‘Cobra Kai’ Showrunners Admit Sekai Taikai Is the All Valley on “Steroids” (2024)

Cobra Kai is back as the final season continues, with Part 2 finally hitting Netflix this weekend. In the upcoming batch of episodes, Miagi-Do is set to face off against Cobra Kai and several new dojos on the world stage. After the events of Part 1, we see our main fighters travel to Barcelona, where their lives will change forever. This is not just your local high school karate tournament. They're now fighting for one of the highest honors a fighter can ever hope to achieve.

The Sekai Taikai is by far the biggest karate tournament the franchise has ever seen, and the showrunners make sure we feel just how grand it is. Collider's Perri Nemiroff had an in-depth conversation with Cobra Kai's Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald about how Part 2 wraps up and leads us into the show's final batch of episodes; the tournament, a shocking cut to black, and so much more.

The Sekai Taikai Is “All Valley on Steroids”

PERRI NEMIROFF: We know that part two is gonna mostly take place at the Sekai Taikai . What about the students who don't get to go there? Will it cut back and forth between Barcelona and California?

JON HURWITZ: In the middle five episodes, you will spend a lot of time at the Sekai Taikai, but there will be a little bit back home. You'll get to see some home adventures and characters like Anthony and Kenny continue to exist in this middle five, and we get to see a little bit of a continuation of their story.

I like that. I'm curious to see how many of these you’ll answer. Will the Sekai Taikai conclude at the end of part two or is it a two-part storyline?

JOSH HEALD: It ends.

This is killing me right now! Can you give me a little insight into the tournament structure of the Sekei Taikai, especially like compared to the All Valley? Is it the kind of situation where it is ultimately a whole bunch of one-on-one fights where points are given and then the champions fight?

HAYDEN SCHLOSSBERG: The way it's structured is, it's really the dojos that are competing against each other. So, at first, the team that's there are fighting each other. Sometimes it's individuals, sometimes it's two-on-two, sometimes it's the whole team versus the whole team. You're basically fighting for the dojo. Dojos get eliminated along the way, and it's the ones at the very end, that make it through the gauntlet, that get to submit their captains into this final tournament that is gonna feel like the All Valley, but on steroids in terms of the point structure and what's allowed.

So, when Mike is testing them all out, and he insists on seeing teamwork, that is going to show up in this tournament where we see more than one competitor fight alongside each other?

SCHLOSSBERG: Exactly. There are definitely new types of competitions that you haven't seen in any tournaments.

I like the sound of that.

Who Are the Iron Dragons?

“The idea of this team is they are larger than life.”

Our notes also tell us a little bit about Sensei Wolf and the Iron Dragons. Can you tease what they're like at all, and maybe where they fall on the Cobra Kai/Miyagi-do scale in terms of being ruthless versus being honorable?

HEALD: In the writers’ room, before we had the name the Iron Dragons, we just loosely started calling them the Patriots. They were like the dynasty New England Patriots under the Tom Brady/[Bill] Belichick years, where the idea of this team is they are larger than life. They are last year's champions. They've won probably the Sekai Taikai championships over time. They're based in Hong Kong, but they're an international team. It's the idea that they go out and they get the best fighters, and they bring them into their dojo. They are a team that's designed for a world-class competition, and they're a team that brings home that trophy ruthlessly. So, they are part of the rude awakening that Cobra Kai and Miyagi-do experience when they get to the Sekai Taikai that tells them, “Our rivalry may matter to us, but there are 14 other teams here besides the two of us that we're going to have to get through, including this juggernaut.”

Cobra Kai Are the Oakland Raiders of Karate

All I can think of now is if the Iron Dragons are the Patriots, which NFL team is Cobra Kai and Miyagi-do?

HEALD: [Laughs] The Chiefs and…

HURWITZ: Who are the bad teams?

Wait, Cobra Kai is the Chiefs?

HEALD: No, Miyagi-do is the Chiefs.

HURWITZ: The Chiefs are really good, right?

HEALD: They’re pretty good!

HURWITZ: I don’t know. You get in here and you find out you're on the world stage, and there are all these teams that are pretty good.

HEALD: What's the dirtiest football team, like the old-school team?

SCHLOSSBERG: The Raiders.

HEALD: Yeah, like the Oakland Raiders back in the day?

HURWITZ: That’s who Cobra Kai is?

HEALD: Yeah, probably.

I feel like that's fair to say now that they're not the Oakland Raiders anymore.

Kreese is a fugitive. How does he get to Barcelona, and does anyone ever try to alert the authorities?

HURWITZ: We can't tell you spoilers with any of that stuff, but I will say, Sensei Kreese has proven to be very resourceful over the years, and he was locked up unjustly. So, who knows if he was able to sort of weasel his way out of the issues, the legal troubles he's had?

Marty can do anything. I believe it.

Expect Multiple “Epic All-Out Brawls” in Season 6

“The ensemble fight in this season is something on another level like you've never seen before.”

