Get ready to memorize this phrase, Cobra Kai fans: Sekai Taikai. As we head into the sixth and final season of the Karate Kid spinoff Cobra Kai, available to anyone with a Netflix subscription, we are going to be hearing it a lot. For the uninitiated – or maybe just because it’s been a while since you watched Cobra Kai Season 5 – the Sekai Taikai is a global tournament that will help this show expand the universe far beyond the Valley. And that much is evident in the first full trailer for Cobra Kai Season 6, which is going to be divided into three distinct segments, the first of which arrives on the streaming service on July 18. Watch the Cobra Kai trailer right now:
At the beginning of Cobra Kai Season 6, we are going to find our main characters in a strange state of contentment. By the end of Season 5, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and their students had successfully dethroned the vile Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), bringing an end to Cobra Kai’s influence on the California neighborhood. This is very unusual for Cobra Kai, which tends to end its seasons on massive cliffhangers, and rarely lets its characters – the adults, or the teenagers – enjoy a moment’s peace.
Recently, CinemaBlend traveled to the Georgia set of Cobra Kai Season 6. And while we visited it at a time when they were deep into filming on episodes for the third block of programming (which won’t reach Netflix until 2025), we did speak to the showrunners to get some insight into how they approached this season. And it was during that conversation where we learned the most about the Sekai Taikai. As co-creator Josh Heald told us:
It's the first time in a long time, since Season 1, that you're not beginning (a season) with the pot already on boil, and multiple characters who need to crush each other, or a deal to, ‘We'll see you at the tournament and we'll settle all scores there!’ It's finally a moment of… the air is clear, and what does that mean? So, we have obviously spent a considerable amount of time setting up the idea of this Sekai Taikai. This world tournament. That is kind of the thing that's floating in the air. The original reason why all the good guys got involved with that was to protect the legacy of karate in the Valley, and not see a guy like Terry Silver destroy it, and use it to prop up Cobra Kai to the detriment of the combined Miyagi-Do/Eagle Fang forces. But now with the defeat of Terry Silver, it raises the question of, ‘Why do we fight? Are we still fighting? Do we still fight for ourselves?’
It’d be a pretty boring season of Cobra Kai if they couldn’t find out some excuse for the karate-trained teenagers to head back into confrontations, likely driving a wedge between characters like Miguel (Xolo Mariduena) and Robby (Tanner Buchanan), or Samantha (Mary Mouser) and Tory (Peyton List). I’m also holding out hope, given the amount of training that Billy Zabka has been doing for this final season, that we get one more rematch between the original The Karate Kid icons Daniel and Johnny. Look for the first five episodes of the new and final season of Cobra Kai, landing on Netflix on July 18.
