Tekken



Tekken is one of Namco's most popular franchises, and possibly the most successful 3D Fighting Game series.

The game's plot starts with the Mishima Zaibatsu, a conglomerate of the Mishima family, run by Heihachi Mishima, sponsoring a tournament called King of Iron Fist. The winner is promised a huge prize... if they can beat Heihachi, that is. As it turns out, the tournament winner is in fact his disgruntled son Kazuya Mishima. Having been thrown into a ravine when he was only five years old by Heihachi himself, Kazuya made a Deal with the Devil, survived, and trained himself so he could exact revenge. Heihachi, too late to realize Kazuya's devilish power, was soundly beaten and was thrown by Kazuya into the same ravine where he was thrown by Heihachi.

Eventually, Heihachi comes back and reclaims his place, killing Kazuya by throwing him into a volcano. The third game takes place after a Time Skip and deals with Kazuya's son, Jin Kazama. The fourth deals with the return of Kazuya, and later games continue to cover the struggle inside the Mishima family, with the Devil Gene complicating matters.

Tekken has been extremely successful in arcades (and later in console ports), with characters' fighting styles influenced by real life martial arts. The series contains six games so far, as well as a dream tag match game called Tekken Tag Tournament, and a seventh game on the way. It has also spawned 3 separate movies; one traditionally animated, one live-action and the most recent a CG movie. Ports were exclusively to the PlayStation consoles until the 6th installment, which received an Xbox 360 port. The series has often been derided by the father of the Dead or Alive series, Tomonobu Itagaki; however, other fighting game developers (such as Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon), enjoy the series.

Lately, the series has been going from strength to strength; Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was confirmed in late 2010 to much fanfare and approval, and looks to be one of the most expansive and exciting entries of the series so far. Nintendo fans are finally seeing some Tekken love for the first time since Tekken Advance also, with Tekken 3D: Prime Edition for the Nintendo 3DS and a title for the Wii U currently in development. Lastly, but certainly not least, the series is finally going head-to-head with its old rival, in the form of Street Fighter X Tekken and Tekken X Street Fighter, 2 separate Crossover games developed by Capcom and Namco respectively. An updated version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Unlimited is set to be released soon for consoles, featuring handicap matches, one on one battles and character re-balancing.

Furthermore, a 3D CG movie based on the series (and developed by Namco itself) premiered in July 2011, called Tekken: Blood Vengeance, a canonical movie expanding on the series lore of the Devil Gene. The movie saw a limited theatrical release, but will see most of its distribution via DVD and Blu-ray releases later in 2011, as well as being bundled with Tekken Hybrid (a Blu-ray which also includes Tekken Tag Tournament HD and a demo of Tekken Tag Tournament 2) and Tekken 3D: Prime Edition.

The series' many, many characters can all be found here.

"Jawad: "No Tekken 3 has the lil’ guy Gon is a licensed character.""
 * Alliteration: Tekken Tag Tournament and its sequel.
 * All Love Is Unrequited: There's Kuma for Panda, Ganryu for Michelle, and later her replacement Julia, and Xiaoyu for Jin.
 * Ambiguous Gender: Leo.
 * And Your Reward Is Clothes: Taken to an extreme in Tekken 6.
 * Anime Chinese Girl: Xiaoyu, despite being arguably the most stereotypically Japanese character. She doesn't even speak any form of Chinese. Possibly justified in that she's enrolled in a Japanese high school, having been taken to Japan personally by Heihachi after she impressed him by knocking out all of his security personnel on a Mishima Zaibatsu boat she snuck aboard.
 * Anime Hair: Pretty much all of the Mishima kin, as well as Paul.
 * Special mention must go to new guy Lars, who looks like a Super Sayian. Of course, he.
 * Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Feng, who was actually based on evil, arrogant kung fu movie villains.
 * Art Shift: For some reason, Xiaoyu's ending in Tekken 3 is in a 2D anime style with lots of Super-Deformed.
 * Likewise her ending in 5.
 * Done again with Mokujin's western animation inspired Tekken 6 ending.
 * Asskicking Equals Authority: This is how you take control of the Mishima Zaibatsu.
