In addition to Kazuya Mishima and Jin Kazama already being confirmed, the latest Tekken 8 trailer revealed Law, Paul, Jack-8, King, Lars, and Jun Kazama as playable characters. The addition of Jun is particularly interesting since she hasn’t been playable in a mainline Tekken entry since 1995’s Tekken 2 — over 28 years.
Within Tekken lore, Jun Kazama simply disappeared after a confrontation with Ogre. It’s been heavily implied that Jun met her end against Ogre which resulted in Jun’s son, Jin Kazama, to seek revenge throughout the events of Tekken 3.
What will be Jun Kazama’s role in Tekken 8? As of right now, we don’t know if she is still alive or technically dead. It’s important to remember that while Kazumi Mishima, Heihachi’s wife and Kazuya’s mother, was playable in Tekken 7, she was still canonically considered to be deceased in the story.
However, Katsuhiro Harada of Bandai Namco has apparently said some interesting things regarding Jun’s status in the years leading up to her return in Tekken 8. Back in 2014, he outright confirmed that Ogre was NOT holding Jun’s head in the intro for the arcade version of Tekken 3. Evidently, this has been something he’s been asked about a lot.
I said “No” over 50times RT@UltraZeroX27 This has been said a lot,but is Ogre holding Jun’s head in TK3 arcade intro? pic.twitter.com/UIX3eiVWkc
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) February 22, 2014
In 2017, Harada, in a Twitlonger and in broken English, seemingly implied that Jun is simply missing and isn’t dead. If this is true, then it means that Jin came to the wrong conclusion about his mother’s fate in the aftermath of the battle with Ogre.
It’s his “thinking”. Jun is just missing. And It is an argument different from an image. Game say yes? Nah, … http://t.co/DNE4Wxps7P
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) February 22, 2014
Later that year in December, Harada noted that he was unable to confirm if Jun would someday be brought back into the main story of Tekken. Despite this, he declared that Jun is an important element of Jin and Kazuya’s story.
Naturally now I’ve no comment.
But someday, she is an important and essential element in talking about the story of Kazuya and Jin. https://t.co/TMLB2Gq8sw— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) December 2, 2017
It would appear that Katsuhiro Harada has been very patient for this moment as he has apparently wanted to bring Jun back even sooner. As such, Harada recently reminded fans that Jun has been confirmed “missing,” rather than “deceased.”
Of course, it should be noted that there’s around a six-year gap between the events of Tekken 3 and Tekken 8. What exactly has Jun been doing all this time and why has she suddenly reappeared?
Regardless, Jun is slated to have a major impact on the story since it will now mostly focus on Jin and Kazuya now that Heihachi is considered dead after the events of Tekken 7.
Although Harada has seemingly been dropping hints about Jun’s status for years now, it seems that we’ll have to wait until we can play through Tekken 8’s main story mode to get our questions answered.
Sent in by: Ramusu20.