Does Tekken Fail at Making Female Characters? 

What do you think about Tekken's female characters? Tell us, what are the biggest issues for you, and who are your favorite characters?

One thing though: Jin having an average body type is a wild statement

Jin is Tekken average, not real world average.

"she doesn't speak her own language" -Alisa,Lars,Dragunov,Lei,Xiaoyu and Zafina left the chat

I really wish Reina had a bit more of a muscular build. It just looks weird to have her doing these Heihachi-esque power moves with the typical female character body frame (especially the headbutt).

honestly the biggest problem is alot of the girls just dont emote right. Like the mouth moves but nothing else. Like for example, When Ada or Ashley in RE4 remake talk, their entire face moves, not just the lips and eyes, but thats not the case for most of Tekkens female roster, which isnt a problem in the male roster

Paul actually is one of the most detailed characters from the model point of view

It's very telling when someone on Reddit removed the hair from six female characters, and about the only one most everybody could correctly identify was Eliza, who has distinctive make-up.

Zafina has slightly darker skin? Bro she’s the same color as Nina 🤣

The issue is the fact that they actually did have variety in the previous games but homogenized the female chars afterwards. In TT2 Nina and Christie had huge shoulders and well defined upper-arms. Julia had bigger tighs than the other girls and characters like Xiao were fairly slim and tiny. Facially they also had very distinguishable features. They took all that away in T7 and now in T8. It's actually really sad.

I think the biggest problem with Tekken female characters is that they are too bland and do not stand out. When you look at other fighting games, the most populare ones or remarkable are Juri han from SF and Mileena from MK, because they are completely crazy and they attract your curiosity. That also includes Ivy from Soul Calibur who is basically a dominatrix. Tekken female characters are just a mellow versions of anime tropes like Asuka and Lili, and Nina is just all over the place in terms of character development so she is not really likeable.

There's an extreme lack of different body types and ages for female characters in tekken compared to male characters and I've been increasingly disappointed, where's some evil grandmas.

I honestly hadn't registered the lack of expressiveness, but yeah they're completely right. And yeah, be nice if they advanced the time and started to give some characters a little bit of aging. Jun I think suits the agelessness, and depending how she's explained in the story, maybe it fits. The game time seems in stasis since what... 2-3 years have passed since tekken 3? Also the femme character builds are really too similar, always have been but it becomes more and more apparent. I'd love to see some more muscle definition on Nina, not making her hulking in any way, but she clearly seems like the sort who works to be powerful as well as precise. Anna is much more concerned with appearances and is fine as she is. Lilli, Xiaoyu, certain characters like that are fine. I think most are decent, though could do with just a touch more tailoring in their body shape/definition and facial expressiveness.

Really weird that TTT2 did a much better job of distinct faces and that was like a decade ago

They did such a great job with lidia. Unique face and actually and a muscular model, i genuinely thought they’re gonna do better from now on. Its so disappointing

Some of them are a bit boring, but still waaaaay better than the MK1 girls.

tekken fails at making any character, street fighter has the best character designs visual and combat wise

After seeing how lively Street Fighter girls are, Tekken girls feels very bland.

Paul is actually one of the good ones. Literally the best smile in the game.

While I do agree with most of your points, I do feel like you’ve completely misunderstood that everything about Lucky Chloe is a deliberate choice. She’s a troll character, she’s designed to frustrate opponents into making mistakes, hitting you with the same rhythmic looped low kick annimations over and over. You even said it yourself: “even her gameplay is annoying”. The comparisons to Eddy are a part of that: their contrast in the story shows clearly that her fighting style isn’t capoeira, but literally just random pop idol dance steps. It’s insulting to fight her because of course she wants to insult you, she’s Psychological Warfare: the character. You could argue that her gimmick didn’t work if that design intent doesn’t come across, but people who play her certainly understand that design intent. When anyone complains about Lucky Chloe and everything she does as just being annoying, comparing her to all the other serious characters and whatnot, all I’m hearing is that her fighting style worked wonders on you.

Lmao I thought it was just me when I referred to Reina as Purple Asuka 😂

I’ll say this, I rather have porcelain dolls over whatever US developers think a woman looks like any day.

This female sameface design problem started in TTT2 and got worse in Tekken 7 Nina, Julia, Xiaoyu had very distinct faces in Telken 3. Julia's got more genric over time as did Nina's though. It got so bad that in Tekken Tag Tournament 2 i couldn't tell the difference between Julia and Michelle at first.