 * Ax Crazy: Bryan, complete with awesomely evil laugh. In fact, he gains health when Nina kicks him in the crotch. Or stomps on his crotch with her stiletto heels.
 * Badass: Everybody. It's a fighting game.
 * Badass Army: The Tekken Force.
 * Badass and Child Duo: Jack carries around a little girl whose parents he killed and who he subsequently adopted.
 * Badass Family: The Mishima clan, natch. And, in what could be seen as a subversion of Gameplay and Story Segregation, this even applies in-game. The Mishima family characters have consistently appeared in the top tiers of every Tekken game up until they were finally bumped down to upper-mid and mid-tier characters in Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion.
 * Badass Grandpa: Heihachi, Jinpachi, and Wang.
 * Back From the Dead: Kazuya, and Heihachi even does it twice.
 * Bait the Dog: Kazuya.
 * Balls of Steel: Tekken Tag Tournament featured a number of special intros/outros from combining certain pairs of fighters on your team. Several outros involving Nina Williams features her delivering her signature Groin Attack to her partner, causing him to crumble to the ground. If you pair her with Bryan Fury, however, she'll deliver the groin attack — but he laughs at it and does one of his taunts in response.
 * Beauty Is Never Tarnished
 * Big Bad: Heihachi in the first, third (with Ogre), and fourth games (w/ Kazuya), Kazuya in the second nad fourth, Jinpachi in the fifth, Jin in the sixth. Basically, anyone who takes over the Mishima Zaibatsu becomes the Big Bad.
 * Big Bad Ensemble: Heihachi and the Ogre in the third, and Kazuya, Jin, and in the sixth.
 * Big Damn Heroes: in Tekken 6's Console story mode.
 * Big Screwed-Up Family: The Mishima. Oh God, the Mishima. There is at least one murderous link between every one of the five, blood-linked family members who have appeared so far, spanning four generations.
 * The Williams' are also pretty rough, though this is one truly bad case of Sibling Rivalry gone horribly wrong.
 * Bishonen: Lee Chaolan, Hwoarang, Jin Kazama, Steve Fox.
 * Bilingual Bonus: Kuma is the Japanese word for Bear.
 * Bilingual Dialogue: Characters understand each other even though one speaks English, one speaks Japanese. They even understand what animals are talking about, when all they hear are growls.
 * This is taken further in Tag Tournament 2, where almost every character now speaks their respective native language (Leo speaks German, Lili French, and both Eddy and Christie Portuguese) as opposed to English in previous games.
 * Boss Rush: Tag Tournament 2 provides one; arguably the biggest (and only) one of the series thus far. Players must face a team of Heihachi and Jinpachi, followed by Ogre.
 * Boxing Kangaroo: Roger and his family.
 * Parodied with Alex, a boxing velociraptor.
 * Bruce Lee Clone: Marshall and Forrest Law.
 * Also, Lei Wulong, a Jackie Chan Clone.
 * But for Me It Was Tuesday: Kazuya pulls this on Leo when confronted about the death of  mother.
 * Button Mashing: Noobs love to do this using Eddy or Christie, and Hwoarang to a lesser extent. Lili's been added. The CPU used to do this with Law in Tekken 2.
 * Calling the Old Man Out: Kazuya to Heihachi, later Jin to BOTH of them, and even later on.
 * The Cameo: Snoop Dogg will appear in a special stage featuring background music from a single he performed just for Tag 2. Evidently he's a big Tekken fan.
 * Chainsaw Good: Alisa Boskonovitch is built and fights with this.
 * Character Roster Global Warming: Each game tends to feature two heavy characters, Jack and the bears. Now contrast this with the character roster of Tekken 6, which is gigantic.
 * Chef of Iron: Marshall Law, called "the fighting chef."
 * Comeback Mechanic: Tekken 6 has "Rage Mode", which activates when a character is low on life and does more damage the lower their life gets.
 * In Tekken Tag Tournament 2, it returns but tweaked so that the losing character's partner is the one who gets "Raged" and the only way to get the buff is to tag them in. Also, it goes away after a certain amount of time and there are moves the opponent can do to end Rage Mode instantly.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Kazuya during his reign as Zaibatsu CEO. Heihachi subverts this in that he uses the Zaibatsu behind the scene for his own machinations but does a lot of good with the organization on the surface (legitimate good, not just Villain with Good Publicity stuff).
