Cobra Kai is a show that portrays the sophisticated life of rivalries among teens. It represents the athletically diverse ways of learning a particular sport, in this case karate. Many of the teachings of karate have a positive and meaningful impact on the students, yet some have resorted to a route of violence. Cobra Kai shows how a passionate sport can turn into something much more intense than it seems. However, many positive aspects have outshined the negatives. 

Cobra Kai season five was released on September 9th, 2022 by Sony. It was produced by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg and production company Counterbalance Entertainment. The show was released on May 2nd, 2018 and is a continuation of a well-known movie, Karate Kid. With the $40 million spent on the production of Cobra Kai, they have showcased a show that not only expresses the feelings of the individual characters, but also the struggles of being a teenager in today’s world. With the outstanding acting done by the actors/actresses the show has won eight nominations and 2 Emmy nominations for Stunt Coordination and Rave Reviews, Outstanding Comedy Series, and many more. Its portrayal of comedy, drama, action, and its swoony romance has kept fans eager and on the edge to continue watching. However, this season has lots of reigniting rivalries that have made it a struggle for the audience to stop watching. Season five of Cobra Kai has brought back a lot of nostalgia from Karate Kid, like the reappearing guest stars Sean Kanan (Mike Barnes) and Chozen Toguchi (Yuji Okumoto). The show had started off as a favored perspective through Johnny Lawrences (William Zabka) eyes, but had a bigger influence on how a sport and its diverse teachings can be portrayed and make a difference on the students themselves, mainly depending on the intentions of the Senseis’. Although in season five there are joined forces between Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), their enemy Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) has continued to keep Cobra Kai and its ruthless teachings alive. 

Furthermore, there is much character development seen throughout season five with characters, like Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan), Tory Nichols (Peyton List) and Kenny Payne (Dallas Dupree Young). Starting off with Robby Keene, he has always been very cold hearted from the beginning of the show and had multiple bad incidents with Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña). Although Robby had some ups and downs with Miguel in the beginning, he ended up making amends with him and tried to get his former karate mates Kenny Payne and girlfriend Tory Nichols out of the mess that he was put into. Moreover, Tory Nichols has also made a lot of progress throughout the show, from the way she acted towards people to how she has cooperated with the people around her even though they may all not be who they seem, has made a big change in the perspective that people see her through. Tory has always been very upright, tempered, aggressive, and troubled, especially with her home life. As she does try to fake it til’ she makes it while being Cobra Kai’s current champion, Tory does stand up to Sensei Silver and for Miyagi-Do in hopes of doing justice by the wrongs she has done. Lastly, Kenny has shown an immense amount of character development with his actions and attitude from the beginning of the show and up until now. Kenny was a very shy and quiet kid who used to get made fun of by Anthony LaRusso (Griffin Santopietro); however, when finding out about Cobra Kai something inside him completely changes. As Robby had left him and was one of Kenny’s biggest influencers into joining Cobra Kai,  Kenny then refuses to leave until knowing who Sensei Silver really is. Overall the continuation of rivalries and the power of revenge is still seen throughout season five.

In addition, there are many plot twists moving forward from season four to season five. There is a big build up of tension and betrayal. Cobra Kai was always based on revenge, but the students were too blind to see it until the crimes that Sensei Silver had committed were revealed. This gives viewers a sense of sitting at the edge of their seats, craving to know what will happen next. Nevertheless, Miyagi-Do was once a place that showed off former Sensei Miyagi’s karate style from Karate Kid; however, during season five it has produced a capability of holding three different styles of karate: Johnny’s, Daniels, and Chozen Toguchis. All consisting of both offense and defense that will help influence student’s to find their own way of karate. Overall this represents the difference between a person with good intentions and a person with bad intentions. Although the teachings of karate are more diverse, season five shows off more of an adventurous, yet curious side to Miguel that started with the letter he left for his mother near the end of season four. The cliffhanger left in season four had continued in season five with many shocking findings.

In spite of the positives, there are still negative aspects to the show, like how the different teachings of karate are still being enforced by Silver and the violence/ conflict he had created. Throughout season four and continuing onto season five, Silver had promoted violence in various ways, like framing Kreese for something he didn’t do, which led to grave consequences in season five, along with cheating his way through karate, especially the “All Valley” in season four, which has led to a series of plans conducted by Tory and Kreese in season five, and lastly, when he leaves his mark and fights for Cobra Kai which ends up getting him into trouble. Silver being one of the main characters in season five demonstrates to teens that in life you have to fight for what you want; however, even fighting has its limits in time. This statement is proven wrong because although Silver fights for Cobra Kai, he is passing the limit to the point where it gets too serious and against the law. 

Overall, engaged viewers from Karate Kid should most definitely watch Cobra Kai because of the thrilling, and shocking plot twists with the addition of nostalgia. If interested, it  is  available on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Though Cobra Kai contains a lot of violence, it represents an ongoing theme that violence is never the answer, deeply demonstrated by the cast.