Cue Peter Cetera’s “Glory of Love”: In the third season of Netflix’s nostalgia-fueled hit series “Cobra Kai,” which premiered New Year’s Day, familiar faces return to the “Karate Kid” universe — including Tamlyn Tomita as Kumiko, the Okinawan dancer who became Daniel LaRusso’s paramour in 1986’s martial arts sequel “The Karate Kid Part II.”
But 34 years after the film that launched her career, Tomita had conditions before agreeing to return for a special two-episode arc on the series. As a teenager acting alongside Ralph Macchio and veterans Pat Morita and Nobu McCarthy in the second “Karate Kid” movie, she hadn’t known what decades of experience would eventually teach her: how to fight for authentic onscreen representation.