 * Crossover: Yoshimitsu's ancestor shows up in the Soul Series series.
 * It is also likely, but not confirmed, that Mitsurugi is related to the Mishimas and Taki is related to Kunimitsu.
 * And the aforementioned Street Fighter X Tekken and Tekken X Street Fighter.
 * Damage Sponge Boss: In Jack 6's level (Container Terminal 3) of the Scenario Campaign in 6, there's a Boss in Mook Clothing much like this. It rarely blocks because it doesn't need to; burning through its health on Hard mode will usually drain the timer before it can actually be brought down even with S-Class clothing (in most cases the endlessly swarming Jack bots are the real offensive threat). Most players opts to just knock it into the nearby water.
 * Dance Battler: Eddy and Christie, especially in her victory pose. There's even a mode that allows Eddy to dance, disco style. Disco ball included.
 * Not to mention Tiger, who is based on the original idea for Eddie, where he was an African American disco dancer rather than a Brazilian capoeria artist.
 * Deal with the Devil: Kazuya.
 * Dedication: Played for Laughs at the end of Tekken Force Mode in Tekken 4. Upon beating the final stage, the words "Dedicated to all of the Tekken Force members who lost their lives in battle" will be shown, followed by a scrolling list of every named Tekken Force member you defeated as well as the specific moves you used to defeat them.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Azazel, Devil, Ogre.
 * Difficult but Awesome: Despite being the main characters of the franchise (which usually assures accessibility), the Mishima characters are probably among the most challenging to use (with very demanding move execution and movement technique for a good player). However (Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion not withstanding), a player who does understand their subtleties will have learned the best characters in the game.
 * Dirty Old Man: Put Wang against any female (with the exception of Xiaoyu), and see for yourself.
 * This becomes major Squick when he does it against Roger Jr..
 * Ditto Fighter: Mokujin, Tetsujin, Combot, Unknown.
 * Doing in the Wizard: The Mishima Clan's Devil powers seem to be attributed to a fluke of genetics in the later games, rather than anything supernatural, in 4. In 5 and 6, however, it's pretty clear that the genetic fluke in question does have a supernatural origin.
 * Dream Match Game/Gaiden Game: Tag Tournament. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 seems to be.
 * Heihachi lost about 40 years and Jinpachi isn't dead anymore. Pretty sure you've got a Dream Match Game on your hands.
 * On the other hand, this is hardly out of the realm of possibility. Heihachi's change is likely to stick for Tekken 7, given Daisuke Gouri's passing.
 * Easily Forgiven: King forgave Marduk for not only killing Armor King, but spitting on Armor King's name; basically they're now best buds. Armor King II, however...
 * Easter Egg: every game since at least the 3rd installment has featured hidden moves, win poses, or character specific actions not listed in the manual or the in-game movelists. Some are hardly noticeable (i.e. moves with extra particle effects or Asuka berating Jin while hitting him), while others are ridiculous over the top, and/or hilarious, (the Jacks malfunctioning and using their windmill punch when hit by a Devil laser, most male characters performing the Headbutt Carnival with Heihachi....)
 * Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has fun with this using the tag mechanics; King and Armor King, for example, can do a special KO throw where the point character will execute a powerbomb grab, then hold the opponent down for a pin whilst the other character runs in as a ref and taps the 3-count.
 * Embedded Precursor: Tekken 5 had the arcade versions of the first three games. It also included StarBlade, a Namco space shooter from the early 1990s.
 * Everything's Better with Bob
 * Everything Is Worse With Bears: Kuma.
 * Everythings Funkier With Disco: Tiger, so very much.
 * Evil Laugh: Bryan.
 * Devil Jin's laugh is also quite evil... and crazy.
 * Evil vs. Evil: Mishima Zaibatsu vs G Corporation.
 * Expy: The newcomer Lars Alexandersson, which looks a lot like Archer.
 * As a bonus, Lars is voiced by the same voice actor as Archer.
 * Take a look at Julia's ending in Tekken 6, then have fun making up Lara Croft.
