I don't think accusing him specifically of hating a character is the right move because he can always just deny it like this, the term I like to use for Anna and others is "symbolic hatred", the recent EVO interview just reminded me of this.
They talk about how there was some people on the dev team (not Harada specifically though I remember him saying he simply preferred Nina) playing favorites like with Nina and Anna or Devil Jin and Hwoarang.
Nina had the bigger move list and was prioritized in the design stage in Tekken 2 specifically, so Tekken 3 was Anna's chance to make a name for herself. I think Anna was a great addition to this game even if she was overshadowed heavily.
Now it's just a cherry on the top for an already well designed and consistently fleshed out character archetype. But this kind of iconography is important to a character's success, it helps them stand out and become memorable. Another clear example of this in my opinion would be Yoshimitsu.
So while Harada might not outright "hate" his own characters, favoritism was allowed to impact legacy, balance and even iconography. Oddly enough Anna was considered mid tier while Nina was considered low tier yet still Nina remains the staple.
I think most characters got a fair chance being revitalized in Tekken 5 from TTT1 but let's talk about some of the missing characters.
Ancient Ogre (who was just Ogre back then) and True Ogre (who is just called Ogre in TTT2) were boss characters and I feel that they made Tekken 3 special so it made sense to not put them back in the mainline roster. They also relied too heavily on just copying other moves that kind of dampens their potential, at least they had that Ogre Within mode as a send off.
Armor King II didn't exist at the time of TTT1 so it was just Armor King I and King II. If you've been active in this community for a while you've probably seen King II's famous T3 P2 outfit being praised by now.
While Armor King I was missing from this game, they gave King an homage mask of Armor King's mask. To me, this is an example of favoritism coming into play. Let's take a look at Armor King I's TTT1 outfits.
Even if you prefer these outfits to what King got, it's clear that more creativity and effort was put into what King has got. He may have been higher tier than King in TTT1 but it's clear who was prioritized and who was the afterthought.
Not wanting to leave Armor King I out he is also killed like King I and replaced by someone taking his name, I hate this happening in fighting games but fine let's rip off Mortal Kombat with this story. Remember how Armor King I was higher tier than King II in TTT1? Well in Tekken 5 DR he is just... abysmal. You'll notice I said Tekken 5 DR and not just Tekken 5, that's because the replacement DIDN'T return in Tekken 5 (PS2) and was only available for the PS3/PSP versions of that game.
Debuting as a bonus character with Roger, Alex was an alternate for Roger. This legacy being continued in TTT1. I guess there was less novelty with a boxing lizard than a boxing kangaroo but Roger doesn't come back either instead Roger Jr is in the pouch of his mother... we still don't know her name by the way. Compared to the bears, it's clear there's some favoritism going on but they were all bottom tier in TTT1 anyway so not by that much.
Prototype Jack and Gun Jack were cut but I'm pretty sure they live on through Jack and it's really his whole thing to be upgraded. You could technically classify Jack-8 as a prototype Jack if it makes you feel better but definitely makes sense to not have 3 Jacks in a roster. Prototype Jack was the weakest of the 3 but I doubt it mattered and GUN Jack was the strongest but remember that this isn't just about tier placements.
Tiger, similar to Dr Bosconovitch was seemingly a bonus character so I guess it makes sense to treat him as such especially with Eddy soon getting another alternate who has much more effort put into them as a serious character. Still kind of weird to leave him behind but at least he got a stage later on. Him and Christie should've been unique, TTT2 barely separates them and Tiger is still treated like a bonus character he doesn't even have his own ending.
Devil is a similar boss situation and basically lives on through Kazuya/DVJ but Angel is a tricky situation. She's a bonus character but she's also a boss character but not to all characters fight her. She was an alternate to Devil but she's clearly a different person from Kazuya so should she live on through Kazuya/DVJ? Given the limitations of that game it's likely her arrival would've been less hype for the expectations of a boss character, better to save her for something else while letting Jinpachi have his moment. She doesn't get a distinct rework until TTT2 and honestly it makes sense to not bring her back until Tekken 9.
Unknown is the boss character of Tekken Tag Tournament 1 and if Jun didn't come back then why would she? I'd like to see her in Tekken 9 also since she's hyped as like the boss of the series if that makes sense. Plus like Angel she wasn't unique except she was a clone character that could switch characters mid match and she was reworked to be the better Jun move list in TTT2 unlike Angel who is the worst Mishima in Tekken Tag Tournament 2 by far.
