Cobra Kai: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Cobra Kai: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Buy first, buy hard, no mercy.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III March 12, 2026

Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg's Cobra Kai did what few next-generation IP revivals rarely do: actually hit its target. Continuing the timeline of Robert Mark Kamen's iconic movie trilogy on the small screen, this streaming series -- which started out on YouTube Red/Premium but later migrated to Netflix -- scored huge with two separate age groups during a six-season run that began in 2018 and wrapped up a year ago. It's also the rare show that actually stays pretty good from beginning to end as we're reintroduced to Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), John Kreese (Martin Kove), and other familiar faces, plus plenty of new ones. Cobra Kai's reverential treatment of its source material is mixed smoothly with next-gen drama and self-deprecating humor, and each episode's surprisingly sleek ~30-minute running time doesn't leave room for too much extra padding.

In short, this is a show you can sit down and watch with a cold beer and your best bud.

After a recap that lifts footage from the first Karate Kid (which was reportedly mixed with never-before-seen daily footage and alternate takes unearthed from a salt mine, a fact that should indicate this is far from a cheap cash-grab revival), Cobra Kai's excellent first season opens with its de facto main character: Johnny Lawrence, who has fallen far from his glory days to become a depressed alcoholic barely scraping by in Reseda, Los Angeles. The absentee father of teenage son Robby (Tanner Buchanan, who we'll meet later), Johnny currently works odd jobs for little pay and has no real prospects. His life seems to stand in sharp contrast to that of sworn enemy Daniel LaRusso, who owns a successful chain of car dealerships in the area, has a lovely wife and two kids, a huge house, and of course, that first-place 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament trophy. But Daniel's got his own problems to deal with, and some of them stem from the loss of his beloved mentor Mr. Miyagi (the late Pat Morita, in flashbacks of course) several years ago.

There's a lot more to Cobra Kai, but most of the show's major character arcs do indeed share a theme of growth and moving past earlier trauma. As its title implies, Johnny is the main character and begins his path towards redemption after opening a Cobra Kai karate dojo to mentor a new generation of talent... and though he initially chooses this route to one-up his former rival Daniel, he eventually learns to adopt a more compassionate attitude while rejecting what he was taught as a young man. Johnny also tries to reconnect with Robby, who is unsurprisingly also trapped in the same kind of turbulent adolescence as his father once was, and he similarly struggles to escape this path after making more than a few bad choices. Also in this circle is Johnny's teenage neighbor and first student Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña), who's bullied at school and learns self-defense which also pushes him towards aggression; he likewise hopes to balance his emotions while later recovering physically and mentally after a school fight leads to a devastating injury. Meanwhile, the returning John Kreese and Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith, also returning from the original films) work separately and in tandem to reclaim the Cobra Kai dojo, hoping to return it to its more aggressive roots.

On the flip side is Daniel's seemingly peaceful suburban world, which looks nice on the surface but also hides its own PG-13 drama. The former Karate Kid recaptures his love for the sport but initially pulls away from his family and car-dealership career in the process, mostly after rediscovering a few unresolved issues from his youth. His wife Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) seems skeptical of her husband's "mid-life crisis" but eventually becomes more involved while also trying to keep the peace by mediating family disputes. Their teenage daughter Samantha AKA Sam (Mary Mouser), who was taught karate as a child and remembers Mr. Miyagi as a kind and grandfatherly figure, undergoes a character arc similar to the other kids by trying, sometimes in vain, to overcome the pressures of school and young adulthood. Sam's younger brother Anthony (Griffin Santopietro) seems more interested in video games than karate (same, bro) but, as Cobra Kai progresses, he soon begins to understand the values taught by Miyagi-Do karate.

That's just a whiff of what Cobra Kai brings to the table, as its 65 episodes balance stories on both sides of the coin while regularly allowing them to intersect, sometimes through the shifting loyalties of friends and enemies like blue-haired Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz (Jacob Bertrand), his childhood best friend Demetri Alexopoulos (Gianni Decenzo), and "Queen Cobra" herself Tory Nichols (Peyton List) as well as extended family members, a few more familiar faces from the past such as Johnny and Daniel's former girlfriend Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue) and Karate Kid II antagonist Chozen Toguchi (Yuji Okumoto), and outliers like everyone's favorite man-child, the endlessly quotable Raymond "Stingray" Porter (Paul Walter Hauser). Though some of this show's melodrama goes more than a little overboard, the bulk of Cobra Kai stands tough as a durably entertaining mixture of carefully-polished nostalgia and thoughtful extensions of a franchise that, quite honestly, veered far off the rails lots of times after the first film scored big in 1984.

As outlined below, Sony's compact Blu-ray collection -- which will likely never be broken up into individual seasons, at least anytime soon -- serves up all 65 episodes (most are ~30 minutes, with some running 15-20 minutes longer) on 13 dual-layered discs with five included on each one. An assortment of extras, which are all detailed later in this review, are also scattered throughout the collection but most can be found on the last disc of each season.

Please also note that all Season One and Two episodes run as they do on Netflix, featuring black credits and the song "Strike First" with no spoiler-heavy previews for the next episode as originally seen on YouTube Red.