 * Leo looks a lot like Rock Howard.
 * Extremity Extremist: Steve.
 * Fallen Hero: Kazuya, quite literally when Heihachi threw him on a cliff.
 * Heihachi inverts this as a fallen villain when Kazuya pays him back. His reply? "You should have found a steeper cliff."
 * Like his father, Jin has gone from primary good guy to even worse than those who came before him.
 * Flash Step: Lars has a lot of this.
 * Generation Xerox: This series lives on this trope. If a Legacy Character doesn't make an appearance in the latest installment, expect a new character to show up with most of, if not all of their moves.
 * This is especially interesting when the Legacy Character and the new character appear in the same game: Hwoarang/Baek, Eddy/Christie, Michelle/Julia, Asuka/Jun, and in Tekken Tag Tournament, the record is Jack-2/P. Jack/Gun Jack in the same game.
 * This occasionally leads to Divergent Character Evolution: in the original Tekken, all of the bosses were basically the original 8 again with a few moves borrowed from other fighters. Lee Chaolan was originally Marshall Law with Paul Phoenix's jumpkicks, in Tekken 6, the character is very different.
 * Goldfish Poop Gang: As of 6, it's Marshall Law, Steve Fox, and Paul Phoenix.
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom: Kazuya Mishima's left eye glows red as of Tekken 4, either because of the Mishima bloodline's Devil Gene, or his resurrection by G Corporation. Mokujin, as well, though his aren't really evil as much as an indicator of evil. The wooden dummy comes to life whenever an evil force arises.
 * Hollywood Old: Guys like Baek, Kazuya, Law or Paul were allowed to look older in later installments. Women? Not a chance. Nina and Anna, who were there from the beginning, still appear in their late 20's/early 30's. Michelle was simply written out and even Xiaoyu hasn't grown a bit since she first came in. Only Julia evolved from teenager to 20-something.
 * In Name Only: The naming of Tekken 3D: Prime Edition is somewhat redundant, as there's no other edition of the game at all. It's probably to prevent potential confusion if it were simply called Tekken 3D though.
 * Jerkass: Kazuya and Heihachi. Oh, boy.
 * Joke Character: Dr. Bosconovitch and Gon in the PSX port of Tekken 3. Kuma, Panda, Roger, and Alex qualify, as well. Ironically, Dr. Bosconovitch was arguably the best character in Tekken 3.
 * Just Like Robin Hood: Yoshimitsu, who takes after his ancestor.
 * In Tekken 6, he gains an item that allows him to dance in a circle and scatter gold coins around.
 * Kevlard: Bob purposely gained weight so he could have this advantage.
 * Killed Off for Real: The first King, and the current Armor King's brother.
 * Tekken 5's roster seemingly defies this trope, bringing back a whole slew of Tekken 2 sub-bosses who were thought to have perished against Ogre (due to Ogre possessing some of their moves). Some of their stories claim they never even crossed paths with him.
 * Kissing Cousins: Not really, but in Asuka's ending Jin ends up in her cleavage. In quite a slapstick manner.
 * Legacy Character: King and Yoshimitsu.
 * Losing Your Head: Alisa Boskonovitch. She can even detonate it and materialize a new one.
 * Luke, I Am Your Father:
 * Mask Power: King and Armor King.
 * Mega Corp: The Mishima Zaibatsu and the G Corporation. In Tekken 6, Jin is using the former to try and Take Over the World and the latter [run by his father, Kazuya] is his only opponent.
 * Missing Trailer Scene: A weird video game example (albeit, minor). One trailer for Tekken 6 showed NANCY-MI847J's stage as being playable in a standard fight. This is not an option, even via random select.
 * The Movie: A grand total of 3 (completely canonically separate) movies exist; Tekken the Motion Picture (an OVA made in 1998), Tekken (a live action movie made in 2010, which was not supervised by Namco and later disowned by Harada), and Blood Vengeance (a 3D CG movie supervised by Namco and written by Dai Sato of Cowboy Bebop fame).
 * Ms. Fanservice: Christie. And Anna, if you can get the death cam to shoot at the right angle...
 * Many of the playable female characters, actually. Some with more revealing costume options than others. Christie's got the most Stripperiffic ones in Tekken 6, not to mention her normal fighting stance really shows off the Jiggle Physics.
