Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada reveals the creation process of one of Tekken’s most popular costumes, including the internal discussions surrounding the concept and whether overseas players would understand it.
The news came via Twitter in response to a cosplay of King’s beloved alternate costume for Tekken 3. The costume features the wrestler wearing a grey mask, a t-shirt, dark blue pants, and white sneakers. Harada explained the background of its design in a lengthy post.
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“This costume started with a concept I had in the 90s that 2P should wear the Armor King mask and become a Heel wrestler. Then… the artist in charge of the project uploaded texture data with the kanji “悪 (Heel / Evil / Villain)” and it was just a joke at first. One day, when I booted up the development test version and saw “Evil” written on the back of KING, I burst out laughing.”
Harada continued, “The artist laughed and said, ‘Look, this is the Heel, right?’ And it was well received by all the development team members, so we officially adopted it. I felt it was a bit sad to use only one kanji, so I asked the artist, and I asked the artist to add “Mishima Heavy Industry” to the design, and the design was completed.
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Harada then elaborated on internal concerns about overseas appreciation of the design, especially the kanji on the back. “However, I once wondered whether other countries besides Japan would understand this ‘evil kanji’. In the 90s, awareness of language localization was still very limited, so I left it as it was. At the time, arcades were still operating globally, and Tekken 3 was released in arcades around the world, but one of the most common questions in the letters we received (real letters, not emails) was ‘What’s written on the king’s back?’. At the time, Namco’s sales team pointed out that it was difficult for overseas people to read, but on the contrary, I believe it was precisely because it was written in kanji that it became an iconic costume (or so I like to think).”
This is great vintage info about some cool Tekken history. Ultimately Harada was proven right, as this costume is one of the most popular in the series. In fact, you can even buy a full costume inspired by it online!
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