Kumiko Tanaka[1] is a fictional character portrayed by Tamlyn Tomita in the film The Karate Kid Part II (1986), and in the third season of the sequel series Cobra Kai (2021).

She had ambitions of being a professional dancer, but due to the lack of dance schools in the region & her reluctance to leave her home, she feels incapable of realizing that dream.

She eventually joins the Hijikata Tatsumi Dance Company, and travels the world, only to return home to care for Aunt Yukie when she becomes sick.

After Aunt Yukie passes away, Kumiko inherits her home, settles back in Okinawa, and becomes a dance teacher for children.

Her aunt was a love interest of Miyagi during their youth despite being arranged for marriage to Sato, a member of a wealthy family that grew up to be a rich industrialist and the village's landlord.

The fallout from Sato's disgrace and his need to redeem his lost honor brought about a 45-year rivalry that rekindled upon Miyagi's return, yielding ripple effects on the village's livelihood at large, and specifically through Sato's nephew, Chozen Toguchi, who targets Daniel directly and Kumiko indirectly through escalating acts of harassment in defense of his family's honor.

After beating Daniel for dishonoring him after he was exposed for cheating the villagers during his sharecropping collection, Kumiko tosses a tomato at Chozen's back as he walks away.

This prompts Chozen to take off his stained shirt and toss it in front of Kumiko, lewdly uttering, "You keep for your collection!

As Kumiko and Daniel walk home after the assault, she tells him that Chozen has always been as abrasive and bereft of any sense of honor since they were kids.

Upon arriving home, both see Yukie and Miyagi in the midst of a tea ceremony from afar which Kumiko explains to Daniel "means that they are falling in love again".

Kumiko uses the video to express to Daniel her dream of becoming a dancer and travelling the world, although there are no dance schools where she lives.

Daniel than holds her hand, indicating his romantic interest towards her, but Chozen arrives and wants his money back.

In response, Daniel probes Kumiko about her dance school dream, trying to convince her to come back to the United States with him to pursue it.

After carrying Sato to safety, Daniel successfully rescues a little girl, who had been stranded on top of a bell tower.

Daniel accepts, and Kumiko makes an effort to intervene by choking Chozen with a piece of cloth before being knocked out by him.

In 2018, after learning that his business rival Tom Cole has convinced Doyona Industries to cut their business ties with Daniel due to Robby's affiliation with Miyagi-Do and actions against Miguel at the end of the school brawl, he travels to Tokyo, Japan to try to persuade them not to.

Over tea, she tells Daniel that after graduation, she joined the Hijikata Tatsumi Dance Company, and traveled around the world.

She also said that Aunt Yukie wanted her to get married, but she preferred to be a "free agent", explicitly referencing Daniel's use of the term to her when they first met.

The next day, Kumiko meets Daniel in a restaurant, and says that the letters she read to him the night before brought Mr. Miyagi back to life.

[2][4] It was during this time that she responded to "Helen Funai, a former 1963 queen of the pageant and also a dancer, actress, singer",[5] who made a request that she audition for a part in The Karate Kid II.

'"[6] She noted that at that time, she was an absolute novice and that "Pat [Morita] and Ralph and Nobu [McCarthy] and Yuji [Okumoto], those actors taught me everything I know.

[8] When she was asked to return during Season 3, Tomita states that she said, "I would love to, this would be so fun, but the only caveat is that because I'm older, because I'm a little bit more knowledgeable and I'm going to fight for it anyway — I need to be able to inject a truer picture of Okinawa.

[3] Tomita states that Cobra Kai's writers were open to having her involved in the development of Kumiko and "rectifying the portrayal of Okinawa" and was given the "red carpet treatment".

[7] Tomita asked for (and was given) the script in advance so that she could "translate things from Japanese to hōgen, or Uchinanchu, which is the Okinawan dialect".

[3] She also met with the Okinawa Association of America, in order to get "the correct Okinawan choreography to 'Tinsagu nu Hana', which is the song that me and my mom made up the dance to in Karate Kid II because I wasn't choreographed for that section of the film".

[9] Macchio also commented on the decision to return to Daniel's relationship with Kumiko in Cobra Kai, stating that he "always felt that I wanted to go back, I wanted to explore what happened to Daniel and Kumiko because I always felt if I ever went back to this well -- this is for years, decades on end -- it's a story that was just kind of dropped...