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I don’t think it’s a particularly controversial statement to say that there has never been
a good adaptation of Tekken outside of the games. It’s odd, because I just made a video a few months
back talking about how invested I’ve always been in the absolutely wild tapestry of lore
surrounding the franchise, spun over decades and seeing the development team dedicate themselves
wholeheartedly to representing every eventuality of the question: you know, what *would* happen
if anyone outside of the canonical endings won this tournament? This is the kind of franchise,
with all its crazy characters and accompanying action, that seems ripe for development in
some other medium – taking those lore tidbits built up through incredibly brief post-arcade
mode cutscenes, and expanding it all into a more traditionally structured narrative.
And yet, the multiple attempts to bring this franchise to the screen over the years have
seen results vary from boring, to hilariously bad, to downright unwatchable. And of course,
good video game shows or films are an infamously rare breed, but Tekken’s story, for as absurd and
out there as it can get, is largely conveyed through more conventional visual media—text
and images—rather than its albeit stellar gameplay. On the surface, it doesn’t seem
like there are many reasons why an adaptation of this thing fundamentally couldn’t work.
Well, enter Tekken Bloodline, a six-episode anime recently released on Netflix that seeks to really
knuckle down where others have wandered—foregoing the reams of non-canonical fluff that forms the
basis of most of these adaptations, and instead focusing on perhaps the pivotal moment of the
franchise timeline, and the familial feud of the Mishimas serving as the driving force of it all:
fleshing out the events leading up to and including Tekken 3, and importantly, relaying
the backstory of its cover fighter, Jin Kazama. And indeed, Bloodline hits all the major plot
beats in that regard—the death of his mother, Jun, at the hands of ancient fighting spirit
Ogre; the training he receives from his grandfather Heihachi in the wake of this loss;
and the resulting King of Iron Fist Tournament held to lure out the demon so Jin can
supposedly get his revenge—that is, until his grandfather’s grand plan gets set into motion.
And that’s the interesting thing—if you were to just play the games Tekken 2 and 3 without reading
the accompanying manuals, there’s a good chance you’d never know that all this stuff was going on.
See, we’re already off to a promising start with Bloodline—the writers make the wise choice to
take some minor liberties, in terms of the precise timing of events and the characters found within,
in order that they can turn this previously disparate smattering of lore into a legible
plot; the small details it does shift around serving to recontextualise the bigger picture
of this well-trodden familial struggle, in ways that I think some long-time fans might
find pretty fascinating, making moves that force said fans to reconsider their opinions
on certain long-established characters. But that’s not to say that Bloodline is
perfect or some must-watch masterpiece – what makes it fascinating has just as much
to do with its shortcomings and what they tell us about this franchise’s storytelling as a whole,
as it does Bloodline’s still very evident strengths. It’s just that,
following that first episode, you’d be excused for not picking up on those strengths just yet—let’s
just say that even beyond its awkward setting of the groundwork that will be mostly familiar
to franchise fans, Bloodline doesn’t exactly make the best first impression with its visuals.
For one, and this is something I saw smatterings of around the release of the trailers for the show
but… what is up with these shadows? It’s as if, regardless of where the characters are standing,
whether it’s a densely wooded forest area, in an office building or completely out in the open,
they’re always within feet of some pointed-obelisk perpetually hanging over them and blocking out the
light in a perfect triangle—one that shifts and… tilts wherever our characters move…?
I’m fairly sure this is not how shadows work. I get that they’re trying to go for this look
of daunting imposition, where shady characters are, appropriately, doused in shadow,
but this effect loses its impact when every character is encased in this darkness at all
times, regardless of the lighting conditions, regardless of the lighting conditions—instead
creating this unintentionally murky effect where, even when brightening my screen beyond where I
would normally set it, and despite the flashiness of the moves and action on show, it all just
looks a bit drab for the most part—significantly undermining Bloodline’s often neat and inventive
takes on established character designs. It speaks to a kind of rushed quality that’s
mirrored through certain scenes where they’ll hold on a still image for just long enough that you
wonder if your stream has frozen, or when they try to animate characters running towards the screen,
which always ends up looking like said characters have just enjoyed a large chicken dinner and
haven’t quite shaken the meat sweats yet. And this quality is all the more surprising
given the care that otherwise goes into the smaller details of this show—that is to say,
while the set dressing often leaves a lot to be desired, the actual fights
that anchor Bloodline are often exactly what I’m looking for out of an adaptation such as this.
Prior attempts have always struggled to capture the unique character of the
franchise’s trademark action—whether it be a result of rudimentary animation or real people
not being able to move as they do in game—but it would seem, with that Netflix budget behind them,
the team is able to really bring out the personality of these different characters.
It’s really neat to be presented moves that you’re used to seeing in the games—moves you might have
performed for decades at this point—bolstered further by the character-specific bursts that
accompany each hit—the floaty white bubble of a guarded blow; Ogre’s demonic purple cloud;
the lightning of Heihachi and Jin; the fire of Paul Phoenix and the playful fireworks of Xiaoyu.
Sure, sometimes the rapidly swinging camera can sometimes leave you wondering where
characters actually are in relation to the rest of the arena—moments where you find
yourself wishing everything would just stay still enough and clear the shot to give you
the wide, open view of this combat. Because not only does said action
illustrate just how devastating these hits are in a way not previously emphasised in the games—where
shattering a character’s leg mid-tournament is depicted as the kind of “woah, too far” moment
it probably would be perceived as in real life; or you’re taken through the multiple,
bone-crunching steps involved in this hulking mound of jaguar-masked muscle performing
full-strength wrestling moves on what is, ostensibly, a high school kid.