My man doesn't know about the unexplained Asian genetic phenomenon of not aging until they've menopaused.

I just want to ask Namco what exactly they did to make that first trailer so graphically beautiful because its odd that they were able to produce such results but seemingly just forgot how to replicate it afterwards?

They could look better but the main problem with this discourse is that most of the critics have shit taste and shouldn't be listened to.

After Lidia, I really thought that tekken will start getting more interesting female characters. But we got Azucena and Reina instead. Why, Harada, why?

@8:30 That is dead wrong, chloe literally counts the beat 1,2,3,4 so you can time the button inputs. Also her animation of when her leg switches side is a visual cue for inputs.

I just wish Tekken start having *'Face Models'* in future games, so every single character would have a unique facial structure (especially the Tekken Girls)

there is only one reason....Namco is only recycling things and don't have enough resources to improve..just a quick example is on Azucena's win pose vs Deejay's. Deejay shows how he signs the camera while with Azucena, the part where she signs the camera is skipped. That victory scene shows how much Capcom puts effort on the game unlike Namco.

I've been saying this since forever, the female characters all look blend. Moles, birthmarks, scars, face tattoos, different kinds of makeup, there's like a million ways to make their faces more unique

Japanese fighting game.... Japanese women in animation are always "smooth", without wrinkles, without expression marks, young and perfect, without scars or any skin blemishes. It is the chosen art.

I don't know if I have a problem but for me in games with realistic graphics every character looks identical outside of clothing and hair Take those away and I would be able to tell If it's a female character or male, but not much else That's why I don't understand the argument "make them more human" cuz I think it's even harder to tell apart characters in Mortal kombat 1 where they look more "human" and also more realistic In a game like Street Fighter or Overwatch, every character has its own silhouette, making them a lot easier to tell apart. And those characters looks way less human. I think going less human overall tends to work better.

That thumbnail is devastating. They gave the new character, who's supposed to be the sister of 53 year old Kazuya, the exact face of another teenage school girl, who also shares the same face with most of the female cast.

i think the lucky chloe hatred is hilarious, shes cute and she needed a nerf, thats all. she’s part of what makes tekken what it is. a fun and intense brawler and her function is just as important just like the bears, just like mokujin, just like yoshi.

I think my issue stems from a lot of the female Tekken characters just being bland and uninteresting. Whether it's the lack of emotion in their personality, or the gentle actions in their moves, or their quirk being their sole identity. Reina and Lidia are the only female Tekken characters that have interested me.

On what planet is Jins appearance “average”?

Tekken has some problem with stereotypes in general. There is good character variety, but there is also quite a few very huge holes: No big women, no adult or older looking women are the most obvious. There is also no lanky or intermediate people: there are hyper athletic ones and very fat ones, nothing in between. And while there is some variation in male faces, it is truly small in the case of women. Their shapes and expressions are truly copy pasted. Even their busts... come on, Japan has no shame on putting all types of boobs everywhere, yet in Tekken all of them are sameish. Where are the Baikens and Talims of tekken? Even from a male-gaze POV you are doing it poorly, Bamco.

No. The answer is no. Saved myself 11:33

Harada like his Tekken girls pretty if u want ugly female i suggest u stick to NRS games Also, as an Asian, No Reina and Asuka does not look alike, that like me seeing a black guy and yell iS tHAt wILL sMIth? Ps. suggestion to ppl who want decent Tekken content without weird agenda, black list this channel for recommendation, i will do so too, this channel clearly try to get any amount of click/interaction possible with rage bait/politically charged video since doing legit content get them no where(>2k views)

I 100% agree with everything you said, it shocks me how they obviously blown a lot of money in the new models but this problem still persists

the sameface thing is not really a tekken problem, plenty of other Asian games have this issue. I think it's because the female beauty standards in Asia are pretty constricting if you look at their celebrities they all look very similar or get plastic surgery if they had some features that would make them look different.

No, they don't. I also think people are making too much of a big deal about this. Also, Reina is amazing. (I also feel like the hate for Lucky Chloe is overblown, and pretty superficial.)

Eh, while i dont agree with everything here, facts are facts, if you wanted to name iconic female fighting characters, you most likely wont be naming tekken characters. Your thoughts would go to Chun Li, Juri, Cammy, Kitana, Millena, Baiken, Morrigan , Mai, if you are a fan of classic oldies you might even recall Nakoruru from samurai showdown or ivy from soul caliber. Go to most peoples top ten lists and they wont have a tekken girl on there. Which is very strange when you consider the fact Tekken is what I would call the big 3 of fighting games. Which would be Street fighter, Mortal kombat then tekken Yet despite that, most people don't really list female tekken characters

While ur criticisms are valid, I am not so sure if I want the mortal kombat or even sf treatment on tekken... If you want female facial designs fitting the so called "modern audience" narrative, there is more than enough in current day, some might even say too much. Just maybe not in fighting games.

