So, I am glad to see several people complaining that we are getting Kunimitsu's daughter again instead of her mother and I would like to briefly showcase namco's continuous sexism towards its women and explain to people who are confused because "it's the same character anyway, what does it matter" why we are so upset.
The Williams sisters both stopped aging between Tekken 2 and Tekken 3 when Tekken had its big time skip. They are chronologically in their 40s but, physically, appear as 20-year-old-women. If you compare their in-game models, they have started looking younger in the last two games than they did in the rest of the post-time-skip games. Furthermore, younger characters, specifically girls, regularly call them old hags, despite still being pretty young, both physically and chronologically. I know young people, especially teenagers, call anyone over 30 "old" but it's specifically Nina and Anna that get this treatment and not any of the Tekken 1 and Tekken 2 men that made the time skip.
Taki is in her late 40s after the SoulCalibur V timeskip and Project Soul clearly states that she is still active as a ninja. Despite that, she has conveniently gone missing during the events of SCV and replacing her completely is her younger and more easygoing disciple, Natsu. I will say, Taki is a very stereotypical always-serious, no fun no bullshit ninja, so Natsu having any semblance of a personality was, for me, a welcome change. An unnecessary replacement nevertheless, considering how they went out of their way to say that she is alive and active.
Like Nina and Anna before her, Ivy has completely stopped aging (already before the timeskip, between SCIII and SCIV.) For her it's not science but a combination of alchemy, Soul Edge's power and her father almost absorbing all of her soul that makes her look in her early 30s forever despite being 49 in SCV.
Chai Xianghua > Yan Leixia
Xianghua, and her dead twin sister Xianglian, Kilik's first love, were born out of wedlock, with Xianghua being raised by her mother's family and Xianglian being raised at the Ling Sheng Shu temple where their parents met and where she would eventually die by Kilik when he lost control because of the Evil Seed catastrophe, an event caused by Soul Edge finding it's perfect host, Siegfried, and unleashing a huge amount of evil energy across the entire world. Kilik eventually fell in love with Xianghua, which sure is a touching love story, but the fact that he killed one sister that he loved and then fell in love with the other is a bit sketchy. Kilik ended up leaving Xianghua pregnant and leaving her in general to go train or whatever the fuck he has a constant boner for. When he found out that another woman of the Chai family was pregnant without being married, Xianghua's grandfather lost his god damn mind and wanted to kill Xiba, Xianghua and Kilik's son, so that the family name would not be spoiled. He was saved, however, by Xianghua's eventual husband, whom she met during SCIII (her home stage in that game is his actual home) who said he would marry her if her grandfather spared Xiba. Xianghua had to give her son up to her estranged father, Kong, who trained him in the same Ling Sheng Shu arts as Kilik. Through her marriage with Wujin, she gave birth to two kids, one of them being Leixia. Leixia shares a lot of personality traits with her mother, who told her stories of her warrior past, before she was forced by her family into being a trophy wife and this is ultimately what drives her into fucking off and finding adventure and, unbeknownst to her, her half brother Xiba. Leixia is one of the few cases where the successor seems to be much better written by the predecessor. Nevertheless, Xianghua was a series staple at this point so people were upset over her being replaced. It's quite interesting noting how reactions to Natsu and Leixia (and the other SCV replacements) have been overwhelmingly negative whereas Kunimitsu and her daughter largely go ignored because, other than the fighting style, they share the same overall visual identity, but more on that later.
Sophitia Alexandra > Cassandra Alexandra > Patroklos & Pyrrha Alexander
Sophitia, the original protagonist of SoulCalibur, was already soft-replaced once by her younger, more upbeat sister Cassandra. While she was never outright removed from the games, through SCII-III-IV, Sophitia, who was part of the core cast in the first two games, was demoted to an unlockable character with her sister taking up the main character slot for their fighting style (Sophitia's even completely absent in the arcade version of SCII.) namco then doubled down by completely replacing both of them with the much more arrogant Patroklos and the emotionally traumatized Pyrrha, who has been through so much emotional and physical abuse that is even crying or passing out during her win quotes (despite all that, I don't even hate Pyrrha, or Patroklos, for that matter, I just think that, unlike Natsu and Leixia, they are definitely a downgrade to Sophitia and Cassandra.)
