Tekken’s Katsuhiro Harada is no stranger to Twitter commenting danger (and I know this first hand). As a long-time member of the Tekken production team since its’ humble beginnings, Harada has seen it all. This is the man who’s coined the phrase “Don’t Ask Me For Sh–” when it comes to any request to his beloved franchise. This confrontation is slightly different since more effort was needed to quell the fan question.
Tim Tiger made a bold claim on Twitter against Tekken 8 and Harada.
The only reason why Eddy Gordo hasn’t been revealed yet is because the creators of @TEKKEN are racist and don’t care about black characters or Dark skinned people so it’s going to be awhile until the real fighters come out instead of these whites latins and asians.
Update: Eddy Gordo was announced as the first DLC character for Tekken 8.
Harada Strikes Back
Harada didn’t take this one sitting down or crouch forward. Especially when old man Wing Chun practitioner T-Pai…err, Leroy and Raven were making their returns as base characters.
If you think you can just claim anything that way and it will pass, you are mistaken.
Leroy and Raven will kick your ass. Come to think of it, there are no Japanese characters in the American dramas and movies that I love, but I have never felt discriminated against because of it. What do you think is the crucial difference between you and me? (I am sure you don’t understand).
You are not logical at all, and you are simply a delusional person who doesn’t even realize that even if it were an emotional argument, it doesn’t make sense. — Harada
https://twitter.com/Harada_TEKKEN/status/1742560331673584048
It seems as though there have been other follow-ups to this Tekken “issue” for other races in the later days after this tweet. A Native American one had also been started. Harada also explains the danger of having to carefully craft characters to fit the rigidness of what we’re expecting now.
So should we use this approach for ALL our characters? If we do this, we lose the fun of “What kind of characters will we get? and our ideas and creative power will not be utilized.
Tekken has a cultural mosaic of fighters(speaking in their own tongues, don’t you know) in the game spanning from across the globe. Even from made-up countries that are possibly head cannon now. For instance, protagonist turned antagonist Kazuya Mishima has sworn off his Japanese nationality. If I destroyed the UN in an attempt to go at world domination, I’d probably do the same at that point. It’d be hard to explain the Republic of Kevin on a passport.
Is he wrong, though?
Black characters have always been a part of the The King of The Iron Fist Tournament series to some degree. Most notably, Master Raven, Leroy, Raven, Bruce Irving, Eddie Gordo(I think), and super fly Tiger Jackson – who only appeared in 2 Tekken games. Well, it’s mainly roster-wise. Thanks to the dream match that is Tekken Tag – which happens after each of 3 main-timeline games, characters from the past get one final shot regardless of how obscure or dead they seem to be. Perhaps waiting for your favorite character to come back there is a good idea. At this rate, will Tekken Tag Tournament 3 be in the year 2034? I still have faith in Bruce Irving.
It would be assumed that Tekken’s roster is created by the needs of the story, creative juices, various other ideals, and, more often, checkboxes. Also, thanks to the power of DLC, it would be strange to assume that there’d be no more characters for the new title. To say that representation in one game represents the whole series feels a bit off.
Tekken 8 is coming January 26th with 32 characters available at launch worldwide, minus Kazuya’s country, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X | S, and Steam.
