‘Tekken 8’ Director Katsuhiro Harada Slams Western Player Who Accused Him Of Racism Over Lack Of Eddy Gordo DLC: “Leroy And Raven Will Kick Your Ass”
Spencer Baculi
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In delivering a well-deserved, Heihachi-worthy Geta Stomp to one of the most eye-rolling and unserious elements of the Western entertainment market, Tekken 8 game director Katsuhiro Harada has responded to a baseless accusation of anti-black racism by not kowtowing to his critic, but rather excoriating their absurd argument in full view of the public eye.
RELATED: Tekken Director Katsuhiro Harada is ‘Quite Tired of Trying to Avoid Causing Potential Offense’
This exchange of words first kicked off on January 3rd when Twitter user @TimTiger16, unhappy with the fact that fan-favorite capoeira fighter Eddy Gordo was absent from the base roster of the series’ upcoming eighth entry and its leaked post-launch content plans, took to the social media platform and attempted to use identity politics to shame Harada into immediately making the character available as DLC.
“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,” accused the user, taking specific care to tag both Harada’s personal and the official Tekken Twitter accounts, “so it’s going to be awhile until the real fighters come out instead of these whites latins and asians @Harada_TEKKEN”.
Met by the obvious observation from @Duran70660996 that his accusation only made sense if one “pretend[ed] Leroy & Raven never existed” in Tekken 8‘s base roster, @TimTiger16 then revealed that rather than any pretense of actual concern regarding representation, he was simply using the rhetoric of identity politics in order to advance his own goal of seeing such past dark-skinned fighters like Eddy, Bruce Irvin, and Armor King return to the fighting fold.
“Bro I don’t care about these new black characters,” he admitted. “I’m talking about Bruce and armor king. Where have you been the past 10 years?”
However, unlike many such Western developers, Harada refused to even entertain @TimTiger16’s blatant nonsense.
Retweeting his critic’s initial tweet, the long-time franchise overseer declared, “If you think you can just claim anything that way and it will pass, you are mistaken. Leroy and Raven will kick your ass.”
Proceeding to dismantle the idea of ‘representation’ based on immutable traits, Harada continued, “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),” he ultimately asserted. “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.”
Of course, as is typical of these types of entitled individuals, rather than responding to Harada’s push back with even an ounce of humility or self-reflection, @TimTiger16 instead chose to continue throwing a very public tantrum.
“You’re actually f–king hilarious threatening me with fighting game characters,” he bizarrely replied to the Tekken director. “I’ve been whooping for years since you were in diapers boy go pick Heihachi and fight me in the ring”.
Throwing in a dash of racism for good measure, @TimTiger16 added, “Second of all…I NEVER stated I felt like I was being discriminated again solely. I was just stating obvious facts how you replaced Bruce with that ghetto ass Sagat thing you called ‘f–kyourmom’ [a reference to Tekken 7 fighter Fahkumram, whose name translates to ‘Roaring Sky’ in his native Thai].”
For those more interested in the game than crying at their own shadow, Tekken 8 rocks onto PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows platforms on January 26th.
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