 * Ninja: Raven and Kunimitsu. Yoshimitsu will tell you he is but he's a bit over the top.
 * Nature Hero: Julia Chang, and Michelle Chang before her. Jun Kazama was this mixed with angelic spiritual qualities.
 * Nobody Poops: Averted in Law's Tekken 6 ending. Paul, Law and Steve had agreed to share the prize money, but Law uses laxatives to incapacitate them and give him enough time to steal all the money for himself (what a Jerkass). Paul's ending also implies that Law used these laxatives throughout the tournament to cheat their way to victory.
 * No Export for You: it seems Tekken 3 will never see the light of day on the European (it's the PAL region, big surprise here) Playstation Store. Apparently, it's because of Gon's presence alone, as Jawad Ashraf of SCEE himself confirmed on April 11th, 2011 a bit too nonchalantly:
 * No Export for You: it seems Tekken 3 will never see the light of day on the European (it's the PAL region, big surprise here) Playstation Store. Apparently, it's because of Gon's presence alone, as Jawad Ashraf of SCEE himself confirmed on April 11th, 2011 a bit too nonchalantly:


 * No One Could Survive That: Just look at Bryan's Tekken 3 and 6 endings... and Heihachi too, in Tekken 5.
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Law family, Lei Wulong, and Raven look like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Wesley Snipes, respectively. Also, Marduk has a strong resemblance to Australian wrestler Nathan Jones who had a brief WWE stint. Not surprising since Marduk's look was actually based on him. (In fact, Jones plays Marduk in the Live Action Adaptation.)
 * King and Armor King are essentially a giant love letter to Professional Wrestling. whilst their most obvious homage is to Tiger Mask, their grabs can be attributed to many famous pro-wrestlers, including The Rock, Stone Cold, The Undertaker and Rey Mysterio, Jr..
 * Thanks to Tekken 6, add Julia Chang to the list as her ending and custom options are HEAVILY inspired by Lara Croft. Not to mention she looks quite similar to pro wrestler Sarah Stock, otherwise known as TNA's Sarita, although this was likely unintentional.
 * Christie is based on Tyra Banks.
 * Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Several (though not all) English-speaking characters from non-American countries all have American accents instead of the ones you'd expect them to have. For example: Nina and Anna (Irish), Steve (British), Leo (German), Eddy and Christie (Brazilian), Marduk (Australian), Lili (Monégasque - well, French for extension), Bosconovitch (Russian), and so on. Lei was initially a subversion, until his Chinese accent suddenly became American in Tekken 6 (it is, however, a Hong Kong English accent, so this might be a Double Subversion).
 * Also the main characters in 6's Story Mode. Lars is Swedish and Alisa is a robot made by a Russian. They for some reason decide that the optimal language to speak would be perfect Japanese.
 * Alisa is arguable, considering she is a robot and can be programmed to speak Japanese. Lars has no excuse.
 * Except for the fact Lars and has been working for a Japanese company, it would make sense that he would be bilingual, why he preferred Japanese is beyond this troper.
 * It's actually not too strange since Lars himself is well aware how big a deal his father is and that he probably have to deal with issues revolving around his father's family sooner or later. In the end, the final decision to make him speak Japanese is probably its easier that way while still remaining feasible.
 * Most of the characters in Tekken Tag Tournament 2 speak their native languages like Hwoarang speaking Korean (which has been done ever since Tekken 4), Steve with a British accent and Leo with German. The Japanese characters (with Lars included) speak Japanese as always. The Williams sisters don't speak Irish English, though someone suggested in a forum somewhere that it was probably due to their time in cryosleep experiments.
 * Not Just a Tournament: In Tekken 2, Kazuya announces the King of the Iron Fist Tournament 2 to get rid of Heihachi and his other enemies. In Tekken 3, Heihachi announces the King of the Iron Fist Tournament 3 to lure Ogre out in order to capture him using the contestants as bait. In Tekken 4, Heihachi needs to get the devil gene to become immortal so he announces the King of the Iron Fist Tournament 4 to lure Kazuya and Jin out to obtain the devil gene.
