Throughout Cobra Kai, the memory of Mr. Miyagi has always loomed large, but in Season 6 Part 2, that became a little more literal. After searching for new clues about his former mentor-slash-father figure’s deadly history with the Sekai Taikai tournament, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) had a vivid dream about Miyagi in both younger and older forms.
In Episode 10, “Eunjangdo,” Daniel dreamed of himself fighting a younger version of Miyagi at the Sekai Taikai and hearing from the aged version that his master never told him the truth about his past because Daniel wasn’t strong enough to accept the truth.
The task of both choosing a new actor—Brian Takahashi—to play such an iconic character and relying on visual effects to resurrect the visage of Pat Morita was a doubly heavy task for the show’s creators.
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Co-creator Hayden Schlossberg told TV Insider that the decision to visualize a younger version of Miyagi for the fight was practically beneficial. “We just like the idea of getting a glimpse at Miyagi through Daniel’s dreams because it allows us a little bit of creativity in terms of what Miyagi would look like. He didn’t know Miyagi at age 30 or 40…and so it just gave us the freedom to kind of cast somebody that we felt would look like Mr Miyagi, act like Mr Miyagi.”
Still, it was a tall order to find just the right person. “It’s tough to cast anybody that fits one or two criteria, let alone look exactly like this person and also be good at acting and martial arts. And you try your best to find somebody that you just believe, and you have to trust that the audience is willing to suspend their disbelief, they know what’s going on here,” Schlossberg said. “We felt like we could use a different actor because it was just a completely different era in his life.”
As for the more familiar imagery of the late great Pat Morita, well, that took some technique as well.
“We’ve seen that deepfake technology where movies and TV shows can bring back characters, and we like the idea of seeing him as Daniel remembered him and as we remembered him and you know it involves visual effects houses,” he explained. “You see these uncanny valley in-betweens. Believe me, we’ve seen the scariest versions, the recreation, and you just go through a process where you try to bring it to that place where the audience can understand what you’re going for. And we ended up feeling really happy.”
What did you think of the young Miyagi casting choice and the VFX rendering of older Miyagi? Hit the comments to let us know.
Cobra Kai, Season 6 Part 3, 2025, Netflix
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