'Cobra Kai' Season 3 Spoilers: Does Daniel still have feelings for Kumiko from 'The Karate Kid Part II'?
Spoilers for ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 3
Season 3 of ‘Cobra Kai’, the martial arts dramedy series based on ‘The Karate Kid’ films, saw some old flames. For one, we saw the return of Elisabeth Shue as Ali Mills, the former love interest of both Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka). While Daniel and Ali seemed to just have a good time talking about old shenanigans, Johnny and she seemed to go back in time for a brief bit. But Ali is not the only one who made an appearance.
At present, Daniel is happily married to Amanda LaRusso (Courtney Henggeler) and the two have two great kids — Samantha (Mary Mouser) and Anthony (Griffin Santopietro). But something happens this season that makes one think if Daniel sometimes wonders about what could have been.
In the aftermath of the school brawl in Season 2, karate gets a bad rep. As a result, Daniel’s car dealership gets a bad rep as well. In fact, with customers dwindling to a mere trickle, a rival businessman seizes the opportunity to take over the business by making sure Daniel's main dealer, a Japanese car company, cuts ties with him. To fix the situation, Daniel flies to Japan. And when there, he visits Okinawa, specifically Tomi village, where Daniel and Mr Miyagi went in ‘The Karate Kid Part II’.
Lo and behold, there he runs into none other than Kumiko (Tamlyn Tomita). Now, Daniel and Kumiko obviously have history. Daniel, after all, fought to the death to preserve the honor of a beautiful and brave young dancer. In the film, there was a scene where Daniel sees Kumiko sitting alone in a house. When he joins her, he sees that she's prepared a tea ceremony for them both. When the ritual is complete, the two of them kiss. While things were left unsaid after that, because of the sudden tropical storm that forced them to find shelter in an old concrete bunker left over from World War II, one can be sure that they may have dated at some point.
After all, when in Season 2 Samantha is upset over her breakup with Miguel Diaz, Daniel tries to console her by telling her about his past girlfriends. When Sam asks what happened to his relationship with Ali he refuses to tell her and instead says "That's a story for another time… And there's a story after that one", with the latter statement most likely referring to Kumiko.
So, meeting Kumiko is obviously going to make them both reminisce. For starters, Kumiko tells Daniel that many had wanted to marry her over the years, but she teases that no one had fought to the death to save her. There is another scene soon after when their hands brush against each other and the two share a tender moment. Of course, Daniel returns home back to Amanda. And Daniel is not the kind of guy to cheat. But one has to wonder if the meeting sparked something. And one can definitely be sure that there are some lingering feelings there.
‘Cobra Kai’ Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.
