Kazuya Mishima is easily one of the most recognizable faces of the Tekken franchise, though most people who aren’t super well-versed on Tekken lore would peg him as the main villain of the franchise.
While the title of “main villain” can definitely be debated, the fact that he’s a villain is definitely not wrong, but did you know that he actually started out as the main protagonist back in the very first Tekken game? So what happened to lead him to his current status, exactly? Well, let’s break it down.
Kazuya Mishima was depicted as the main protagonist in the original but to be honest, he was never really presented as a good guy per se. The main thing that made him a protagonist was just that the antagonist, Heihachi Mishima, was so much worse.
Even as early as the first Tekken, Kazuya is described as “cold blooded”, an “arrogant loner” and explicitly stated to be in the tournament in order to kill his father (which, honestly, somewhat deserved considering Heihachi threw him off a cliff when he was five years old).
Once Tekken 2 hit, the seeds that were planted seemed to already be bearing fruit with Kazuya already shown to be establishing his own military force and seeking world domination, largely just to prove to the world that he was greater than his father.
However, Tekken 2 also introduces Jun Kazama, a mysterious young woman who endeavors to heal Kazuya from the devil within him and cleanse his spirit, so even though the developers had clearly intended the heel turn for Kazuya already, they seemed to also be planning a redemption arc, or at least the possibility of one.
Tekken 2 ends with Heihachi defeating Kazuya and throwing him in a volcano (hilariously, Tekken 2 specifically lists “volcanoes” as a dislike to Kazuya) and he’s presumed dead.
Tekken 3 doesn’t have Kazuya in it at all and does a large time jump of 17 years, though it does add Jin Kazama, the child of Kazuya and Jun which canonizes that Kazuya and Jun did indeed grow close before the former’s supposed demise.
In Tekken 4, Kazuya is revealed to have survived (or been resurrected, even) through help of the G Corporation and ever since then he has essentially been on a path of destruction against the father he hates but also holds a deep resentment for his own son Jin.
Essentially, Kazuya’s entire story beat is that he wants to prove himself superior to his father Heihachi but we keep being smacked over the head with the fact that Kazuya is no better himself. In fact, Kazuya’s reliance on the Devil Gene even implies that he is lesser than Heihachi, since the father’s strength is self-earned to a different degree than Kazuya’s.
Ever since Tekken 3 pivoted to making Jin Kazama the new main character, Kazuya has largely taken a back seat as far as story-telling goes. Sure, he’s there but he’s become a lot more one-note and is basically just there to be an evil bastard.
The only time Kazuya got to do something more was in Tekken 7 where his and Heihachi’s conflict was the central focus of the story, ending with Kazuya finally getting revenge on his old man and throwing him in a volcano for a change.
There are hints to Kazuya’s possible redemption with Jun’s return in Tekken 8 and with the way the story ends off. I’m just going to ahead and set a spoiler alert here for anyone who didn’t finish Tekken 8’s story yet but still wants to do so.
After Jin and Kazuya’s climactic battle which ends with both of them losing their devil forms and Jin sparing Kazuya’s life, choosing the path his father never could, Jun finds Kazuya passed out on the ground.
What happened after, we’re not entirely sure of, but it ends on a note of hope for Kazuya to maybe have a bright future ahead of him with his once beloved after all.
… Of course, this is all undercut when we see Reina show up with the Devil Gene anyway at the end, so odds are that once Tekken 9 rolls around we’ll be right back to status quo once more. Doubly so since Heihachi was later revealed to have survived the events of Tekken 7.
Whatever the case, looking into Kazuya’s story and his somewhat uneventful character arc, it’s clear that the plan from the very start was to highlight that he’s just as bad as Heihachi — there never really was much of a fall from grace, since whatever goodness he may have had really only seemed good in comparison to someone who was even worse.
Still, despite the circumstances around him, it’s still fascinating to see the original main character of such a long-running franchise transition to be its main villain, even if his character traits have largely remained the same from the start.
At the end of the day, the central story is about the Mishima bloodline and the horrible games they play on each other. Tekken 8 seems to imply that Jin is ending this cruel circus they find themselves in, but with Heihachi’s return and the Devil Gene still clearly present, it seems unlikely.
I’m honestly hoping that we’ll see some change in Kazuya’s demeanor in the future now that Jun is back, but even while hoping… I’m not going to hold my breath.
