Mr Miyagi Returns, And Creators Explain How They Did It

SPOILER ALERT: The following reveals major story points from Cobra Kai Season 6, Part 2

In what will undoubtedly be the biggest spoiler of all Cobra Kai Co-creators John Horowitz, Josh Heald, and Hayden Schlossberg managed to do the impossible.

In the final episode of the Netflix series Season 6, Part 2, the trio – and some of the latest technology available today – resurrect Mr. Miyagi.

The sixth and final season of the hit martial arts drama focused heavily on the mysterious past hidden by the legendary Nariyoshi Keisuke Miyagi. It is revealed that he was responsible for the death of a competitor in a Sekai Taikai competition when he was younger.

Learning this history will devastate Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and it will take him a long time to process. He finds it impossible to reconcile the man he admired with this stranger who did something unforgivable. Are they one in the same?

Episode 10 titled eungangdo, It begins with a confused Daniel in the early seconds of Sekai Taikai before fighting young Miyagi, played by Brian Takahashi, in the final match of the competition. The fans cheer loudly for Miyagi as Daniel pleads with him to explain what's happening. Without a second to think, Daniel starts playing defense.

“Mr. Miyagi, it's me!” Daniel shouted but the man in front of him remained silent and focused.

“If this is a lesson, I won’t take it,” he adds.

Miyagi replies: “Lesson? Pft”, proving that he can hear Daniel and understand what he is saying.

Daniel asks Miyagi to talk to him because there is a lot he never told him.

“I just need to understand why,” he pleads.

“That's always been your problem, Daniel-san.” “So eager to understand but not willing to accept,” Miyagi replies, and the voice that comes out of him is Morita's as a character.

Just as Miyagi is going to finish him off, something happens.

“Miyagi never tells you everything, Daniel-san, because you weren't strong enough to accept the truth,” Morita, who died in 2005, said as Miyagi (pictured above), before punching Daniel so hard that he woke him from his dream.

in Karate kid Universe, this part of Miyagi's legacy was never mentioned. But series co-creators Jon Horowitz, Josh Heald and Hayden Schlossberg previously said they collaborated with Morita's family and the person who created the character to ensure respect was always top of mind. This part of his story is considered canon. More on this and the technology they used below in our Q&A.

Delivery time: You guys have done something that most of you would have thought impossible, you brought back Mr. Miyagi! Please share your secrets.

John Horowitz: This has been something that has been coming for a long time. It was something we weren't sure we were going to do on the show. But as the technology improved and we were in our final season – before Season 6, we sat down with Ralph and discussed what he would like to see in the final season. The idea of ​​him sharing screen time with Pat Morita again was something he would like to find a way to make happen. As we were tackling this story, we were delving deeper into Mr. Miyagi's past and learning elements of his life that neither Daniel nor we ever knew. Knowing that Mr. Miyagi has apparently killed someone in Sekai Taikai may be something that rolls around in Daniel's head in an emotional way that could lead to an interesting dream sequence.

If we were going to do this, we had to do it the right way by participating in it [Morita’s] properties and make sure they are comfortable with it. We also contacted one of Pat's daughters with whom we have a relationship. Ralph talked her through the scene to make sure everyone was on board and felt good about what we were doing. We did our best to work with a great company that was close to delivering, and there were lots and lots of rounds of feedback, from voice AI to deepfakes. We were pleased with the result.

Delivery time: What can you share about the technologies since they all seem relatively new?

Josh Heald: We are not fully aware of it because it is not our exact path. But there is a combination of practical, digital and artificial technologies that come together to make this happen. There is a real performer for that moment. There's some digital design, like face mapping and the use of AI to all of that, especially when it comes to audio. With audio, it doesn't start out as just computer generated. It must start with a performance and tone that must be matched so as not to sound flat. We used some technology that wasn't available even a year ago.

Delivery time: Is this something you guys have used before?

Horowitz: We did a deepfake of young Johnny in season five.

Held: Yes, for a brief moment in Chris' imprisonment hallucination. When he sees the ghosts of his past, one of them is Johnny. It was a little different because we didn't have the audio technology that we have now.

Delivery time: So as for the voice we hear that sounds like Mr. Morita, is that his voice?

Horowitz: They took all the audio from his shows on Karate kid Films, then they feed them into the machine and then the AI ​​does its work.

Delivery time: Episode 10 shows viewers that not only does death happen in these types of tournaments, but it's not uncommon. Is this why you chose to kill off Kwon Jae-sung (Brandon H. Lee) in Sekai Taikai?

Hayden Schlossberg: definitely. In our middle five episodes, 6 through 10, we always knew we wanted to end the series with a big bang. This is our last chance to give fans a huge thrill as the next five episodes to be released will bring the series to a close. So, the question was how do we want things to develop in Sekai Taikai. We've always liked the idea of ​​players brawling off the field. You see it at sporting events all the time, where suddenly there are two opponents on a team that start fighting. Then all the players participate, and the coaches participate. What we loved about the karate tournament is that everyone there, from teachers to students, knows martial arts. This would take the fight to another level. It will be explosive. This mode allowed us to involve adults and children in the middle of a karate fight. We felt this was a wild way to wreak havoc on the entire tournament. And into that chaos, we push all these different stories that we've been following and let go of all the competition.

All this time, Chris has had this Eunjangdo knife and she wonders how it will be used and on whom. It could be anyone from Johnny to Daniel or Silver. However, it ends up in the hands of one of the most ferocious students there.

Delivery time: Do you think the brawl also helped highlight everyone's fighting abilities? You have such a large cast that one has to imagine there is not enough time to show as much as you would like.

Held: These five episodes are really, The Empire strikes back Part of these three drops. We put a lot of effort in the writers room, and building even before the writers room, to think of the 15 episodes as three interconnected stories that each have their own character, with this episode being the darkest. We introduced this in Episode 4 when Mike Barnes said, “This is a dangerous tournament and it's like nothing you've ever seen before. People have died,” so we start off with the situation. [the groundwork for] The secret and danger of this.

So, when you see the tournament itself developing, we want to make sure that the audience is in the same position as our characters as they are in our eyes in this tournament. It is the place where we see different types of martial arts and events that we have never seen before in the world Karate kid universe. Like tag team events, floating balance beams, all sorts of things, given the nature of the events themselves and without the use of weapons, it feels like someone could get really hurt.

The more you get into it, the more it becomes just the status quo of heroism, and I don't think you really think that someone could get seriously hurt. As you go deeper, even as it gets higher and higher and higher, you get used to it and it becomes familiar. But we always wanted to end at this moment with this tragedy to pull the rug out from under the story and underscore the gravity of the moment itself.

We wanted to create this, “What the hell happens now?” Attitude type for all characters. We care about them, and they worked hard to get to this international stage, but the worst possible thing happened in front of the world. So, in terms of what comes next, this gives us the best position to be in, to hopefully get a good head start on the audience, and make those final five episodes looming on the horizon not feel like an obvious payoff to what's coming next. It creates a situation in which the story that has not yet been told is less predictable and has new perspectives and risks.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.