Harada Details His Old Rivalry With Tomonobu Itagaki

Katsuhiro Harada was recently compelled on X to clarify his troubled history with Tomonobu Itagaki, the creator of Dead or Alive and the 3D Ninja Gaiden games.

For the average person, the familiarity starts and ends with Itagaki's rather inflammatory comments about Tekken that he made well over a decade ago. He famously loved to talk smack about the series, and went as far as to say that his top 5 hated games are Tekken, Tekken 2, Tekken 3, Tekken 4, and Tekken 5.

Worth noting that this was a rather one-sided trash talk, and neither Harada nor Tekken ever truly retaliated against any of Itagaki's remarks. These days, most people understand that it wasn't all that serious, and even Harada himself mentioned that he misses some of the old-fashioned ribbing.

However, it goes so much deeper than that, as Harada explains in the post. Despite opening it with an extensive warning about the length of the post, it's a fairly breezy yet informative read about their history and the relationship between Tekken and Dead or Alive.

Perhaps the most interesting detail of all this, is how despite putting up a rockstar front, Itagaki seems to be quite a meticulous person. There's no other way to describe his intense strategy of keeping tabs on Tekken's strength by analyzing and researching each name that he found in the game credits, down to figuring out the patterns in which names are laid out.

What makes it rather hilarious, however, is that at the same time, Harada was going for a much simpler and grounded approach. The Tekken's secret to becoming successful didn't lie in carefully assessing the competition, it was almost entirely down to Harada paying attention to the overseas market, and helping the competitive scene to strive in an era when nobody else showed that level of support.

If you're a fan of either series, or love a bit of behind the scenes game industry info, the entire post is well worth a read.