#johnali

This might me controversial but-

Ali, Kumiko, Jessica >>>> Carmen, Amanda, Mike's wife.

I mean like I ship Lawrusso but if they wanted THAT much to make Daniel and Johnny straight in Cobra Kai, Kumiko and Ali are RIGHT THERE. Sorry for everyone who ship Damanda or Jarmen, but I never saw the chemistry, I don't see the chemistry, and I never will. Like everytime there were romantic scenes between them I was thinking the whole time "Can we get onto more important things? Like karate? Pleaseee?" because I couldn't stand them. (Still can't)

First, I'm going to analyze (a little) Jarmen. We all know how was Johnny in Karate Kid, but we also know how he "changed" in Cobra Kai (yeah, sometimes there was null character development but at the end his rivalry with Daniel ended so I consider that character growth). And I'm pretty sure that it wasn't Carmen who changed him. It was Miguel, it was Robby, it was Daniel. Honestly, if Carmen didn't have a romance with him, do you think he wouldn't have changed??? The show was mostly about his relationship with Daniel and what happened since he lost the tournament. You can get Carmen out of the picture and it wouldn't have changed many things about the show. But with Ali in the picture? Oh, she would have make him want to be a better person (because Ali wouldn't date a "bad" version of him, she would only date him again if he proved he was worthy of dating her again). Besides, Ali (unlike Carmen) has a strong personality, she would have challenged him, he couldn't have been a passive love interest, and she would have confronted him about being a bad father to Robby (making him ALSO start to be a good father to his son). And apart from everything I've said, Ali knew Johnny since he was a teenager, so she knows him better than Carmen, and although their relationship didn't work in 1984, it could have bloom thirty years later with a little effort from both sides (mostly Johnny).

Now onto Darmanda. Unlike Danali, Damiko or Jarmen, we didn't see how Daniel and Amanda changed from being friends to become a couple (and later a marriage) and that, since the beginning, made me feel like something was missing. We saw how Daniel fell in love with Ali and how Daniel fell in love with Kumiko, but we didn't get to see that with Daniel and Amanda, making the ship lack the development that could have sold the ship to some of us. About their personalities: Unlike Carmen, Amanda had a strong personality (like Ali) which maybe could have made Damanda work in one of the movies of Karate Kid. But in Cobra Kai, Daniel didn't need someone challenging, someone defiant like Amanda. He didn't need someone confronting him about his rivalry with Johnny, Kreese or Terry, someone telling him that he was overreacting, or someone who didn't understand (or didn't try to understand) the trauma those rivalries caused to him. Daniel needed someone who didn't pressure him any further, who understood him and comforted him instead of saying that he needed to "let go of their karate rivalries". And Kumiko is a perfect love interest for him because of that. We all know how healthy was Damiko's dynamic in Karate Kid II, and Daniel needed that healthiness in Cobra Kai (at the beginning he could have dated Amanda, but later he could have divorced her and date Kumiko instead).

And thirdly, Mike and his wife. We don't know so many things about her wife, not even her appearance, and although I don't dislike this ship (unlike Jarmen or Damanda) because we didn't even see how their dynamic was, I still think there's a better option of a love interest for Mike than her. Since Mike changed after what happened in 1985 and became a better person, he could have started a relationship with Jessica Andrews. Their relationship in 1985 was a little bad because of what Mike did, but if Jessica saw Mike's change, she could have given him another chance. They could have started as friends who tried to find a common ground, and later they could have become a couple. Besides, if Mike dated Jessica, she could have stopped him from confronting Daniel when Terry burned Mike's furniture store (he could still have the furniture store, but maybe for different reasons than in the canon).