List of Episodes

Season One (Discs 1-2)
"Ace Degenerate", "Strike First", "Esqueleto", "Cobra Kai Never Dies", "Counterbalance"
"Quiver", "All Valley", "Molting", "Different but Same", "Mercy"

Season Two (Discs 3-4)
"Mercy Part II", "Back in Black", "Fire and Ice", "The Moment of Truth", "All In"
"Take a Right", "Lull", "Glory of Love", "Pulpo", "No Mercy"

Season Three (Discs 5-6)
"Aftermath", "Nature vs. Nurture", "Now You’re Gonna Pay", "The Right Path", "Miyagi-Do"
"King Cobra", "Obstáculos", "The Good, the Bad, and the Badass", "Feel the Night", "December 19"

Season Four (Discs 7-8)
"Let’s Begin", "First Learn Stand", "Then Learn Fly", "Bicephaly", "Match Point"
"Kicks Get Chicks", "Minefields", "Party Time", "The Fall", "The Rise"

Season Five (Discs 9-10)
"Long, Long Way From Home", "Molé", "Playing With Fire", "Downward Spiral", "Extreme Measures"
"Ouroboros", "Bad Eggs", "Taikai", "Survivors", "Head of the Snake"

Season Six (Discs 11-13)
"Peacetime in the Valley", "The Prize", "Sleeper", "Underdogs", "Best of the Best"
"Bevinguts a Barcelona", "Dog in the Fight", "Snakes on a Plane", "Blood In Blood Out", "Eunjangdo"
"Into the Fire", "Rattled", "Skeletons", "Strike Last", "Ex-Degenerate"

Cobra Kai: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Although the lack of a UHD option is indeed at least a little disappointing, Sony has ensured that Cobra Kai looks as impressive as possible on Blu-ray and, in no uncertain terms, these rock-solid 1080p transfers should easily eclipse the quality seen on your average Netflix stream. Each of these thirteen discs has five episodes apiece -- no more, no less -- which translates to roughly 2.5-3 hours of content on each dual-layered Blu-ray. As expected, these variable bit rates remain extremely supportive from start to finish and the disc encoding seems to avoid and any all signs of compression artifacts such as banding, posterization, and macro blocking, meaning that all 65 episodes run smoothly. As seen in this review's collection of direct-from-disc screenshots (which includes a small assortment from each season), everything's handled well and there are absolutely no real concerns in the areas of fine detail, color representation, black levels, or overall stability. In short, this is basically a perfect effort and, aside from the aforementioned lack of a 4K release, I have exactly zero complaints with what we get here. It's just one more reason to bypass streaming.

Cobra Kai: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Since Cobra Kai was never created with Dolby Atmos is mind, these DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mixes come even closer to objective perfection and, again due to the latent compression found in streaming signals, Sony's Blu-rays should again exceed the expectations set by previous presentations. As implied by its subject matter, Cobra Kai doesn't always go for the sonic jugular since so many of its moments are dialogue-driven, but the series' sporadic fight sequences -- which are overwhelmingly well-staged -- regularly engage the rear speakers beyond simple punches and kicks with heightened and emotionally-driven effects, whereas other busy locations (school hallways, dojos) feature more organic atmospherics. The score by credited composers Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson, who get to speak during at least one behind-the-scenes featurette included in this collection, is likewise well-represented with a a bold overall presence and strong dynamic range. In short, it's quality work and gets the job done with energy to spare.

Optional subtitles, including English (SDH), are included during all 65 episodes. However...

QC ALERT: Unfortunately there is a small defect during the Season 5 scenes featuring Miguel's grandmother, Rosa (Rose Bianco): her Spanish dialogue is paired with burnt-in yellow subtitles, but these are overlapped by white English subtitles (screenshot #34) even if they're disabled. This is a brief but certainly annoying issue and, with any luck, Sony will issue replacement discs correcting the problem. Please e-mail consumer@SPHECustomerSupport.sony.com to voice your concerns, and I will be sure to update this review if and when a replacement program is announced.

On another note, a few eagle-eyed forum members have also reported that several Season One and Two episodes which originally featured translated Spanish dialogue that isn't translated here. In the event that more similar issues are discovered, I'll invite you to follow along on the forum's official thread -- the fun begins on page 10.

Cobra Kai: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This 13-disc set ships in six standard-width keepcases; one per season, with no stacked discs. Episode names and descriptions are listed on the back of each cover, as well as a list of all included bonus features covered below. All six keepcases fit snugly inside a somewhat thin but protective slipbox with attractive design elements.

SEASON ONE, DISC ONE

• Pilot Episode Commentary - This episode-length track features show creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg, who serve up a predictably chatty and laid-back track that covers all the expected bases including their favorite memories of the films, separate and shared contributions to the adaptation, digging up Karate Kid dailies from a salt mine, reuniting the cast members, their earlier work, and much more. I'd have loved to see more of these, but it'll be a while before we hear from this trio again.

SEASON ONE, DISC TWO

• Deleted Scenes (2:56 total) - "Karate's A Joke" and "Karate Legend" (episodes unspecified).