 * The Old Convict: Eddie Gordo's backstory from Tekken 3 is that he was framed by the Mishimas, and while in prison, was trained in Capoeira by the oldest convict interned there. Distaff Counterpart Christie Monteiro is the old man's granddaughter.
 * Old Master: Wang Jinrei.
 * Older Than They Look: Nina and Anna are in their 40s from Tekken 3 onwards, but still look as though they're in their 20s due to their time in cryogenic sleep. Also, Lee is approaching 50, but you wouldn't think it just from looking at him...
 * One-Winged Angel: Several characters in the series have their own one-winged angel forms:
 * Kazuya has Devil (the final boss of Tekken 2), who can fly, shoot lasers, and has purple skin. Since Devil's last appearance in Tag Tournament, Kazuya has fully accepted his demonic powers and it shows. (For reference, he uses Devil's lasers in the Street Fighter/Tekken crossover and can transform into Devil in Tag Tournament 2.)
 * His son, Jin, has been "cursed" to inherit his father's devil gene. Since the fifth game, a second Jin aka Devil Jin has been playable. This version of Jin is not only batshit insane, but embraces his devil powers and uses them in combat, in conjunction with a new fighting style (a mix of the Mishima-style Karate that normal Jin unlearned and the more traditional Karate that post-Tekken 4 Jin uses).
 * Even the supposedly innocent Jun Kazama is not safe from this trope. The latest gameplay footage from Tag Tournament 2 shows (and confirmed many a fan theory) her one-winged angel form is Unknown, the final boss of the Tag Tournament games. Junknown uses other characters' fighting styles (ala Mokujin) but can willingly change her style mid-battle (not like Mokujin).
 * Tekken 3 has Ogre (the Final Boss, mind you) and True Ogre. The upgrade from Ogre to True Ogre comes with a somewhat Nightmare Fuel-esque change in apperance as well as a power upgrade. Oh, and he can fly.
 * Another Final Boss example is Tekken 6's Azazel. Fulfill the right conditions, and a powerful golden Azazel (confirmed in 6's Scenario Campaign to be Azazel's ultimate form) can be fought in the place of the normal variant.
 * Yet another example in the form of Jinpachi Mishima. His true demonic form is fought as Tekken 5's final boss (worth noting that a fiery variant is fought as the final boss of 5: Dark Resurrection.) This is actually more of an inversion, as Jinpachi's (supposedly) regular form can be used as a playable character in Tag Tournament 2 (where he is downgraded to a sub-boss; being a sub-boss battle with Heihachi).
 * One Steve Limit: Subverted in the fandom. Hwoarang's nickname "Bob" is complicated, now that there's an actual Bob in the character roster. Possibly it's because Tekken was making fun of serious tournament players who started using "Bob" because they couldn't pronounce Hwoarang's name properly.
 * Pandaing to the Audience: Xiaoyu's pet panda, Panda.
 * Panty Shot
 * Pet the Dog: In Kazuya's ending, he is shown to respect Jinpachi and even remembers the good old days training with him before making the Deal with the Devil...
 * Pimped-Out Dress: A few outfits, especially in 5.
 * Power Tattoo: Jin's devil tattoo.
 * Practical Taunt: Lee Chaolan has one where he leans back and wags his finger at his opponent, beckoning them to come at him. While this may look like a taunt, it also has the more prominent utility of being an alternate stance that gives him access to moves that are great at countering a reckless charge, which is the likely reaction for someone who falls for the taunt.
 * Preorder Bonus: Pre-ordering Tag Tournament 2 will give players access to a Snoop Dogg stage, with the Doggfather himself appearing in the background. Snoop even provides the BGM for his stage; a single recorded just for the game.
 * Promoted to Unlockable
 * Recovery Attack: starting with the third game in the series.
 * The Rival: Hwoarang to Jin, Lili to Asuka, Kuma to Paul, Lee to Kazuya, King and Marduk, the members of the Mishima family to each other, Nina to Anna.
 * The Ojou: Lili.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Almost everybody has this, usually coming back to the tournaments for revenge.