Been playing Tekken since Tekken 3 and at this point the characters all look and move like the same character just in a different skin. Not sure if its just the design style of the game because GG and SF doesn't have this problem.

"Dont eddy gordo us?" Am sorry but if your argument is that lucky chloes moves wouldnt stand a chance against the devil jin, idk why a real martial art would stand a chance either. So yeah am gonna eddgy gordo yall, if she cant why would eddy gordo be able to?

"However, it doesn't mean they can't do better... because they should!" - You You make good points in this video, but don't ever tell other people, especially creators, what they "should" do. Just say you would LIKE for Bandai-Namco to make different female characters for such-and-such reason, but don't ever say someone SHOULD do something. All great points, then you ended it with a yuck statement.

People are jealous of pretty women so they dont like tekken

"People would much rather just see Bruce back" do you have a single fact to back that up?

100% agree.and not only in tekken,many games have this "perfect wax doll faces".i know they target mostly the teen-young adult audience,but cmon..and while t8 looks way better than t7,the downgrade from the first trailer is soo obvious.

I really wished Xiaoyu has her pigtails gone to show her maturity and growth. Same with Julia.

I absolutely agree, I think the thing with Reina that stood out to me (if she is actually a part of the Mishima family) is that unlike Lars and Jin etc who all share the trademark features like a deep angry brow and expression or angular gravity defying hair, she has none of the same features at all. Its like the designers are afraid to even give her any sort of masculine or aggressive feature, even design-wise like her hair. Its actually really lame and I see the way women are portrayed in a bunch of my favourite games from Japan to the point its just boring and dehumanising. I reject the idea that Mortal Kombat characters look ugly though, that game was going for a realistic look and used actors for face scans and at the very least had a variety of faces and expressions. Even though Tekken is more exaggerated and stylised it has created a design and presentation style with its male characters that it then fails to follow in its own style, which is why you have a bunch of weird angelic and porcelain looking anime girls fighting guys who look like they're from Fist of the North Star. But something I see in the comments a lot when talking about this (and the video itself) is the hesitancy to call it what it is, which is just a clear case of sexism. People bend over backwards to point to some technicality or design problem (which in some ways is true) without looking at the root cause which is just that the female characters aren't respected as much in how they're designed; which is to be attractive as possible and treated as eye-candy rather than an actual character. That's when you see the trend we are seeing now where every woman in the game is a hollow shell (narratively and physically) and all fit into the same archetype with no substance.

i don't think this is something that needs improvement

Right now tekken has the best girls. Period.

I prefer how the female characters in Tekken look over how boring and/or ugly the female characters in Mortal Kombat look. What do Westerners have against female characters in videogames?

Tekken, like DoA, Street Fighter and KoF, emphasizes Soft-core female characters - cause if they had many hardcore female characters like from Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct then I think that could reduce their own player data base. But hey it’s Fiction so I think it’s fine.

The idea of making female charcters beautiful takes away from the general aesthetic or feeling of the game, as the male and female characters do not look like they belong in the same universe. Plus, not adding any blemishes/ making female faces doll-like causes the graphics to look worse. It would be nice to see some detail, and depth to their faces. Personally, I love Tekken, but I feel it lacks an specific atmoshophere, like all the Tekkens after Tekken 4. Adding that would definetly give some charm back to the game.

This is mild in comparison to western developers who will intentionally uglify their female characters to a point that they barely ressembles the models they hired, all for the sake of their panderverse.

People are crying and complaining here that female characters aren't "realistic enough". It's literally a videogame taking place in a fantasy made up world. 😂😂

It’s just a game. Keep the beauty untouched.

Dizzing Paul like that, imo he is the only one that got some crazy charisma buff

Atleast the female characters in this game dont look like ugly men like in other video games

This video is just not true. You're talking like there's big variation in the male characters when there isn't, all of them are just six pack guys slight variations, with the same serious faces. You're talking about Paul having different expressions and conparing it to Reina or azucena but what about Victor another new guy is the same serious face like Jin or hwo or raven and I'm 100% sure he's the same muscled body type underneath his suit Like have you seen how much male athletes differ from each other, there's people in gymnastics and weight lifting and they differ so much from each other and none of them have defined six packs but tekken 8 represents them the same. Why only talk about females and female athletes?