They wanted to save Jun for lore purposes but I personally think it was a mistake to not bring her back for Tekken 4. It didn't really help Asuka either because she was pretty much held back after Tekken 5 and Tekken 8 isn't really doing much for either of them even with Jun's DLC story bonus. So much for that hype. I don't hold it against Asuka too much because they do make an effort to push her to be different and thankfully TTT2 and T8 makes them distinct enough.
But what they did to Jun, Michelle and Kunimitsu was simply unfair and shows blatant bias. Let's take a look at their tier placements shall we? Jun and Kunimitsu? Bottom tier. Now while this may not show explicit bias please couple it with the fact that they didn't return for T4 or T5... or T6 or T7. It was one thing to be missing from Tekken 3 but the resulting unpopularity of these two would damage their legacies in a way they would never fully recover from. What do I mean by this? Well Lee and Kazuya bounced back from Tekken 3 with fun, distinct and skillful move sets with depth, they didn't need the extra help too given that they were important characters that didn't need to be held for some hype moment.
I mentioned iconography before so let's talk about that. She was really different in TTT1, only sharing similarities with her top tier son but then Jin got reworked in T4 which makes Jun's exclusion even more insulting. Oh by the way yeah Jun had to compete with her top tier Mishima/Kazama hybrid protagonist son for popularity. Wait what? You're telling me she was unpopular? Incredible...
Yoshimitsu is a good example of a consistently fleshed out staple like Nina but he also has a plethora of iconic moves, but how does his counterpart measure up? She measures up extremely poorly in this department, they have such a huge disparity even back in Tekken 1 and 2 it was like this. It takes almost every aspect of that Nina and Anna dev feud and cranks it up to an extreme and almost spiteful area. Less iconography, bottom tier, only a sub boss reference tag wise and you're telling me this character didn't perform well? Time to hurt her legacy more by not bringing her back for Tekken 5. By the way, she wasn't a clone of Yoshimitsu in this game and even if she was look at her weapon, it's not like expanding her move list would automatically have her copying Yoshimitsu's flea stance or something. She could've been brought back, but wasn't with the help of dev favoritism.
Now what about Michelle? Well Michelle was considered mid tier, not bad right? Higher than Lee yet she still failed, what's up with that? Well she may have been alright but Julia takes the cake, she not only has a much more fleshed out move list from a casual perspective but was higher tier than Michelle. It doesn't help that Julia was in the last game taking a lot of inspiration from her mother. Her style, her outfit theme and even her story. Julia had her Mad Axes, what did TTT1 Michelle have to compete with that? At least Baek had a different design from Hwoarang (even though he came back I'll admit there's some bias there too against Baek). Wang might've been weaker but he definitely stood out more and him coming back in Tekken 5 shows that the devs liked him more (I think Harada even said once that he liked Wang). If you look up the word "overshadowed" in the dictionary you'd find Michelle Chang... if she wasn't too busy being overshadowed. Why would a new/uninterested player pick this character unless you just didn't want to learn another character with Julia? For the amazing 2B synergy? Even Kunimitsu, arguably one of the worst characters in TTT1, has more appeal than Michelle bias aside.
All 3 of them were in some way victims of something known as "power creep", which basically means that an alternative was so much stronger that it incentivized you to choose that option and thus ignore the other. Essentially power wise they were redundant but Michelle especially was overall a redundancy of Julia and this was cemented in TTT2/T7 for her. Jun and Kunimitsu had much more of a unique identity in TTT1 but it still wasn't enough. I'll be so mad if she ends up being a redundancy for Jaycee. Maybe it's more about neglect than favoritism but at the same time the favoritism begets neglect and it's clearly impacted character legacies. I'm not saying that characters being weaker in older games meant the devs didn't like them automatically but to make such legacy shattering decisions based on their performances feels like the full picture of the character isn't being taken into consideration. Think about how much more iconography these characters could've had if the devs liked them more.
“Here are two other characters that you can unlock in this game. They may have their own slots, but I decided to combine both characters in the same post because...they are pretty much the same character, with very small differences. All the things that I’ve said about Gunjack applies for both of these characters as well, but if I had to pick a favorite of the three, it’s defenily Prototype Jack. This dude is hilarious. Also, I quite like some of his moves.”
PS: the gameplay used for this gifset is not mine. The original video comes from the user: TheInnocentSinful, on Youtube.
