Editor’s note: this piece also appears on Lotus’ (very good) Patreon. Enjoy!
The opening scene of Tekken 7 is a callback to its origins. A five-year-old Kazuya Mishima, outfitted in a toddler-size gi, prepares to fight his father. Heihachi, the strongest human in the world, towers over his son, watching with barely-restrained impatience as Kazuya delivers weak punches to his thighs and stomach — the only points he’s tall enough to reach. He delivers an unceremonious kick to Kazuya’s face, strong enough to knock the boy sliding back across the rocky ground, unconscious. Heihachi picks up his son’s limp body and throws him off a cliff.
This is the first ever visual depiction of the inciting incident of the Tekken series, and it’s an impactful one. The original, found exclusively within the pages of the first game’s physical manual, was always deeply goofy. Early fighting games weren’t exactly the place for rich storytelling, and not only due to the relative lack of cinematics. Alongside the deeply hideous 3D games of this era, of which Tekken was one, it’s difficult to imagine them even giving it a fair shot. Just imagine Kuma’s original design in the same game as this excruciatingly long domestic abuse scene, austere in its presentation, devoid of even music.
The Ultimate Tekken
Released just over the hill of the 20th anniversary of the series, Tekken 7 did a lot to honor its legacy and cement itself as the “ultimate” Tekken game (especially after the bizarre mess that is Tekken 6). The entire story recenters Kazuya and Heihachi after years of bumbling around with Kazuya’s bastard son, Jin Kazama, as well as the ever-changing demon subplots. In more ways than one, it feels like a “Director’s Cut” remaster of Tekken 1.
The entire cast of the first game is present, either in name or by their successors, with the sole exception of Wang Jinrei. Most importantly, Tekken 7 does well at retelling and expanding upon the origins of Kazuya and Heihachi. The story calls upon existing knowledge of their history and adds one major plot point effectively enough to establish an actual character for both Kazuya and Heihachi in only a couple of scenes.
In Tekken 2, it was revealed that Kazuya was (literally) the Devil. In addition to transforming into Devil Kazuya in the game’s climactic final fight, the strategy guide also communicates the rumors swirling around the second King of Iron Fist Tournament: that Kazuya has “made a deal with the devil himself!” After a brief respite, the ending of Tekken 3 confirms that Kazuya’s son, Jin Kazama, also has a Devil form. This is where things get messy: over several games, understanding of the devil forms moves haphazardly from powers granted by a deal with the devil, to a genetic ability tied to Kazuya’s deal, to the Mishima clan’s demonic bloodline. Finally, Tekken 7 would come in to retcon clear things up. It introduces Kazumi Mishima (nee Hachijo).
Kazumi is the first character to join Tekken posthumously, appearing exclusively in flashbacks to her time with Heihachi. The two were very much in love and had a son, Kazuya, together. For a time, they lived happily as a family unit. It’s revealed that the Hachijo bloodline is the actual origin point of Kazuya and Jin’s demonic powers, a genetic ability known as the Devil Gene. Despite their connection with the Devil, the Hachijo Clan are peacekeepers of a certain sort, assassinating those who pose a threat to the world. People like Heihachi Mishima. Kazumi was originally sent to kill Heihachi, but it seems she truly fell in love with him — and especially her son Kazuya — and abandoned her assignment. Over time, the Devil weakened her body in order to possess her and finish the job, opting to ambush Heihachi in his wife’s normal form. But this is Heihachi Mishima we’re talking about. After beating both Kazumi and Devil Kazumi, he turns to spare her, but she once again attempts to deceive him. Tears stream down Heihachi Mishima’s face in the first and only true show of emotion from the world’s strongest fighter as he’s forced to kill his beloved.
This, as it turns out, is the true beginning to the events of Tekken. Heihachi doesn’t throw Kazuya off a cliff just to test his mettle as his eventual successor, but also in the hopes of uncovering a latent Devil form like that of his late wife’s. At this point, Heihachi doesn’t know much about the Devil Gene. He’s hoping that if Kazuya indeed has it, he’ll sense imminent death and instinctively sprout wings, like an old witch trial. Needless to say, he doesn’t. Kazuya hits the ground hard and survives with the knowledge that his father killed his mother for reasons unknown and went on to make an attempt on his life. Heihachi leaves the encounter unsure if his son carries the Devil Gene. The original inciting incident is preserved and still given greater context, adding dramatic texture to each clash between Kazuya and Heihachi in Tekkens 1, 2, and 4. Tekken 7, honoring its past, sets up an absolute and final confrontation between the world’s strongest fighter and the devil son of a distinguished family.
