KAZUYA STANS FOREVER!!!! Every day I find you are more a person of wealth and taste. <3
1) I am absolutely rubbish at Tekken, and with Kazuya in particular. He requires a deft, expert hand to play well, and I have the unskilled hand of a rather drunk lummox. BUT I will never let that stop me from trying.
2) You're right, he has style in spades. I LOVE LOVE LOVE his character design and how they've stuck with him having this sort of...Yakuza/mobster vibe? I also love how his design is so unrepentantly masculine, but they're not afraid to make him flirt with really feminine colors (that pink Yakuza outfit in T6! The baby blue coat illustration in T7 with the gun! the very famous T2-forever purple smoking jacket!). And then Lee really has that feminine style as a damn art form...
(Honestly, sidenote but hot damn someone should do a deep dive on fighting games and gender expression because I don't have the background for that but I feel like honestly one could have a FIELD DAY on gender expression expressed in fighting game fashion. There's these outliers like Darkstalkers' Morrigan and SF's Poison who are confirmed lgbt+, and non-binary characters like SS' Yumeji Kurokuchi and Tekken's Leo, aand then there's also a LOT of non-gender conforming characters like KOF's Benimaru or other sub-text heavy characters like Lee Chaolan and SF's Zangeif and AOF/KOF's King and GG's Bridget...)
3) Plus the way he's such an inversion/contrast to Ryu!!! I love it. I could write an entire essay on how the original Tekken was basically a rejection of the 80s clean-cut action hero style in earlier versions of fighting games and instead running a very unique path. And honestly, Tekken's story? Underrated! UNDERRATED! There's so much GOOD STORY STUFF IN THERE. Demonic possession - willing and uunwilling! Body Horror! FAMILY TRAUMA! (SO MUCH. SO MUCH FAMILY TRAUMA.) DYSTOPIAS! (Corporate dystopias.) Boxing....Kangeroos?! (AND dinosaurs.) They don't always put much effort into it but it's got this great storyline...goo, like the Toku stuff, where it's ABSOLUTELY BONKERS but also a coherent worldview???
Also I'm sorry, it's late, and I'm nattering, but I also think he's a character that I LOVED as a kid in part because he just...falls into this almost Disney-villain level of evil? He's got understandable backstory, but dammit, he's having FUN in his evil. He SMILES in his villainy! And he's the main character and he's a villain. And it's great! He's endlessly entertaining.
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1) I am absolutely rubbish at Tekken, and with Kazuya in particular. He requires a deft, expert hand to play well, and I have the unskilled hand of a rather drunk lummox. BUT I will never let that stop me from trying.
2) You're right, he has style in spades. I LOVE LOVE LOVE his character design and how they've stuck with him having this sort of...Yakuza/mobster vibe? I also love how his design is so unrepentantly masculine, but they're not afraid to make him flirt with really feminine colors (that pink Yakuza outfit in T6! The baby blue coat illustration in T7 with the gun! the very famous T2-forever purple smoking jacket!). And then Lee really has that feminine style as a damn art form...
(Honestly, sidenote but hot damn someone should do a deep dive on fighting games and gender expression because I don't have the background for that but I feel like honestly one could have a FIELD DAY on gender expression expressed in fighting game fashion. There's these outliers like Darkstalkers' Morrigan and SF's Poison who are confirmed lgbt+, and non-binary characters like SS' Yumeji Kurokuchi and Tekken's Leo, aand then there's also a LOT of non-gender conforming characters like KOF's Benimaru or other sub-text heavy characters like Lee Chaolan and SF's Zangeif and AOF/KOF's King and GG's Bridget...)
3) Plus the way he's such an inversion/contrast to Ryu!!! I love it. I could write an entire essay on how the original Tekken was basically a rejection of the 80s clean-cut action hero style in earlier versions of fighting games and instead running a very unique path. And honestly, Tekken's story? Underrated! UNDERRATED! There's so much GOOD STORY STUFF IN THERE. Demonic possession - willing and uunwilling! Body Horror! FAMILY TRAUMA! (SO MUCH. SO MUCH FAMILY TRAUMA.) DYSTOPIAS! (Corporate dystopias.) Boxing....Kangeroos?! (AND dinosaurs.) They don't always put much effort into it but it's got this great storyline...goo, like the Toku stuff, where it's ABSOLUTELY BONKERS but also a coherent worldview???
Also I'm sorry, it's late, and I'm nattering, but I also think he's a character that I LOVED as a kid in part because he just...falls into this almost Disney-villain level of evil? He's got understandable backstory, but dammit, he's having FUN in his evil. He SMILES in his villainy! And he's the main character and he's a villain. And it's great! He's endlessly entertaining.