This topic got me thinking about Naruto and depending on who you ask, how female characters aren't well written in the series. Take Sakura and Hinata for example. Sakura gets a lot of hate because of her love for Sasuke despite of everything he's done and the way they hook up was kind of stupid to some anime fans. Hinata on the other hand was not properly paired up with Naruto. There was no strong interaction or relationship build up after the the Pain ark. But here's the funny thing about Kishimoto. He isn't single and he even has a child if I'm not mistaken. He just doesn't much time to spend with his family because of his work. There's also another character who got little screen time. Here name is TenTen. Originally she was supposed to be paired up with Rock Lee then separate after they had Metal Lee, but someone in higher-ups didn't want that because talking about divorce in Japan is kinda taboo. And when it comes to conservatism in Japan they have a very strong patriarchal value compared to the West. Now to be clear I'm not condemning or praising at all because every country, culture and history has its strengths and flaws. Take a long look at American history for example. I can't really blame you for strongly disagreeing with me because there are plenty of Mangas and Animes with well written female characters. It's just depends on the writers and who they work for. And if you're going to work for certain companies that makes fighting games you have consider fan service as a main priority before you think about character development. So I think when it comes to female characters in Tekken it's..... A: The writers with time constraints. B: The higher ups giving less freedom to writers. C: Generally high demand for fan service with less criticism.

I thought master raven was designed well, maybe her having ravens move set doesn't make her that interesting to some ppl

Not at all, we had Eliza, Chloe, Josie, Asuka, Lili etc. all of them had personality and charm, the issue is the community, the females has always been more overly criticized compared to male fighters, because the majority of the playerbase are males, so that said I think it's obvious that there is some hidden Misogynist mentality lucking in the thoughts of most Tekken players. As for similarities, I think people are reaching because of above statement, if we was to remove all gear etc. I can distinguish each female face from the other.

There is a saying, if you try to make them too human it starts going in uncanny valley/

Yea is a major complaint for me, like where are the large fem characters like marissa from sf6. All tekken female are picture perfect

Tekken females literally unplayable without muscle and thigh mods

Jin an average guy lol, non of them are average male or female. This guy is delusional.

OMG some people complain just for the sake of complaining

Thumbs down simply for the Lucky Chloe and Josie slander. Also "capoeira is a legitimate martial art" made me laugh so hard.

Eyes are different. Nose is different. Lips are different. Hair is different. Clothes are different. Body is different. What is copied here?

yeah the females characters in tekken look uncanny due to the lack of facial expressions, they look like hyper realistic dolls

I feel like it’s that their eyebrows barely move or the muscles in the face near the eyebrows don’t squint to show some form of determination like for asuka it would be perfect same with Reina, but I also feel that Reina specifically should have a bit of a muscular build

Mostly agree, but one thing I really disagree with here is the complaints about Chloe's rhythm game mechanic -- I think that's *brilliant* and fun. From a game design perspective, her little rhythm games are a super nice touch.

Cosmetic surgery is far more common and accepted in Far East Asian countries, so the homogeneous facial structure reflects what the developers are used to over there.

It's a japanese game. Its different culture. Asuka is pronounced Aska. There's only 4 female characters with an excuse not to age. Nina, anna, jun and kazumi died forever ago. A lot of ppl forget that Asuka and Lili was born in the 80s. That's japanese culture for you. Probably because of shinto. Women are really important in shinto. The head Orge was holding was King I. 😅

It's probably a marketing strategy or business move at this point. They move the plot but in a very slow pace but to a point where it keeps the player's interested an invested. It's too good to be true if they were able to do the cinematic fight of jin and kazuya to the main game itself to all characters, which is a bit impossible at least for now, they might be able in the future with more development time and budget but the main meat of the game is the gameplay of course, how fighting feels. It is definitely a step up and a fun one at that from Tekken 7, at least from what I've tried in the demo of the game. They can stretch the story for probably 5-10 more tekken entries if they want to and they'll find ways to make their characters live longer with absurd plotlines lol but I'm not complaining. For the female part, I guess they choose to make the female characters attractive, a fan service at that. again, I'm not complaining but I do agree that MAYBE some archetype is more than welcome, especially in this day and age. as you said, make them more human. 8 more days before tekken 8 releases, can't wait!

Kunimitsu is my favourite tekken character, i think she has a distinctive enough design. I think lidia probably has the best design tho, she really stands out

Tekken makes the best female characters. DoA characters are second.