We’ve gotta talk about the epic full ensemble fights because every single season, you keep raising the bar, and people expect that now. So, Season 6 is divided into three parts. Does that mean we're only gonna get one, or could we get two — one for part two and one for part three?

HURWITZ: In terms of just an epic all-out brawl, I think there's the possibility at all times of chaos and mayhem being unleashed. We did our best to try to build off each chunk of five so that Episode 5 has the most intense karate that we've seen up until that season, and then Episode 10 of the middle block is going to have this climactic karate action. Without giving anything away, I will give a spoiler: in the final five episodes, there will be karate. It doesn't just end in the middle block. So, you have to watch the middle block to know how things shake out but expect the biggest fireworks for the last couple of episodes.

I love how by that structure the Sam and Tory fight at the end of part one gets that designation because it's such a beautiful fight with, obviously karate skill set, but also hugely emotional performances, too, and I love that combo there.

How can you tease how those ensemble fights might raise the bar? For folks thinking, “How are you going to top the high school one or the fight at the Russo house?” What are you going to do differently that is going to wow people in a new way here?

HEALD: We've had some big ones. It wouldn't be ending the series without us trying to outdo ourselves. The ensemble fight in this season is something on another level like you've never seen before. Because all our characters at this point are really good at karate. The last time we had a real all-out brawl, obviously in Season 5, it was contained mostly in that dojo, and then at Silver's house, you had the adults, but you're still in the Valley. Now that we've taken this storyline to go internationally, anything could happen.

Without THIS Scene, ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 6 Just Wouldn’t Air

I'm gonna ask for one more tease for all three of you. What is your single favorite scene of all of Season 6? You don't have to give me specifics, but something that people can look forward to, at least.

HURWITZ: I'll just say a lot of the resolutions for me. There's some amazing stuff in the middle five that's electrifying, and there are giant fights, but I'm all about the emotional core of these characters that we've been following, some for six seasons and some since the movies, for over 40 years. For me personally, winding it down and seeing where these characters end up and the way the relationships shake out and the troubles and the triumphs that the different characters go through, there are way too many favorite scenes to count.

I like hearing that.

SCHLOSSBERG: Yeah, there are too many. The first thing that comes to my mind is the last scene because it's one of those things where you’re like, “Okay, you have a final scene; you know what they did in The Sopranos. Is Daniel gonna be at a restaurant and you see Kreese and Silver walk in, and then all of a sudden, it goes to black?” That's one of those things where it's like you're thinking, “This is it right here,” and you know you wanna go out on a high note. So, who knows what that means? But that's the one that comes to my mind.

HEALD: We did something a couple of weeks ago that I can't believe we did that nobody knows about. I mean, the people who were there who were in the scene know about it, but we were able to keep it under wraps and I really still can't believe we did it. It's in the penultimate episode, and I can't wait to talk about it with you. [Laughs]

HURWITZ: This was a thing that we pitched when we had our meeting with Sony and Netflix at the beginning before we started filming the season, and even before the writers’ room. It was just the three of us telling the general story. We pitched this idea, and they're like, “That feels big.”

HEALD: “How are you gonna do that?”

HURWITZ: And with all the financial tightening that happens in this business with budgetary issues, we just were unwavering about this happening, and we kept saying, “Oh, well, we're doing that, obviously.”

HEALD: We just kept doubling and tripling down, and they asked us what the alternatives were, and we said, “I guess not airing the season.” And we did it, and it's now a thing that happened, and I can't wait for you to see it.

Cobra Kai

TV-14

Drama

Comedy

Action

Thirty-four years after events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, a down-and-out Johnny Lawrence seeks redemption by reopening the infamous Cobra Kai dojo, reigniting his rivalry with a now successful Daniel LaRusso.

Release Date

May 2, 2018

Creator

Cast

Ralph Macchio , William Zabka , Courtney Henggeler , Xolo Mariduena , Tanner Buchanan , Mary Mouser , Peyton List , Jacob Bertrand , Gianni DeCenzo , Dallas Dupree Young , Vanessa Rubio , Thomas Ian Griffith , Martin Kove , Cameron Markeles , Talin Chat , Samuel Goergen , Rob Garrison , Brandon Gibson , Alan Heckner , Kristin Brock , Randee Heller , Lara Silva , David Kronawitter , Dominick Racano , Tony Bravado

Seasons

6

Story By

josh heald

Writers

Josh Heald , Ashley Darnall , Chris Rafferty , Bill Posley

Streaming Service(s)

Netflix

Directors

Hayden Schlossberg , Jon Hurwitz , Joel Novoa , Jennifer Celotta , Steven K. Tsuchida , Sherwin Shilati , Marielle Woods , Steve Pink , Lin Oeding , Michael Grossman

Showrunner

Jon Hurwitz

Cobra Kai Season 6, Part 2 premieres November 15, 2024, exclusively on Netflix.

Watch on Netflix