 * Rule of Cool: Realistically, certain characters like Kuma, Panda, Roger Jr., Yoshimitsu, and Alisa should not have been allowed into fighting tournaments alongside humans, for the simple reason that they'd kill all of their opponents within seconds. Then again, who cares about being realistic when you can pit a panda bear against a kangaroo?
 * Running Gag: Lee Chaolan's Thumbs Up.
 * See Spank the Cutie below for another Lee Chaolan related running gag.
 * Ryu and Ken: Eddy and Christie. As of Tag 2, that also extends to Kuma and Panda.
 * Samus Is a Girl: Kunimitsu was a Palette Swap of Yoshimitsu in the first game, but clearly female in subsequent installments.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: Ogre, Jinpachi, and Azazel.
 * Self-Made Orphan: Baek Doo San, according to his backstory. The Mishima wish they were...
 * Shock and Awe: Though it doesn't actually electrocute anyone, the Mishima characters (Lars included) all emit some kind of electricity when they make a hard hit. As of Tekken 6 there are hints that this actually factors into their heritage (based on Kazuya's comments to Lars during the final stage of Scenario Campaign), though the actual electricity may only be a visualization.
 * Shout-Out: Especially in regards of King and Professional Wrestling. Some of the customization items as well. CLAMP designed a special costume for Jin in celebration of the upcoming console release of Tekken 6. It's Lelouch vi Britannia's emperor outfit from R2, minus the Nice Hat. And that's not all: other notable names in anime made costumes for some characters. Masashi Kishimoto has made a costume for Lars Alexandersson. He looks kinda like Deidara, but without the Akatsuki robe. Said outfit will making an appearance in Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. Yoshimitsu gets a bonus costume in the pre-order version of 6 -- the Cardboard Tube Samurai. In the same game, Julia has thigh holsters, grenades, short shorts and boots. Now think about that as you watch her ending and ask if that reminds you of anyone.
 * To go along with the above Julia example, Marshall Law gains some customizations that pretty clearly give him the appearance of Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken. As both men derive inspiration from Bruce Lee, this is a justified nod.
 * Tekken 6 also lets the player buy a series of tracksuits for Marhsall Law with the yellow tracksuit costing around three times as much as the rest
 * The shootout scene in the Tekken Tag Tournament intro's PS2 version is said to have been a nod to Terminator 2.
 * Shown Their Work: Come on, a luchadore who spends all his money on a mexican orphanage and--holy shit.
 * And of course, the martial arts displayed are impressively well researched.
 * SNK Boss: All of the bosses have some cheap trick up their sleeve. True Ogre, Devil, Jinpachi, and Azazel spam ranged attacks (most of which can't be blocked) and have insane combos - the latter two have insanely cheap stun movies that will stop any combo in its tracks. Unknown has an insane health bar and regenerates health to make up for her lack of cheap moves.
 * In Unknown's case, the health bar and regeneration was justifiable considering she battles alone and is a mimic fighter.
 * Spank the Cutie: When Anna defeats Lee in her Tekken 5 story mode, she sits on his back and spanks him.
 * In COMBOT's ending for Tekken 4, Lee shows up to yell at him when he's busy celebrating in front of everyone else. He promptly gets spanked and thrown aside.
 * Also happens in Tekken Tag Tournament when you choose Lee and Heihachi.
 * Prototype Jack gained this as a side throw in Tag.
 * Heihachi's item move in Tekken 6 lets him spank anyone, adopted son or otherwise.
 * Spinning Out of Here: Yoshimitsu possesses a special in his Indian mediation stance allowing him to spin so fast (while sitting down) that he instantly warps on the other side of his opponent.
 * Status Quo Is God: Averted in some aspects, played straight in others. As of the sixth game, the storyline spans 23 years and it shows: technology evolves, characters age and some are outright Killed Off for Real. However, some older character plots seem to be stuck in perpetual limbo, perhaps because they've been around for a long while and nobody has any idea what to do with them (Paul wants to win the tournament, Law's short on money, Hwoarang has a rivalry with Jin, Xiaoyu has a crush on Jin, Nina & Anna have issues...)
 * The Stoic: Sergei Dragunov
 * Stripperiffic: Christie and Zafina.
 * Super-Powered Evil Side: Devil Jin and, uh, Devil himself, being Kayuza's actual evil conscience.