The final fight in Tekken 7 doesn’t necessarily require much skill or offer new gameplay complexity, but its storytelling, 20 years in the making, puts it head-and-shoulders above anything else in the genre. Decades ago, Heihachi Mishima attempted to kill his son after he failed a test of strength, and out of fear for what havoc his bloodline may wreak. The fight is filled with flashbacks to their many scraps throughout the years, overwhelmingly won by Heihachi. As Kazuya prepares to deliver the final blow, unsure if it — or he — is enough, Heihachi’s visage briefly changes to his younger self. To quote ClementJ64’s excellent Tekken lore video: “He still feels like the helpless 5-year-old boy.” Kazuya screams wildly, exhausted from the overly long fight, and surges forward with his fist, plunging it into Heihachi’s chest with a deep thud. There’s a long pause before Heihachi exhales a shaky breath and finally topples over, dead. Kazuya leans down to pick up his father and, of course, gently lobs him off the edge of a cliff and into a volcano. Over 20 real world and 44 in-game years have led up to this moment, where Kazuya finally exacts revenge on his own personal demon.
Except lol Heihachi is actually alive! Again!
The Unkillable Non-Demon King
Not six months after the release of Tekken 8, the team revealed at EVO 2024 that Heihachi was alive and would be returning as Tekken 8’s third DLC character. This capped off a year of marketing where game director Katsuhiro Harada repeatedly stated that Heihachi was dead for good, after not-killing him twice previously. This is, admittedly, extremely funny… until you start to think about where this leaves the series’ narratively, and what it does to the genuine epic that was Tekken 7. Twenty years of buildup and payoff casually undone in a first-year DLC trailer. There’s only one other moment comparable to such a fumble as this, which so swiftly takes a hammer to over 30 years of storytelling: “Somehow, Palpatine returned.”
It’s frustrating to see the wind so immediately taken out of the sails of new antagonist Reina Mishima, especially for how novel the story sets her up to be. As the surname implies, she’s related to the main family of Tekken; in particular, she’s the illegitimate daughter of Heihachi. The wrinkle here, though, is that she also has the Devil Gene, which we previously understood to originate with Kazuya’s mother, Kazumi. Reina is listed as “a high school student at Mishima Polytechnical School,” meaning that she cannot be Kazumi’s daughter — she was born years after Kazumi’s death. And yet, she has the Devil Gene. While there’s one dormant plot point that could easily explain Reina’s lineage, there’s still some mystery there, and that’s exciting! That combined with the possibility of a fresh antagonist was much more exciting before this inevitable narrative pivot to Heihachi.
Disappointing as it may be, this is far from the first time that Tekken has left its roster to toil in narrative obscurity in favor of the Mishima patriarchal bloodline.
Wang Jinrei, Jinpachi Mishima’s childhood friend and a kindly mentor figure to Heihachi in his youth, isn’t much more than a footnote in Tekken’s story. In Tekken 2, Heihachi and Kazuya have to be in the Iron Fist Tournament grand finals for narrative reasons, but Wang doesn’t so much as make an appearance in their story mode paths. He returns in Tekken 5 due to Jinpachi playing a larger part in that story, but fails to show up in Jin, Kazuya, or even Heihachi’s campaign paths (Tekken 6’s strategy guide confirms that Jin bested Wang in the tournament off-screen). Wang has a single expository scene in Tekken 6’s scenario campaign before disappearing from the mainline series. Sidelining Wang Jinrei so consistently is maybe the biggest missed opportunity in Tekken’s lore; his non-canon story mode endings are some of the earliest examples of Tekken’s ability to pay off on the emotional beats of longform storytelling (One scene actually appears in Kazumi’s Tekken 7 trailer despite not being canon, so devoid is the series of impactful, emotional scenes). Before his death, Jinpachi entrusts Wang with the information that the Mishima Clan is evil in some way, and that the state of the world is in danger as long as they live. Although Wang fails to stop Kazuya or Heihachi, he gets another chance when Jinpachi returns from the dead decades later — now possessed. Wang is finally able to carry out his friend’s dying wish, besting everyone in the King of Iron Fist Tournament 5 and freeing Jinpachi from his unlife. A year later, he succeeds again, this time killing the presumed source of the Mishima Clan’s curse, the demon Azazel. But the intense fighting takes its toll on the 104-year-old man. He slumps to his knees, ready to reunite with his old friend once again, under better circumstances.
Ling Xiaoyu burst into Heihachi Mishima’s life in Tekken 3 by beating up his guards and demanding he build an amusement park in her name in her homeland of China, lest she go on another rampage. Due to this insane power play and her martial prowess, she quickly became the only living human being who Heihachi Mishima actually likes. He personally invites her to Mishima Polytechnic, where she meets Jin and subsequently becomes little more than his love interest for the rest of the series.
Hwoarang is a hotheaded taekwondo master who attempted to hustle Jin in a street fight, but could only muster a draw. From that day forward, his life has revolved around his rivalry with Jin, even abandoning his mandatory military service to attend the King of Iron Fist Tournament. He’s technically beaten Jin twice, but both times, Jin assumed his demonic form and reversed the score. He also has a motorcycle. Six mainline story appearances and I’m afraid that that’s all there is to Hwoarang, the de facto main character’s primary rival.
Asuka Kazama is, obviously, a member of the Kazama Clan, and therefore a relative of Jun and Jin’s (precisely how they’re related remains a mystery, as the games and series director Katsuhiro Harada regularly change their minds). The implication throughout the Tekken series is that any Kazama Clan member can “foster life and cleanse evil,” a unique skill of their bloodline. Asuka is the only other practitioner of Kazama Traditional Martial Arts besides Jun (Jin only knew a few moves back in Tekken 3). And yet, despite being a devoted student to her father, the owner of the beleaguered Kazama Dojo in Osaka, Asuka doesn’t seem to want or even know about these abilities. Most of her time on-screen is spent on her huge tits, her obsessive rival Lili, and/or her being annoyed as the “straight man” in Osaka-style humor. Asuka is shown to have these cleansing abilities in her non-canon Tekken 5 ending, but it’s quickly derailed with another “haha tits” moment and is never mentioned again. Asuka is conveniently excused from visiting the spiritually significant Kazama Clan origin point on Yakushima Island in the main story of Tekken 8. It would be more than a little bit awkward if Jin went through his big sad boy I-deserve-to-live descent into subconscious moment with his dead mom and then Asuka did the same thing five minutes later without all the drama — especially because the two never speak in Tekken 8, despite occupying a few of the same scenes.
While it’s easy to see what could have been (and, to be fair, what’s still possible) in the Mishima line’s direct sphere of influence, things become more complicated when it comes to the expanded roster. The original game’s characters are beginning to age out, and most have long since run out of places to go storywise (if they ever went anywhere at all).
Final, Final Round
Say what you will about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we all felt very impressed when they first unveiled their “phase” structure. Marvel, as it turns out, was planning out their film and TV releases years in advance to ensure that the timeline lined up appropriately when multiple heroes would appear in the same installment. Likewise, this helped organize one classic facet of superhero comics: the successors.
It’s always heartening to see a long-running character receive a complete arc and sendoff, even if it ends with their death. But there’s no denying that it leaves a void. Especially for our most iconic superheroes, we want a new hero for a new era, but with a few of their cornerstones intact. While the MCU’s efforts in this case have been messy and incomplete, there is at least one good, clean, and well-written succession: Captain America. Sparing the details, Steve Rogers’ Captain America has been succeeded by the former Falcon, Sam Wilson, and kinda-sorta The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes. These two characters have appeared in numerous MCU properties, alone and together, over the past decade. We already know and love them, and the passing of the mantle feels natural, especially as well-handled as Steve Rogers’ departure was.
Tekken, on the other hand…
Tekken 3 was an exciting episode in the series. The gameplay saw a huge evolution and essentially threw out the rulebook for fighting game sequels. It left Kazuya dead for a full game and brought in his son, Jin Kazama, as the new protagonist alongside a mostly new cast of characters. Marshall Law’s son was replaced by his son Forest; Michelle Chang by daughter Julia; Baek Doo San by student Hwoarang; and King and Kuma by King II and Kuma II, respectively. Series mainstays Bryan Fury, Eddy Gordo, Ling Xiaoyu, Panda, and fan favorite mascot Mokujin were all introduced in Tekken 3. And although Jin made for a lackluster lead storywise, that could easily be forgiven as new protagonist jitters when the game itself was that damn good.
Besides a universally panned detour in Tekken 6, not much has changed by Tekken 8, except Mokujin is gone and Marshall Law has re-replaced his near-identical son. He and Paul Phoenix have been nothing more than comic relief for the past few years; the latter, in every game since the first and pushing 50, has no clear successor set up. What new characters have been introduced are just spinning their wheels. Lars and Alisa, the protagonists of Tekken 6, return with run-of-the-mill human/android romantic drama better explored in their first entry. Claudio and Zafina are given some extra narrative vigor as supporting cast members due to their connections to the Devil. Boxer Steve Fox was introduced in Tekken 4 as a lost young man looking for an explanation as to his origins, and found that he’s a would-be biological supersoldier formed, in part, by Nina Williams. Although the two have shared a tense and interesting dynamic in non-canon endings, neither appears or is even mentioned in the other’s Tekken 8 campaign. Bryan, Dragunov, Feng, King, Leo, Leroy, Lidia, Lili, Panda, Raven, Shaheen, and Yoshimitsu are all doing the exact same things they were doing when they were first introduced. Lee Chaolan became Iron Man off-screen between Tekken 7 and 8. Newcomer Azucena likes coffee.
At this point, it’s unclear where Tekken’s story will go. What runway it did have was gone by the end of Tekken 7, its supporting stories thrown to the wayside even before then. It’s done little to succeed its most iconic fighters, and even less to ensure a new story and newer characters could entertain. In all likelihood, Tekken will probably go on to retread the same ground it has been for the last 30 years. And that’s a shame.
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