory stabilize her life. Season 5 is when she fully redeems herself and joins the protagonists when they go out to stop Terry Silver.
    • Anthony as well, recognizing the consequences of bullying Kenny. Certainly helps when Daniel finally shapes him up to become a better person.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Johnny may no longer be the arrogant bully who once almost killed Daniel, but he will always be a jerkass on some level.
• Retcon:
  • Mr. Miyagi's first name was originally shown written in Japanese characters as Nariyoshi in the second film, but was mentioned as Kesuke in the fourth film, which the Cobra Kai producers consider to be canon. It was changed back to Nariyoshi in the series, as shown in his grave when Daniel visits it.
  • Aside from that instance though, the show does variations of this that are very well-received. They take things the audience were left to assume and reveal their assumptions were wrong the whole time. Some stand out examples include:
    • Terry claims he trained under Kim Sun-Yung when first meeting Daniel. Due the fact he lied about everything else, the audience was left to believe that he was never real. It's revealed in this series that not only is Kim Sun-Yung real, but he actually has a notorious reputation in the martial arts community for his questionable methods that even Sato and Chozen condemn. Terry and Kreese both indeed trained under him following their CO from Vietnam, George Turner. Daniel is every bit as shocked as the audience when he learns the man is real.
    • Mixed with Revision, the infamous breakup between Ali and Daniel is revealed to have been mostly Daniel's fault because Ali was reconnecting with a friend from UCLA at prom after she got accepted into the school and he assumed the worse, so she egged him on in a fit of anger, pretending to have fallen in love with her friend. It's also revealed that Ali refused to pay for damages to Daniel's car because it was caused by faulty brakes rather than anything she did, and she even warned him that might happen before borrowing the car.
    • Mike Barnes reveals that the contract the audience only ever saw the blank back of stipulated that he was required to harass Daniel to get his share of the dojos, even if he did enjoy it at the time.
• Retired Badass: Something of a theme in the series. Daniel and Johnny are both in their fifties, but have stayed in pretty impressive shape, and only lose fights when they're at a severe disadvantage (if even then). Kreese is in his seventies, but he can still fight Johnny to a draw, and might well have killed Daniel if the latter hadn't used Chozen's secret "pressure point" strike to get the upper hand. Speaking of which, Chozen is also now an old man, yet he's more than capable of giving Daniel an ass-kicking training session. Even the OG Cobra Kai gang — Bobby, Tommy, and Jimmy — are not to be trifled with.
• Revenge Before Reason: Tory in season 3. Despite being on probation for trying to maim Sam, she repeatedly goes after Sam with the intent of terrorizing her, knowing full well that she could end up in juvie for it, which would also break up her family.
• Reusable Lighter Toss: A biker tosses a Zippo on Johnny's car covered in gas.
• The Rival:
  • Season 1:
    • Miguel Diaz vs. Kyler, the latter being Miguel's main high school bully (until Miguel beats him and his gang in the school cafeteria).
    • Aisha Robinson vs. Yasmine, the latter being Aisha's main high school bully by mocking her for her weight and nerdy interests. This results in Aisha eventually giving her a much-deserved painful wedgie that puts an end to Yasmine's bullying.
    • Miguel Diaz vs. Robby Keene. Robby seeing Johnny embracing Miguel is what leads him to work for LaRusso Auto and learn karate from Daniel out of revenge, whereas Miguel becomes jealous of Robby given the latter's relationship with Sam. Both fight against each other during the All-Valley finals, with Miguel winning (albeit by attacking his injured shoulder).
    • Johnny Lawrence vs. Daniel LaRusso, reignited after their 1984 bout. Johnny resents Daniel after the latter manages to ride off his success after beating him in the All-Valley, whereas Daniel resents Johnny for bringing back the very same dojo that tormented the former throughout his high school years. This culminates in the All-Valley tournament, with both men coaching their students (Miguel Diaz and Robby Keene respectively) in the finals.
  • Season 2: Cobra Kai vs. Miyagi-Do. Examples include...(all of whom fight against each other in the season finale)
    • Johnny Lawrence vs. Daniel LaRusso. The rivalry intensifies after Daniel decides to open up Miyagi-Do, but reaches its peak during the aftermath of the West Valley brawl,, resulting in numerous students injured (particularly Sam and Miguel), two students expelled (Robby being on the run from the law), their PRs shattered, and even more collateral damage toward the Valley community as well.
    • Miguel Diaz vs. Robby Keene, both of whom are the top male students to their respective dojos. Their rivalry adds in a little more depth regarding their relationship with Johnny, with Robby being the son that Johnny failed, whereas Miguel being the son-figure that Johnny is currently succeeding with. This reaches its peak with Miguel kissing Sam (Robby's girlfriend) and the two pitted against each other in the school fight, resulting in Robby kicking Miguel off the balcony out of rage for everything the latter has done to him (i.e steal his girlfriend, father, All-Valley victory).
    • Samantha LaRusso vs. Tory Nichols. Tory resents Sam for having the privileged lifestyle that the former could never have, whereas Sam looks down upon Tory for her vicious nature. This reaches its peak when Miguel cheats on Tory with Sam, and Tory kicks off the school brawl by attacking Sam in revenge.
    • Hawk vs. Demetri, both of whom were former bullied nerds (and best friends) that eventually Took a Level in Badass after joining their respective dojos (Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do). Demetri becomes Hawk's main target after the former disses Cobra Kai (via Yelp review), which culminates in their face-off during the school brawl (resulting in Demetri winning through Awesome by Analysis).
    • Chris vs. Mitch, both (former) best friends who were part of Hawk's gang during their time at the dojo. Their rivalry ignites after Chris leaves Cobra Kai in response to Daniel's rousing speech against the dojo, joining Miyagi-Do in the process.
    • Bert vs. Nathaniel, the smallest students in their respective dojos (Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do). Played for laughs, as their rivalry seems just as intense as anybody else's, despite there being no indication that they even know each other outside of their dojos.
  • Season 3: The rivalry between Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do continues, with Eagle Fang (a splinter faction of ex-Cobra Kai members) as a wild card. Eagle Fang eventually forms an Enemy Mine with Miyagi-Do once Cobra Kai becomes a greater threat. Particular examples include...
    • Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso vs. John Kreese. Much like their dojos, Johnny and Daniel eventually form an Enemy Mine with each other to take down Kreese and his students once and for all.
• Rival Dojos: Once Daniel starts up Miyagi-do as a rival dojo to Cobra Kai, this becomes the central conflict of the series. Then Kreese wrests control of Cobra Kai from Johnny, and after other shennanigans Johnny finds a new dojo, resulting in three rival dojos. Then goes technically back to two when Sam and Miguel get Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang to form an alliance.
• Rousing Speech:
  • Johnny gives one of these to his students on tournament day — and he delivers it in his trademark crass way, too.
  • Miguel has to give one at a town hall meeting in Season 3 (with Sam's help) to convince city officials to let the All-Valley Tournament continue.
• Ruder and Cruder: The show has a lot more profanity, crass humor, and adult content than the films it was based off on. Granted, the original movies has their fair share of profanity, but the show does not shy away from dropping F-bombs.
• Running Gag:
  • Frequent allusions are made to a Noodle Incident that got Johnny banned from Applebee's.
  • Every time the All Valley Karate Tournament Board show up, they'll get into an argument about the color of the tournament mats.