The Debt said:
The one thing I dont like about this show is the portrayal of high school. When KK1 came out, I think we all assumed Kobra Kai members were athletes who also took martial arts. They had strength from athletics, they were jocks who knew martial arts.
It made the noodle shaped Larusso a believable underdog and made miyagi karate make sense: he couldn't win with strength but with technique and philosophy.
This show, everyone is in the robotics club. The physically strongest person is probably the black girl because of her weight.
I think it's accurate and represents a more realistic portrayal of school now. Kids are not as physically active as they were in the '80s and technology now vs then is light years different. Kids spend all their time on their phones and video games now and much less time outside. Plus, kids aren't "allowed" to just run rampant in the wild like I was in the '80s. We spent all of our time outside in the woods doing physical stuff. I would leave in the morning and show back up at home in the evening.
Never mind that club sports absolutely consume the free time of all the athletic kids nowadays. We didn't have that in the '80s. My soccer team was a precursor to that trend as we would travel on weekends to tournaments all over the state but it was only once every month or so.
Anecdotally, my nephew got into karate (my brother pushed him) specifically because he was skinny as a rail and scared of his own shadow. Went to some of his competitions a year or two after he was in it and he was basically Johnny. He was relentless and won most of the fights I watched.