Harada Answers Questions from Twitter

A brand-new episode of Harada's Bar just released! This time around, there are no special guests. Instead, Harada answered some questions about Tekken, with a big emphasis on Azucena. The episode even opens with an unboxing of a gift from Peru, containing everything you could need to brew a nice cup of coffee.

But let's get onto the questions. If you want to hear the entirety of it, make sure to check out Harada's video, but for the rest of you, I will provide a quick summary.

The first question asked Harada why he chose Peru as the origin for a new character. He opens up by noting the fact that Tekken has quite a large community in South America, and even though much of it comes from Brazil, Peru also has a very strong and passionate scene.

Characters like King, or representatives from Brazil are fairly popular in SA, yet Peru players tend to gravitate towards Kazuya. So, in order to represent the region and to make them more enthusiastic about Tekken 8, Harada decided that one of the new characters must be from Peru.

He added that he'd like to represent every country in South America eventually, but it's a tough task to accomplish.

The second question was a bit more personal and asked Harada if he ever visited Peru, which prompted Harada to recount his experience of visiting the country about 6 years ago and being impressed with it's culture, sights, and architecture. He also notes that in Japan, most people wouldn't know much about Peru outside the famous Nazca Lines, Macchu Picchu, and alpacas.

The third question goes back to the game itself, asking Harada about how Azucena was created. This was actually a difficult project for the developers.

Azucena being a woman was decided early on, but her personality and fighting style required a lot of research. Inca style boxing was unique, but not recognizable enough for an average player to distinguish, which led to some disagreements. They moved away from that and focused on her personality.

To find what would best represent Peru, Harada spent a lot of time researching the psychology and studies about the national character of Peruvian people. He found out that Peruvian people are generally described as cheerful and optimistic, so this trait was chosen for Azucena and taken to the extreme. This resulted in her being an ultimate optimist who enjoys the battle, uses dance-like moves during fights, and relies on natural intuition instead of hard technique.

However, that alone wasn't enough to complete the character, so they wanted to add a little twist to her character and motivation. Coffee was this twist. After learning about Peruvian history with coffee, it served as a way to expand Azucena's personality.

Finally, the last question asks Harada if he thinks any cosplayers would be good at depicting Azucena. The familiar Shion pops up in the discussion, but ultimately, Harada concludes by saying that he would love to see someone from Peru cosplay Azucena.