Michelle's characterization is kind of non-existent throughout all of her appearances and the most interesting fact about her is that she's biracial (not that you would know because even though she's Native American on her mother's side and Hong Kongese on her father's side, she's whitewashed as fuck) so Julia is a good replacement in my opinion; taking the basis of what Michelle was portrayed as (token Native American) and building an actual character with personality and motivations related and informed to that original key characteristic of the mother character but not being absolutely defined by it. Where things started going to shit is Tekken 7, because although before that game Julia had always been portrayed as a mature, confident young woman with a very calm and soothing voice (except Tekken 3 maybe but she's barely even speaking there other than battle grunts and in her ending and she was still a teenager at that point) she suddenly regressed into a ✨ cute ✨ streamer girl ✨ with an upbeat voice ✨ Saving the Amazon and turning the Arizona desert into a rainforest? Nah man fuck that shit, she's a Twitch streamer now ✨ don't forget to subscribe ✨ uwu 🥰 I won't even go into how Ganryu was lusting after an 18-year-old when he was in his 30s and then, two DECADES later, after seeing her adopted daughter fighting in Tekken 4 and starting to lust after her now (Julia is 20 and he is 55 at this point) that was the only motivation he needed to return to the tournaments and haunt us with his presence.
Yet another case of a mature and quiet woman being replaced by a loud messy teenager, Jun is actually the only one so far who managed to come back from namco's geriatric ward for women over 30... (SoulCalibur ladies got to return as well but not because namco suddenly stopped hating women over 30, but because they reset the timeline.) But you wouldn't know it if you weren't paying attention because she looks even younger than she ever did before, younger than her own son even. Harada was deadass asked about her looking so young on Twitter and, according to him, "No she does actually look older than before" and I'm like bitch where? You are deadass delusional if you think that this is how a 44-year-old woman is supposed to look. In fact, ironically, the only time she looked like a woman in her fourties and showed genuine signs of aging was in Tekken Tag 2... a NON CANON GAME.
Tekken Tag 2 was in fact a visual highpoint for the series because it was the last time that the female cast of Tekken had any sort of individuality in terms of facial expressions and or details with some even having actual musculature??? Insane I know. Tekken Tag 2 you are greatly missed.
Setsuka > Patroklos Alexander
Patroklos managed to replace two beloved female characters at the same time, because as it turns out, after breaking Mitsurugi's katana, Setsuka "saw the light" and decided revenge is not her path so she fucked off from Japan and settled in Istanbul; a fitting setting for her "east meets west" concept as the city is partially built in Europe and partially in Asia. This is where Patroklos met her and studied Shinden Tsushima-ryu Battōjyutsu under her, his "true" fighting style which he suppressed in an attempt to honour his mother's legacy.
Finally, let's talk about the Kunimitsu clan.
The original Kunimitsu started off as a quite unique character as she had a very muscular body in Tekken 1 and was the tallest woman in the game - that was not due to any desire by namco to present a unique body type for women, rather it was the need to reuse assets; all sub-bosses / unlockable characters in Tekken 1 are made up of reused assets and movesets to save resources. In Tekken 2 she assumed a more feminine form, and then proceeded to disappear completely from the series without any explanation whatsoever. We still don't know what the fuck happened to her... Or at least that was the case until her daughter (also named Kunimitsu, because why bother coming up with a new name) showed up in Tekken 7 and we found out that she married another ninja and had a daughter and is now ill... Of course...
First of all, the fact that, other than the moveset they share a name completely removes any individuality from the two characters, which is only further enhanced by the daughter having her mother's Tag 2 outfit and hairstyle as an alternate costume, suggesting that the two are completely interchangeable, which is only further emphasized by yesterday's trailer showing footage of the original Kunimitsu to promote the new one. I deadass thought the mother was coming back when I saw her Tekken 2 ending...
Despite barely ever speaking and only appearing as an unlockable in the first two games, and then only ever coming back for non canon games, Kunimitsu has long been a fan favourite, with people constantly asking for her return. "Bringing her back" with a kiddie replacement is a slap to the face.
Mother is a cold, cunning character who is fighting while blind and has scars on her face. You cannot even see her face yet she looks so visually striking. What they decided to do for her daughter? A cute, chirpy teenager whose mask falls off the moment she gets hit to reveal a pretty porcelain teenage face, and in place of scars you have kitsune war painting under her eyes because she is "CooL AnD QuiRky" like that.
I am very disappointed by the precedent namco has set for treating their female characters and it, unfortunately, doesn't look like it's gonna change any time soon...
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