 * Take That: Bob is a Take That at tournament players who called Hwoarang "Bob" because they couldn't pronounce his name.
 * Time Skip: Nineteen years between Tekken 2 and Tekken 3. 4 then jumps ahead another two years.
 * Tragic Hero: Jin. Being Good Sucks big time if you're a Mishima.
 * Translation Convention: Tekken 6 has the character speaking in different languages (Bear!) and perfectly understanding each other. Thank Namco there's subtitles.
 * Briefly Subverted in Tekken 4, where Jin speaks heavily-accented, broken English to Hwoarang in an ending cutscene.
 * Taken Up to Eleven in Tekken Tag 2, now almost every single character is speaking their native language, not just a variant of english, japanese and chinese from the previous games.
 * Unknown Rival: Paul considers himself Kazuya's biggest rival, though he's largely ignored. Applies for Jin and Hwoarang later on in the series.
 * After Tekken 2, Paul's pretty much stopped caring about Kazuya and moved onto Kuma, who genuinely dislikes him.
 * Lili and Asuka is another example. In the 6th game, Lili is determined to defeat Asuka, but the latter couldn't really care less...
 * Jin's actually aware that Hwoarang wants a piece of him (in fact, he even remembers why) but he simply can't be bogged down with matters like this. It's an unusual case of It's Not You, It's My Enemies that applies to a rival rather than a loved one.
 * Use Your Head: Hoo, boy. The Mishimas are not above headbutting you during a fight. Heck, all the Mishimas and the animals will headbutt you when given the chance.
 * Villain Protagonist: Jin in 6.
 * Villain with Good Publicity: Heihachi.
 * Kazuya becomes this in 6, hailed as a 'savior' by the people by the now-tyrannical Zaibatsu under Jin.
 * The Voiceless: King and Armor King. Because all their "dialogue" is just unintelligible growls. Dragunov, who just doesn't talk at all - although Word of God and the Scenario Campaign of Tekken 6 confirm that he is capable of speech, he just doesn't like to do it very often. Roger and Alex also can't talk properly, but they are animals...
 * We Can Rebuild Him: Bryan. And Kazuya, who is brought back by the G Corporation after being thrown into a volcano by Heihachi.
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy: Lee is desperate for his adoptive father Heihachi's respect; he's never come anywhere near getting it. By the time of 4, though, he's decided to settle for humiliating him.
 * The same with Jin and Kazuya towards Heihachi. Heihachi himself towards Jinpachi? He never asked a "Well Done" treatment from him. He preferred a more... direct... way of getting glory. By displacing and imprisoning Jinpachi. Essentially, Heihachi has no intention of doing anything that looks like relinquishing power to anyone, even a son or grandson. "Well Done, Son" Guy is not going to work on someone who doesn't believe in reciprocal respect in the first place, only power.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Kunimitsu, Tiger, Alex, and COMBOT.
 * Wham! Line: We all knew it was coming, but still pretty cool.
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: Lee.
 * Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: In Raven's ending, Dragunov does, but misses. In Dragunov's ending, he takes a different approach.
 * Why Won't You Die?: Heihachi and Kazuya supposedly "died" several times during the games' events, often with one killing the other. In the case of Kayuza, he was found by some science team members and resurrected.
 * World War III: According to Tekken 6, Jin has begun using the Mishima Zaibatsu for world conquest and declared war on several nations until the whole world itself is at war.
 * Wrestler in All of Us: The game features two fighters, King and Armor King, who are wrestlers. But that doesn't explain Heihachi Mishima (a karate master) busting out powerbombs, or kickboxer Bryan Fury's DDT, or even (Kenpo and Xing Yi practitioners) Michelle and Julia Chang's range of suplexes... the reason? Wrestling moves are cool!
 * In Julia's Twisted Sister throw, especially cool. Even Jun has a couple of wrestling moves, though to be fair they are common, and lest we forget Goldber--sorry, Craig Marduk.
 * Christy and Eddie can do a float-over DDT while Michelle and Julia can do tiger suplexes.
 * Julia returns in Tekken Tag 2 as "Jaycee" and gets a luchador outfit by default. Guess she really did wrestle on the side.
 * Xanatos Gambit: