What is Miyagi’s Secret? Connecting Karate Kid to Cobra Kai Season 3

Every so often, I like to take a break and write about things I am passionate about outside of sports and pro wrestling. One of the thing I’ve been passionate about since I was a child is Karate Kid. I learned a lot of very valuable lessons from the Karate Kid movies and I always loved Mr. Miyagi’s philosophies. In 2018, the Karate Kid story was reborn with the Cobra Series. Seasons one and two aired in 2018 and 2019 respectively on YouTube Red. Season was suppose to air this past spring but due to the circumstances of the world and the show moving to Netflix we will have to to wait until 2021.

At the end of the teaser video for season, Daniel is confronted by an old nemesis. Daniel says, “Mr. Miyagi treated me like a son. He wouldn’t have kept secrets from me.” The nemesis who appears to be Chozen from Karate Kid 2 responded by saying, “Are you sure about that?” I’ve already read a lot of predictions and theories about what the secret could be, so I went back and watched the first two Karate Kid movies to piece together some of the puzzle. There are some really interesting things I’ve never really thought about until I watched both movies.

In Karate Kid 2, Miyagi travels back to Okinawa to say goodbye to his ailing father and to settle his feud with his childhood friend Sato. One of the bigger characters in the second movie is Sato’s nephew Chozen. We know that Chozen is family, but we don’t know the extent of his family. We never heard about about a father or mother. The same could be said about Kumiko. We know that Yukie is Kumiko’s aunt, but we don’t know the extent of her family. Mr. Miyagi had two love interests. Yukie and his wife that was referenced in the first movie. His wife had died in childbirth along with the child, which is why Miyagi took in Daniel like a son and taught him karate. Did Miyagi have another love interest we didn’t know about? Was there more that happened in Okinawa that was never explained? Is it possible that Kumiko or Chozen was a relative or even an illegitimate child of Miyagi? There a lot of questions that Karate Kid 2 unintentionally left open. If Chozen or Kumiko are related to Miyagi, I am very curious as to how that is going to explained.

One of the great scenes in Karate Kid 2 is when Miyagi shows Daniel the Miyagi Family Dojo. Miyagi talks about the rules of karate. “Rule number one: Karate for defense. Rule number two: First learn rule number one.” Even in Cobra Season 2, Daniel tells Robby about rule number one but then doesn’t talk about rule number two. From what I gathered, Daniel never knew what rule number two was. What is rule number two? Is it something that Miyagi might not have been proud of. Is it something that Chozen knew and use it to further his evil agenda against Daniel? That could very well be the case. I have always found it very interesting that rule two was never explained. Sato, Chozen, and Miyagi had to know what rule number two was. For some reason it was kept secret, but now Daniel needs to know what it is in order to restore his life, his dojo and the trust of his family. For me, that would be more realistic then Chozen or Kumiko being Miyagi’s child.

Whatever the secret may be, we will have to wait until Cobra Kai Season Three to find out. I have a gut feeling that this secret is going to be a bombshell that might make us think a little differently about who Miyagi was. We know that no one is perfect, so maybe this secret shows some imperfection to who Miyagi was. Like many others, I am eager to find out everything that takes place in season three of Cobra Kai. Season three is set to come out in early 2021 on Netflix. The original three Karate Kid movies are already available in their library. Seasons one and two will be released to Netflix on August 28th.