The 9 Craziest Moments in the Tekken Series

Fighting games are notorious for some pretty wild narrative twists—how else to explain the same cast of characters getting together to beat the stuffing out of each other year after year? But fans know that one series stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to narrative insanity, and that’s Tekken. What started out as a simple tournament to crown the King of the Iron Fist has spiraled into a family saga with some truly nutty twists. With Netflix’s Tekken: Bloodline premiering this week, let’s look back at the franchise’s craziest moments.

1. The Cliff Toss

So the essential conflict at the core of Tekken is the battle between Heihachi Mishima, the host of the tournament, and his son Kazuya. Fathers and sons often don’t get along, but these guys take it to the next level. In Kazuya’s ending for Tekken 1, he defeats his dad and unceremoniously hurls him off a cliff to his death. That would be enough, but this scene repeats in numerous variations throughout the series. In Tekken 2, Heihachi is a playable character and throws Kazuya off the same cliff in his ending. Tekken 4? Kazuya throws Heihachi again, and then again in Tekken 7, which revealed that Dad started it before the first game by throwing Kazuya off as a little kid to test if he had inherited the “Devil Gene” (we’ll get to that).

2. Mokujin Awakens

When great evil threatens the Earth, all manner of forces unite to fight back. One of the most unlikely is a training dummy made from white oak to help martial arts masters train 2,000 years ago. Preserved in a museum, when the events of Tekken 3 begin the dummy is animated by a spiritual force. Calling itself Mokujin, the sphere-handed wooden humanoid heads to the tournament to battle its way to supremacy. After evil is conquered, Mokujin goes back to his family (his wife looks exactly like him, only with wooden boobs) in the forest.

3. Paul vs. the Aliens

Once you’ve won the King of the Iron Fist tournament, what’s left? For skyscraper-haired Paul Phoenix, the answer is simple: challenge all other sentient life in the universe. In Paul’s Tekken 5 ending, he proclaims that he’s going to kick the ass of every alien in the galaxy, punctuating the offering by punching a drawing of an alien taped to a cinderblock wall. But before you assume this was just an empty threat, the cutscene ends with a variety of E.T.s on their way to Earth to take him up on it.

4. Roger Gets Cucked

The entry criteria for the King of the Iron Fist tournament are pretty lax—how else to explain them allowing a kangaroo in? Roger, the genetically modified marsupial, made his debut in Tekken 2 and somehow managed to hold his own against the robots, demons, spies, and other entrants in the bracket. He’s also a family man…kangaroo…and the ending for Tekken Tag Tournament 2 shows his marital bliss dissolving. Returning home from combat, Roger sees his wife and son Roger Jr. having breakfast—with boxing dinosaur Alex, one of his partners and/or rivals. Dejected by being replaced in his own home, Roger leaves before his family sees him, only to get squished by a door swinging open.

5. Laxative Pizzas

For whatever reason, the disciplined and powerful martial arts fighters of the Tekken series also really love playing juvenile and gross pranks on each other. In the past, we’ve seen things like Nina Williams taking nude photos of her sister in the shower, stealing her shoes, and other shenanigans, but nothing quite beats Marshall Law’s ending in Tekken 6. After agreeing to split the prize money with Paul and Steve, the trio decided to celebrate with pizza. A pizza that Law spikes with laxatives. While the other two are pooping their brains out, Law takes the entire prize pot and splits the scene. Not very honorable, my guy.

6. The Devil Gene

Although the core mechanics of Tekken are slightly more grounded than some other fighting series, it still makes room for supernatural shenanigans. Most notably, the absurdly convoluted story of the Devil Gene, a nasty little piece of DNA that lets certain people bond with malevolent supernatural entities to gain massive power. Things get even more confusing when the series introduces Jinpachi Mishima, Heihachi’s father who is possessed by a different malevolent spiritual entity. Hilariously, when questioned on the conflicting information about whether Jinpachi possesses the Devil Gene, series director Katsuhiro Harada commented, “We dared to cause mislead,” implying that they lie to the fans about stuff to keep them on their toes.

7. Heihachi’s Speedo

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. From the imposing final boss of the first game to a punchline in the fifth. Lee Chaolan is Heihachi’s adopted son, brought into the family as a rival to Kazuya to strengthen the boy’s fighting spirit. Lee eventually turned on the Mishimas in an attempt to take control of the family business and has appeared as a playable character in most of the games. If you complete the game with him in Tekken 5, you’re treated to Lee relaxing by the pool and asking a hunky waiter for some whiskey. That waiter turns out to be Heihachi, forced into domestic (and nearly nude) servitude by Lee courtesy of an explosive bowtie. That’s a new one for me.

8. Bear Bodyguards

Stories of humans wrestling bears have been around for decades—Terrible Ted, a Canadian black bear, made his professional debut in 1950 in New Jersey and went on to have a 25-year career in the squared circle, including forming a tag team with The Rock’s dad. But leave it to Tekken to make things even more unbelievable. The first game in the series introduced us to Kuma, a bear found in the forest as a cub by Heihachi Mishima and taught sign language and martial arts so he could work as his bodyguard. Kuma would eventually die of old age, but his son would succeed him as Heihachi’s assistant.

9. Whatever the Hell Yoshimitsu’s Deal Is

Of all the characters in the franchise, none is quite as perplexing as Yoshimitsu. From the first game, he stood out—why was he allowed to bring a sword to a martial arts tournament? The head of an international guild of thieves, Yoshimitsu is an agent of chaos throughout the series, using his cyborg arm like a helicopter to rescue mad scientist Dr. Bosconovich, getting kicked in the nards, hitting enemies with high-damage suicide attacks, and generally breaking the rules of the game in a million different ways. Oh, and then they put him in Soul Calibur too, just for laughs.

Tekken: Bloodline premieres Thursday, Aug. 18 on Netflix.