Former Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada likens Masahiro Sakurai to a Dragon Ball Saiyan, saying the Super Smash Bros. and Kirby creator is simply on another level.
In a lengthy Twitter post in which he also speaks in detail about Dark Souls and Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki, the VS Studio founder speaks fondly of Sakurai. "If you ask me, he's basically: 'A Saiyan who genuinely believes he's just another ordinary human,'" he begins, referring to the super-powered beings from the Dragon Ball series.
Harada continues, "Every now and then, when the rest of us are struggling with some problem, he'll say something that sounds exactly like Goku saying, 'Well… why don't you just fly?' And I'll reply, 'Because we humans can't use Flight Technique.' Then he just stares at me with a completely puzzled look."
While Harada did not work on the series directly, Bandai Namco has been the primary developer of the Super Smash Bros. series alongside Sakurai's company Sora Ltd since the Wii U and 3DS entries. However, when Tekken's Kazuya Mishima was added as the penultimate DLC character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the duo did work together. Harada's recollection of that only backs up his claims.
In 2022, Harada told IGN: "We were also surprised when it came time to make Kazuya for Smash Brothers, because we thought since we're the experts at Tekken, maybe he was going to ask about the points he needed to definitely get right to make it feel like Tekken."
However when Sakurai met with the team, he reportedly had a different approach, as Harada recalled: "He came in and didn't ask questions, but said, 'I've played a lot of Tekken and studied it, and this is what I feel is important for the game,' right off the bat. So that was quite a shock, I mean in a positive way."
While the Smash community certainly have their own thoughts on Kazuya in the game, he's undoubtedly an incredible representative of Tekken through his unique playstyle.
