Tekken producer threatens to yank new J-pop fighter after nasty reaction (update)

Tekken 7 revealed its newest character over the weekend, and when Western gamers reacted harshly to her, the game's lead designer responded in kind, even implying she and other characters would not be in the game's North American version.

First, the character: Lucky Chloe, a teenager with headphones, cat ears, cat paws, knee socks and a miniskirt. Here's a YouTube video introducing her. The comments are what you'd expect, too.

The look is straight from the Japan pop-idol playbook, and was harshly and profanely criticized in this NeoGAF thread, either for being too typical, too weird or both.

Katsuhiro Harada, alerted to the negative reaction, had one of his own regarding Western gamers' tastes: "Hello small world. I'll make muscular & skinhead character for you."

When someone on Twitter asked for the option to delete characters from the Tekken 7 lineup, Harada told them to "calm down and Don't worry. That character are East Asia and Europe ‘Exclusive.'"

Asked if he was really serious, Harada said he really was:

I'm always serious. If you don't need = I don't release them. If you need = I'll release. That's all. RT @jdevilb I hope you are not serious

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) December 8, 2014

We're checking with a Namco representative just in case, and will update this story with any reply we receive.

Update: Harada has commented again, framing this as a matter of community preference regarding the entire roster, not just a single character. "It's YOUR community's choice. I'm just hearing the demand & request," he said. "Anyway, We are so busy because Tekken 7 development is not finish, we are working on arcade version first. I think we have planning time for this issue after development."

Update 2: Tekken Project game designer Michael Murray says Harada's assertion that he'll restrict Lucky Chloe to particular regions is simply the producer trolling.

It's amusing how many ppl are takibg Harada's trolling about Chloe seriously lol

— Michael Murray (@mykeryu) December 10, 2014