Wax on! Wax off! Cobra Kai co-creator says Mr. Miyagi still the most powerful Karate Kid character

There is a very good reason Mr. Miyagi and his sly training regimen for Daniel LaRusso remain iconic to this day. The man is — and remains — the most powerful character in the Karate Kid universe.

Don't believe us? Cobra Kai co-creator and executive producer Hayden Schlossberg recently said as much on Twitter when asked for his personal ranking of characters with the most brains and brawn. Miyagi (famously played by the late Pat Morita) took the top spot in the latter category.

Take a look for yourself in the tweet exchange below:

While Morita (who passed away in 2005 at the age of 73) is no longer with us, Cobra Kai does take great strides to pay homage to the profound legacy Mr. Miyagi left behind — whether it's through existing footage of the movies or previously-unread letters.

Considering how many stellar fighters have come through this world, it's interesting to see just how much reverence and sway Mr. Miyagi's legacy and place still holds all these years later.

"As the show goes on, we're looking for new and interesting and thoughtful and goosebumpy ways to continue to bring Mr. Miyagi into this universe. We view Mr. Miyagi as a character on our show. It's a very powerful character," Schlossberg's fellow co-creator and executive producer Josh Heald told /FILM shortly after the release of Season 3 earlier this year. 

He continued: "The Miyagi-Dos train in his house and there's only so many flashbacks you can do to the Karate Kid movies before it starts to feel like, 'Okay, here comes another one.' This is one where Daniel is specifically looking for new insight as to what is going on and where he is in his life and knows that he doesn't have what he's looking for from the experience he recalls with Mr. Miyagi. The letters were just kind of the perfect device to talk about as a writers room and decide okay, what if this existed? Then to give it context where it ties into Mr. Miyagi's own love story and it ties into exactly where Daniel is in his life and it ties into Mr. Miyagi's death, it was just an avalanche of emotions that enabled us to do something like that."

During an interview over the summer, the project's third creator/EP, Jon Hurwitz, said "there’s still a lot more story to tell, in our minds." He couldn't say how many seasons the show will end up with, but added that "we’re going to enter each season with enthusiasm and confidence."

Season 4 of Cobra Kai lands on Netflix Friday, Dec. 31. A fifth installment has already been green-lit.