Cobra Kai Season 6: Trailer, Premiere Date, Story, Cast, and Everything Else to Know

There was nearly a two-year break between the end of Cobra Kai Season 5, which saw the original karate kid Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) take down Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) once and for all, and the start of The Karate Kid's television sequel's final season. But with the sixth season finally here, the wait for more Cobra Kai is over — meaning it's almost time for the world championship of karate, the Sekai Taikai tournament.

The reason for the lengthy wait was the same reason for so many other delays in Hollywood lately: last year's tandem strikes by SAG-AFTRA and the WGA. With the two guilds striking simultaneously, just about all US development and production in the TV and film industries were halted for months, and Cobra Kai Season 6 was one of those casualties. 

But now that Season 6 has arrived — well, at least Part 1 — you're probably wondering when Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 2 is coming. We'll answer that plus many more questions below.

Cobra Kai Season 6 latest news

If you've already devoured all five episodes of Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 1 and can't wait for Part 2, we have a bit of good news. Yes, you'll still have to wait, but you won't have to wait as long. As Deadline reports, at the premiere screening of Season 6, creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald announced that Part 2, originally announced to premiere on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28), will now release two weeks earlier, on Nov. 15. 

Cobra Kai Season 6 premiere date

Cobra Kai Season 6 premiered on Netflix on July 18, 2024. But this is not a normal season release for Netflix, where all the episodes drop at once. Instead, Season 6 of Cobra Kai is bizarrely being split into three (!!!) parts, each of which contains five episodes. The first batch of five episodes came out on July 18, the second batch will be released on Nov. 15 (two weeks earlier than previously announced), and the third batch comes in early 2025. While Netflix has done two-part seasons before, Cobra Kai Season 6 will be its first three-part season ever. Why? Who knows? Probably an algorithm thing.

Cobra Kai Season 6 trailer

The trailer for Part 1 of Season 6 was released on July 1, and it teases some unorthodox training methods as preparation for the tournament begins.

Netflix announced the three-part release plan with a small, 30-second teaser for Cobra Kai Season 6. It doesn't give much info about what Daniel, Johnny (William Zabka), and the rest of the karate kickers get up to this season, but it's clear that the villainous Cobra Kai founder John Kreese (Martin Krove) will be involved — as we expected after he escaped from prison at the end of Season 5.

Cobra Kai Season 6's story

Netflix teased Season 6 with this brief blurb: "Picking up with Cobra Kai eliminated from the Valley, our senseis and students must decide if and how they will compete in the Sekai Taikai — the world championships of karate."

That's not much to go on, but after the way Season 5 ended, with Cobra Kai basically collapsing and Terry Silver in prison, it's not hard to see which way the wind is blowing. John Kreese has been the true baddie of the entire Karate Kid franchise, and now there's a good chance he's been tasked with being Cobra Kai's final boss battle.

As for the three-part structure, Cobra Kai creator and showrunner Jon Hurwitz has said that each group of five episodes is basically a "mini season," so it may be best to think of this as an ersatz trilogy.

Does Season 6 set up the next Karate Kid movie?

Making the situation slightly more complex is that we're getting a new Karate Kid movie next summer that will unite the original film with the 2010 remake starring Jackie Chan — and, yes, Ralph Macchio will play Daniel LaRusso in it. Hurwitz previously said that this movie wouldn't have any tie to Cobra Kai or focus on the show's characters, but with Macchio joining the film's cast, that clearly isn't the case anymore.

This new Karate Kid lands in theaters on May 30, 2025, and it's likely that the events of Cobra Kai will be part of its backstory, though it's doubtful that Sony will lean too heavily on that — studios don't usually want to require audiences to watch six seasons of television to prep for a new movie. But the finale of Cobra Kai could certainly tee up the movie. Why else schedule them like this?

Cobra Kai Season 6 cast

We can expect most of the main cast to return for Cobra Kai Season 6.

• Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso
• William Zabka as Johnny Lawrence
• Martin Kove as John Kreese
• Xolo Maridueña as Miguel Diaz
• Courtney Henggeler as Amanda LaRusso
• Mary Mouser as Samantha LaRusso
• Peyton List as Tory Nichols
• Tanner Buchanan as Robby Keene
• Jacob Bertrand as Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz
• Dallas Dupree Young as Kenny Payne
• Vanessa Rubio as Carmen Diaz

How to watch Cobra Kai

The first two seasons of Cobra Kai were produced for YouTube RED, a service which no longer exists, and then the series moved to Netflix starting with Season 3. Which means that these days you can find the entire series run of Cobra Kai on Netflix.