Though it’s not an official popularity poll
The Tekken franchise now has 30 years of history to pull from with characters unique to every era, and of course not all of them come back to the roster in subsequent games.
Longtime Tekken Project Director Katsuhiro Harada celebrated his 54th birthday today, and for part of the occasion, he asked fans about 8 of the ladies not currently present in Tekken 8.
He posted up two sets of polls to his X/Twitter page asking fans to vote on previous playable characters.
They are split up between Eliza, Katarina, Julia / Michelle and Anna along with Josie, Kunimitsu, Lucky Chloe and Kazumi.
With the exception of Michelle, each of them were included in Tekken 7, so there’s no prior series inclusions like Angel, Christie, Miharu or Unknown — nor Master Raven since I guess the original Raven basically preoccupies that spot again.
1/2(Block A) There are 2 Survey Tweet (total 8 options).
Survey results do not immediately affect anything. Just a reference question for the community here.— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) June 10, 2024
Harada specifically notes, however, that these are not official character popularity polls and “do not immediately affect anything” with them apparently serving more as a reference point for fans to get a better idea of how the social media community feels about certain fighters as he’s constantly bombarded by requests.
As things currently stand at the time of reporting, Julia / Michelle and Anna tied at 33.5% of the votes each in the first poll while Lucky Chloe actually leads the second block by a wide margin with 42% and over 50,000 votes cast in each.
Having Michelle on there too is pretty interesting too considering she hasn’t appeared on the roster of a mainline title since Tekken 2 though she was featured in Tekken Tag Tournament 2 just a few games ago while Julia took on her Jaycee wrestling persona (before becoming a streamer in Tekken 7).
It looks like Harada plans on posting two more surveys once these first two close that’ll probably contain some of the guys not currently present in Tekken 8 as well.
2/2(Block B) There are 2 Survey Tweet (total 8 options).
Survey results do not immediately affect anything. Just a reference question for the community here.— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) June 10, 2024
Fans of course continued to ask why Christie wasn’t included, and the Director gave a lengthy response that she’s a bit of a special case since they just released another Capoeira fighter in the game with Eddy Gordo.
She’d likely require much more of a gameplay rework than the other suggested fighters, which he admits is a tricky thing to balance properly to try and please not only fans but also himself.
He says that any insinuation that he hates Christie are flat out wrong and that he and the developers love the characters like they are their own children / family.
Getting requests for oddballs like “Armor Panda” gave him some amusement though.
Hehehe These requests are much more imaginative and motivating to me. https://t.co/HDQGBx4XUs
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) June 10, 2024
When you look at the totality of the series’ history, it’s pretty impressive that there’s only around 10 or so women who don’t have a direct analogue currently playable in Tekken 8.
And given the game is probably going to be supported to multiple years to come, most of them are likely to come back at some point unless they truly are that unpopular or unnecessary.
We already have Lidia Sobieska returning as the next DLC character soon followed by two more fighters that haven’t been revealed yet for the first season.
Thank you for all the birthday messages.
I will devote myself to my work.たくさんの誕生日メッセージありがとうございました。
仕事に精進します。— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) June 10, 2024
Bandai Namco also released the patch notes for last balance update for Tekken 8 Season 1 today that’s about to drop shortly.
And as for Eliza, Harada recently shared some new crossover lore between the vampire and Geese Howard.