Harada Thought He Was "Cooked" After Leroy Smith Got Revealed

Harada once again shared once of his stories on Twitter recently. In reply to a post that noted potential influence of The Last Dragon on the Tekken series, Harada responded with a personal account of both his inspirations and personal interactions related to black culture.

While he didn't specify if The Last Dragon specifically had any impact, he added a few images that included some of the influences. Among them is the image of Michael Jackson checking out Tekken at E3 in 1995, the legendary Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Jim Kelly from Enter the Dragon, and Wesley Snipes' portrayal of Blade.

The last two obviously had a very overt impact on Tekken, but Harada says that he'd include a lot more references if he could.

As for his personal account, Harada recalls running into a language barrier when interacting with American fans.

What might be praise for native English speakers, came off as an insult, with Harada thinking that people are calling him an animal by posting GOAT acronym and the goat emojis.

An even more hilarious blunder occured when one fan said that Harada is invited to the cookout. Even though he's not familiar with too much slang, he knew that "cooked" generally meant that someone is doomed or seriously messed up.

As such, the invitation to the cookout was interpreted as:

“Hey… we… we… can invite you to a party where we’re going to beat you up and roast you?”

It wasn't until some time later that someone explained it to him, and Harada understood that it was basically one of the greatest compliments. A sign that you're such a trusted friend or someone so respected that you can hang out with a tight-knit community.