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Heihachi Mishima
Outside of Tekken, Namco exhibits a Mario-like drive to put villainous Mishima patriarch Heihachi in as many non-canon games as possible, with the character having made appearances in the likes of Soul Calibur II, Tales of the Abyss and Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis. That would imply that Heihachi ought to be extra-beloved within his native franchise; instead, earlier installments focus on the challenge of reaching and trouncing Mishima the Elder, and later titles see an ever-increasing cast of enemies gunning for the one-time Zaibatsu kingpin. However, he kind of asked for it by throwing his young son off of a mountain.
Choose this character if: You want to know what it's like to be aware that deep down, It's All Your Fault.
Hwoarang
The devoted pupil of Baek Doo San, Tae Kwon Do fighter Hwoarang was introduced in Tekken 3, where he temporarily replaced Baek for reasons that boil down to Hwoarang needs to kick some people. His long-standing complaints include a frankly quite petty rivalry with Jin, a frankly stupidly mismatched beef with Ogre, and the South Korean Goverment's insistence that it doesn't care how many mid-air kicks you can chain together, mandatory military service is still mandatory.
Choose this character if: You'd rather be playing Final Fantasy, but this is where Tekken keeps all the buckles and angst.
Jack-6
Obviously, the Soviet Union has long ago perfected the art of manufacturing superhuman cyborgs, and, obviously, the only use for such a technology is in the winning of obscure bare-knuckle fighting championships. And, even more obviously, they all look like a cross between Guile and the guy from Two Crude Dudes. Who else would you make a lethal fighting robot look like?
Choose this character if: You want a massive advantage on paper. Jack-6 is the Mishima-led G-Corporation's first attempt at a variation on the Jack blueprint, and allegedly ten times more powerful than anything that's gone before. And yet in practice, he's merely pretty good. Maybe it's just us. And you. And everyone else who picks the character.
Julia Chang/Jaycee
Julia Chang is a Native American warrior--which is to say she's fighting for the fate of her tribe's ancestral lands, because that's what Native American characters do in video games. She's also an archeologist and eco-crusader, and her inclusion within Tekken has taught us that archeology and ecology both involve a lot more body-slamming than you may have been led to believe.
Choose this character if: You used to like playing as Michelle Chang (because the two characters are alt-costume versions of each other) but you now prefer the masked-wrestler look (because luchadore Jaycee is just Julia with her mask on).
Jin Kazama
Tekken's tragic antihero, Jin debuted in Tekken 3 after the disappearance of his mother Jun. One of the series' signature characters, Jin is demonically possessed on the genetic level by the so-called Devil Gene just like his father Kazuya. Of course, if you chose this character over his openly Devil-influenced counterpart, none of that matters all that much to you outside of the cutscenes.
Choose this character if: You've never played a Tekken game and in fact have no idea what Tekken is (but apparently are playing the latest game in the series nonetheless). In this case, Jin's a fine all-round fighter with which to ease into the series.
Jinpachi Mishima
The 108-year-old founder of the Mishima Zaibatsu, which was taken over by Jinpachi's son Heihachi in a hostile coup that saw the organization's patriarch imprisoned beneath the compound. He later allied with a malevolent force and escaped his captivity, then hopefully got together with his grandson, granddaughter-in-law and great-grandson to form a support group for people who've been screwed over by Heihachi and subsequently demonically possessed.
Choose this character if: You're fond of saying things like It's not the years, it's the mileage, or just because there's snow on the roof, doesn't mean there ain't fire in the furnace.
Jun Kazama
Sent to arrest Kazuya Mishima during Tekken 2, Jun instead discovers that her quarry is (1) the carrier of a powerful evil that threatens life as we know it, and (2) quite the charmer. So instead of arresting him, she has his baby--presumably without asking the advice of pretty much anyone else in the game, because everyone knows getting mixed up with those Mishimas is bound to end in tears. Or, in Jun's case, abduction and forcible ejection from the series.
Choose this character if: You liked playing as her in Tekken 2, her only canonical appearance; but you really like distracting opponents with a detailed recitation of all the ways in which Jun, despite a relatively minor role, is kind of the linchpin for the whole series' continued plot.
Kazuya Mishima
As a child, Kazuya was thrown off a cliff and left to die by his father Heihachi as a somewhat extreme means of character-building. In fairness to Heihachi, this appears to have worked quite well, though it unfortunately involved Kazuya selling his soul to the Devil Gene and spending subsequent episodes becoming more and more of a tool toward everyone else in the game.
Choose this character if: You suspect the ability to morph into a Devil during fights might be useful. Well, if the Iron Fist organizers didn't want that happening, they should have hired a referee.
King 2
Fun(?) fact: the original King was based on the same rasslin' holy-man who inspired the aggressively okay Jack Black movie, Nacho Libre. Just as in the movie (and in real life), the character's a Catholic priest who gets into wrestling to raise funds for a local orphanage. Though King was killed and replaced by King 2 from Tekkens 3 onward, functionally the characters are pretty much one and the same.
Choose this character if: You know what it means to watch a lucha de apuesta taken away by the tcnico fighter through skilful deployment of a well-placed huracn rana against the rudo. That's all of you, right?
