Tekken 8 Introduces Reina, Internet Immediately Assumes She’s Heihachi

Tekken 8 has introduced its final character for the base roster, the mysterious Reina, who fans are assuming has some connection to longtime series villain Heihachi Mishima.

In a trailer unveiled at the EVO Showcase for Tekken 8, they showed off the first gameplay for Reina- as well as another round of confirmation from Tekken Series Producer Katsuhiro Harada that Heihachi is well and truly dead.

“Heihachi Mishima is completely dead”, he reassures everyone.

However, that hasn’t stopped fans from spotting some connections to everyone’s favorite Tomahawk-eating father of the year in the latest trailer.

The first one comes from Reina’s fighting style- the trailer shows her using Taido, with an emphasis on powerful kicks.

That being said she changes gears midway through the trailer, where in the match against Jin and Kazuya, the trailer starts showing off the second half of her moveset- focusing on Mishima-Style Karate.

Some fans had even taken to putting the two side-by-side, with moves like her headbutt and Electric Wind God Fist all being near-facsimiles of Heihachi’s own tools.

Considering how characters like Lars are secretly Heihachi’s children, it didnt’ take long for people to assume she’d be another of his brood- not at all helped by Harada himself, who confirmed that the iconic character has illegitimate children on the scale of Dio.

“[Heihachi has] about 18~25 (all over the world) or more. I confirm 9“, Harada innocuously tweeted earlier this year.

A More Extreme Theory

Of course, there’s some fans who are taking the theory even further- that Reina is Heihachi, somehow reincarnated after being thrown into a pit of lava at the end of Tekken 7.

Considering how often fighting games will have convoluted workarounds to antagonist deaths, it’s not too far a stretch: though actual honest-to-god reincarnation would probably out, since Tekken 8 doesn’t take place too long after 7.

A big part of this theory comes down to her mannerisms- from the trailer she seems to actively resent Kazuya, almost as if she was infused with the vengeance of a murdered man.

She even straight up sports one of his win poses, though if there’s one thing videogames and anime have taught us it’s that mannerisms are genetic.

Finally, there’s also her rage art itself, which briefly has her replaced by a silhouette of the all-too-familiar wingtips of Heihachi’s hair.

A Full Roster

Regardless, Reina rounds out the game’s 32-man roster, being the final addition before the game’s launch on January 26th.

She joins Victor Chevalier as well as Azucena as the three newcomers on the roster, and arguably the most story relevant one given her connection to the various Mishimas.

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