The female characters are exactly the same as the male characters. The male characters have the idealized look men wish they had: strong and rugged yet beautiful without being pretty. The female characters are the polar opposite of the male fantasy look, women want to be eternally young, feminine and cute. The thesis of this video is a perfect example of the old wisdom that says be careful what you wish for. Mortal Kombat did what the video is asking for, people hate it. So we are asking Namco to do what Mortal Combat did... but do it the right way. What is the right way? 99% of real people look average at best. Basically we as males are happy to be depicted as we wish we looked but females cannot have their own looks fantasy fulfillment.

While I agree with your point about the generic looking faces and Haradas seemingly deep fear of having older women in his games-- I don't think there's anything wrong with Lucky Chloe conceptually. In fact, I think more characters should be rhythm and melodic based. As Martial arts is a practice that requires a lot of focus on rhythm and timing. Bruce Lee integrated footwork practices of tap dancing in the conceptualization of his Martial Arts school of thought Jeet Kune Do. I think the Tekken team should explore and experiment more with rhythm characters

can u stop sexualizing me the characters and play the damn game this is why games are dying because yall complain too much like bro if you want a girl GET YO AZZ UP HIT THE GYM AND GET YOU A REAL WOMAN FOR CHRIST SAKE

I'm relatively new to fighting games, and the urge to jump into the pool came explicitly from the leaps-and-bounds improvements in how women are represented in those games. They never felt like a place I belonged until recently. After all the work that's been done by Guilty Gear, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat, it's hard for me to care about Tekken, and it's entirely because it hasn't given me a reason to.

The answer is very obviously yes. Not only do the female characters' faces look consistently less detailed than their male counterparts, they've also been pretty bad at emoting. This has reached a tipping point with Tekken 8 due to the fidelity of it all. The women's faces are starting to give me the same feeling as a the unchanging porcelain doll faces DOA women had for every game up to DOA4. I also suspect that Bandai-Namco does something very similar to what the DOA dev team does, wherein there's only about 3-5 female faces or bodies and they just heavily reause them. Again. largely unnoticeable before but the more you look the more obvious it becomes. Especially the faces, again.

How are going to bring up female characters and mention Master Ravens age? She's the one next to Katarina who look authentically different outside of the typical bs female tekken cast. I'd even throw in Julia Chang at least being just different enough outside of your typical tekken girl.

Some peeps thought I was trippin about Reina. Looks just like Asuka. Like her fighting style. But they played it too safe with there female designs. Most have similar faces and body types. That needs to change.

Tbf jun is an Asian woman and they age slowly visually. Even Lee looks like he hasn't aged and he's about 50

The boss would be a cool crossover character in Tekken 8.

Bruh Asuka rage art in Tekken 8 is a perfect example. She clenches her fist with anger but her face stays the same. You need to fix that.

Your entire argument and point got thrown out the window when you called jin avg bro was like 16 looking like that

Finally someone said it. This has been my main gripe with Tekken 8’s female characters. The fidelity and detail in the male characters’ faces and physiques are so apparent but the detail is lacking in the female characters. You can actually see the age on Kazuya, Law and Paul’s faces, hell even Bryan. But the women look like they have PS4/PS3 faces, with the exception of maybe Reina. Certain stages with great lighting make them look better like the arena stage.

i just hate how all the females (and males, honestly) in Tekken have basically the same body and nearly identical faces. If you remove the hair of all female characters, it becomes pretty hard to tell them apart.

Personally, I never just noticed the issue of their faces being so similar. I think they all look great. I just want to get into the action itself and see how the character plays. The way the girls look, like in the video, can definitely be better. Reina, as much as I already love her, could definitely benefit in a more subtle change. But generally, I still have no complaints. Bandai have improved but could do better.

yall will make problems out of anything 😅

All female characters look the same... Leo quietly sneaking out the backdoor hoping no one remembers.

When they released Heihachi's replacement I was immediately like...Why even have asuka in the game. I know people prefer Raven to M.Raven, but I think she added much needed character to the female side of the roster.

Agree with a lot of this! i will say though, Lucky Chloe makes much more sense when you learn about the "kusogaki" archetype in Japanese media. "Kusogaki" is a term that can be roughly understood as the equivalent to "little shit" or something along those lines, and it generally applies to characters with a cutesy outward appearance that belies their attitude. Some of the most popular vtubers, for example, fit this archetype and Chloe would vibe right alongside them.