• Music Featurettes (13:13 total) - Listed as "Live Musical Performances", these music-themed items include "Exploring the Musical Identities of Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do With Composers Leo Birenberg & Zach Robinson" (a short interview with the duo), a live performance of "Hallway Hellscape" by Birenberg & Robinson, and "Ace Degenerate" (Johnny's Theme) by Birenberg, Robinson, and William Zabka -- Johnny Lawrence himself!

• Chemistry Reads With the Cast (4:51) - Mary Mouser (Samantha LaRusso) reads a few lines separately with two of her future co-stars, Ralph Macchio and Xolo Maridueña (Miguel Diaz).

SEASON TWO, DISC TWO

• Deleted Scenes (2:55 total) - "Anoush", "Copy That", "Jimmy's Car", and "Kreese & Stingray".

• Easter Eggs (5:50) - Creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and other cast and crew members detail a few of the obvious and more obscure callbacks to the original Karate Kid movies, from costume elements to background details and memorable quotes and moments. Good stuff!

• Fists & Fury: Fight Choreography (6:41) - Many of the same cast and crew members from earlier speak briefly about Cobra Kai's numerous fight sequences and all the work that went into them.

• Into the Dojo: The Characters (9:21) - More familiar faces -- including Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, of course -- offer their thoughts about the show's new and returning characters.

• Gag Reel (8:57)

• Making Faces Reel (1:18) - Mugging for the camera.

• Stingray Reel (2:59) - Actor Paul Walter Hauser goofs off with his co-stars.

SEASON THREE, DISC TWO

• Deleted Scenes (8:40 total) - "Back to Normal", "Start Your Engines", "Summer's Over", and "Face Off".

• Blooper Reel (4:52) - Censored for language, but otherwise fun.

SEASON FOUR, DISC TWO

• Deleted & Extended Scenes (9:40 total) - "Another All Valley In the Books", "Evil's Gonna Win", "I've Got This", "Is That Who I Think It Is?", "It Takes A Village", "Nachos", "Party Time", "Suffer", "The Way of the Fist", "We Need A Diversion", "Women Weaken Legs", "You Did Good, Mike", and "I'm Not That Man Anymore".

• Blooper Reel (5:53)

• Karate Dad (6:26) - Ralph Macchio and Mary Mouser speak briefly about their characters' father-daughter relationship during the first four seasons and what it was like working together.

SEASON FIVE, DISC TWO

• Deleted & Extended Scenes (6:17 total) - "Giving Up Karate", "It's Time to Strike", "Tory Tries to Talk to Devon", "Stingray's TMNT Video", "No Hug For Nessa", "Extended Opening Scene", "Sam Tries to Protect Anthony", "Stingray Button #2", and "Kim Arrives at Cobra Kai #2".

• Blooper Reel (8:56)

SEASON SIX, DISC THREE

• Series Finale Commentary - Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg return to bid farewell to Cobra Kai, serving up a second and final audio commentary that's obviously bittersweet for the trio but still fun, candid, and laid-back. Topics of interest include tying up as many loose ends as possible, a deeper dive into some of the characters, the pros and cons of being a scrappy, low-budget show, background faces that appear during the final karate tournament, loads of thank-yous and shout-outs, and much more.

• Deleted & Extended Scenes (25:30 total) - "Stingray Explains How Cobra Kai Helped Him", "Johnny Is Defeated After His Plan Has Failed", "Running Into Tyler and Brucks on Campus Tour", "Kreese Is Back In the Valley", "Cobras Are Waiting On Tory", "The Kids Are Alright But Distrust Lingers", "Silver Tries to Manipulate Reese", "Sam and Bobby Are Off In Training", "Amanda and Michael Facetime", "Hawk Wants to Get Back to Training", "Anoush Proposes to Ness", "Tory Encourages Robby", "Sam Forfeits", "Johnny and Daniel At the Dojo", "Johnny and Miguel Have A Beer", "Axel Asks Why Sam Forfeit", "Miguel Appreciates Johnny", "Amanda Encourages Daniel", "Wolf Trains", and "Potluck Dinner". As with the rest of the deleted or extended scenes in this collection, specific episodes are not named but most are likely from the series finale.

• Blooper Reel (9:33)

Cobra Kai: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The six-season success of Cobra Kai offers loads of proof that the "for fans, by fans" approach to its source material was indeed the right approach by series creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg. (Whether or not their combined nostalgia for Knight Rider will finally get that long-gestating film off the ground remains to be seen, but I'm optimistic.) The show's thoughtful mixture of comedy, action, and drama, not to mention the return of several key characters played by their original actors, all adds up to an effective and entertaining experience, one that stays well above water during most if not all of its 65-episode run. Best enjoyed from start to finish, Sony's surprising but very welcome full-series Blu-ray package offers both an alternative to streaming and a nice keepcase for fans, as they'll be able to enjoy the show in outstanding quality (despite the lack of a 4K option) and with a solid assortment of extras too. Highly Recommended to any and all interested parties, Cobra Kai is TV-on-disc done right*.

* - Except for the subtitle issues (covered in the "Audio" section), which will hopefully be fixed.