Team Tekken head Katsuhiro Harada appeared in a panel during the TekkenWorld Tour 2022 North America Regional Finals to explain Jun Kazama’s status and reappearance in Tekken 8.
To cut it short, Jun Kazama is not dead, and was never dead at any point. She returns in the world of the Mishima zaibatsu after a long disappearance, where she was presumed to be dead. She reappears seemingly to play her part in the battle between her son, Jin Kazama, and his father, Kazuya Mishima.
She was revealed in a special trailer that seemingly showed some gameplay as well. But Jun strictly appears in the cinematic sections of the game, appearing to her son just after he loses to his father, and apparently his will to fight.
Now, Harada says that all of Jun’s appearances after Tekken 2 were non-canonical or flashbacks. This is certainly the case in Tekken 3, where she strictly appears in Jin’s memories.
In Tekken Tag Tournament and Tekken Tag Tournament 2, she also returns as a playable character. In fact, in Tekken Tag Tournament she is the penultimate boss. It is also heavily implied she has some connection to that game’s final boss, Unknown (the lady in purple spandex possessed by the wolf spirit).
In Tekken Tag Tournament 2 she reappears alive and with no explanation, and even has an alternate bikini outfit (I have the game on PlayStation 3 and Wii U).
Harada has said many years before that both Tekken Tag games are non-canonical, so it’s easy to accept his explanation there. However, this is still clearly a change in Tekken canon because there were other sources that directly stated Jun had died.
For Tekken 3, in the manual, this is the bio entry for Jin:
“Jin is Kazuya Mishima and Jun Kazama’s son. He received intense training under his grandfather Heihachi Mishima – all in an effort to avenge the loss of his mother by fighting and defeating Ogre. This Tournament is his chance to test his strength and face his destiny.”
Meanwhile, this is the story found on the official strategy guide:
“Meeting with destiny… At the age of 15, Jin found out that he was Kazuya Mishima’s son. At the same time his mother, Jun Kazama, died. Jin trained himself under the supervision of Heihachi every day with the intention of defeating Ogre, who is supposed to have killed his mother. Heihachi was not only his grandfather but also a reliable teacher. Four years have passed. Having mastered the Kazama-style of judo and the Mishima-style fighting karate, Jin starts to take action as a martial artist.”
We are not bringing this up to be needlessly argumentative on a relatively unimportant matter as canon. Tekken has discreetly gone through a lot of storyline revisions, many of which don’t make sense, but has had the consequence of giving Tekken the most consistent single continuity in video games.
With all that said, Harada could just come clean about changing the story. But maybe fans will pester him enough to give another explanation.
In any case, the other interesting potential consequence of this is if Jun Kazama’s appearance and playstyle may mean that Tekken 8 will cut Asuka Kazama. Asuka was added to the franchise, if not as a character replacement for Jun, a gameplay replacement. They both come from the Kazama Style Martial Arts school, and have many similar moves. Asuka is significantly differentiated enough from Jun in competitive play, but casual players, and also Tekken’s developers themselves, may feel differently.
Tekken 8 will be releasing on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It is projected to release between March 31, 2023, to March 31, 2024. You can read about the reveal here.
Source: Siliconera