No, this action, when given the chance, often goes a step further
and manages to convey the personality of the individuals performing it—telling the story,
sometimes more effectively than the actual dialogue. For example, the Kazama fighting
style taught to Jin by his mother Jun, with the flowing agility of its arcing kicks and use of
opponent’s momentum and position against them, stands in firm opposition to the blocky, brutish,
staccato rhythms of the Mishima style, Heihachi ruthlessly instils into his protégé instead.
The former is a reflection of the delicate splendour of nature surrounding our protagonists –
a desire to maintain that natural flow of things. Jun is portrayed as a pacifist, and one who
especially wants Jin to appreciate the beauty all around him before experiencing and becoming
accustomed to the evils of the world. Combat is a means to an end—when all other options fail, it
serves as a method of controlling a situation and your emotions decisively, in the immediate moment,
so these characters can swiftly return to appreciating what really matters in life.
The Mishima style, on the other hand, is all about drawing on past
rage and sadness in order to explosively unleash said anger on your opponent—almost
sadistically inflicting as much pain on them as possible, reflecting the same anguish and misery
gnawing away at its practitioners. In this sense, Bloodline takes the
disparate fragments of the Tekken 2 to 3 timeline, and morphs it into a kind of tragedy;
of Jin desperately holding onto what little youthful humanity he has left,
ingrained in him by a mother whose presence, as in the games, becomes something of a spectre hovering
over the events of the show; watching, judging her son as said humanity is drilled out of him
over the years, as he’s groomed and manipulated by Heihachi into a distrust of the world around him.
If you can’t tell already, I think this aspect of the show is kind of great. With all of this,
Bloodline has solved perhaps the biggest problem with Tekken’s story over the years.
See, here we have a tale that actually manages to paint a member of the Mishima bloodline in a
sympathetic light—something the games have rarely, if ever achieved – and previously the biggest
hurdle to actually caring about this daft family plot at the centre of this narrative universe.
In a world of hyper rich, moody arseholes making absolutely moronic and evil decisions
regarding their military multinational corporation, all in a bid to eliminate
each other in increasingly hilarious ways… what Bloodline shows is that ultimately,
Jin is just a child whose vulnerabilities are preyed upon in the wake of his mother’s violent
death; a child whose curiosity about the world is constantly decried as a failing—destroy first,
ask questions later, or die, weakling. With this context, it’s no wonder Jin became such
a brooding, unlikeable bastard, especially in the later games—a fact made all the more tragic given
how Bloodline illustrates his capacity and desire to get along with others. His ongoing rivalry with
Hwoarang is shown to be just that—two kids being dickheads to each other, that will absolutely
still come to each other’s aid if needed. Xiaoyu, long depicted as Jin’s adoring schoolyard chum,
is here given a real chance to shine—being the person Jin opens up to most, whom he jokes around
with looks out for, all while simultaneously respecting her capabilities as a fighter. We
see he has a sense of humour, friends, people he cares for and who care for him, which makes
Heihachi’s plans for the kid, knowing he’ll be torn away from these slightly more normal aspects
of life and growing up, sting all the more. The show even takes the time to explore a
facet of Jin’s character that I don’t think anyone could have expected it to—his desire
for flames on his uniform! You know, Tekken 3 came out in the 90s—if you were a kid back then,
you were considered a weirdo if you didn’t want garish Guy Fieri flames on all your clothes,
but I guess that’s just it. The show really goes to the effort to highlight just how much of a daft
wee teenager Jin actually is—a fact not so readily apparent when we’ve only ever seen him as tall and
as built as a giant mohawked-mech, for example. But for all that this Mishima bloodline feud
is narratively expanded upon in some really interesting ways, as a long-time fan of the
series, I can’t help but feel that it comes at the same cost prior adaptations (and even the
games themselves) have always been paying, in their fixation on these same characters over
and over again—namely, that by maintaining such a blinkered view of what really matters here,
the supporting cast that has always turned this franchise into such a gloriously absurd and varied
universe, once again get remarkably short shrift here; further cementing my long-held belief that
Tekken might have more interesting stories to tell than the Mishima saga,
that possibly as a result of its short six episode runtime, it never gets the chance to.
It would have been interesting, for example, to get some more insight into how the aforementioned
beef with Hwoarang actually came to be—the establishment of which we’re given one brief
glimpse of as part of a random street fight between the two, awkwardly mashed into a larger
training montage. From there, it’s just assumed the two share a rivalry that both insist is far
from friendly—with little more context given, that in-game cutscenes don’t already provide. Similarly
Xiayou, for as neat as her characterisation is otherwise, just randomly, silently shows
up as Jin’s assumed school friend—I guess, this is the kind of detail that, in a broad sense,
should be the very purpose of a show like this. Sure, it’s kind of cool to see Ganryu as Zaibatsu
security; it’s neat to hear Heihachi talk about his father Jinpachi in surprisingly
reverent terms or reference Michelle Chang and Lee Chaolan – but at the end of the day,
that’s all this really stuff is: references, lip service paid before getting back to Jin
and Heihachi; designed to get you saying “oh, there’s that dude” and little else.
Personally, I would love a full-scale adaptation that didn’t focus on the Mishimas at all.
You know, biker dude Paul Phoenix gets a bit of screentime and voice lines here or there (that,
for the record, do appropriately capture his dumb but affable demeanour), but we get absolutely
nothing regarding his friendship with Law beyond a brief mention of the character by name,
despite this forming perhaps the consistently funniest and most heart-warming relationship
in the entire franchise. Even a series of vignette-style stories focused on their
various misadventures would excite me to no end. Likewise, no one ever seems to know what to do
with Yoshimitsu beyond “he’s a weird alien dude with a sword.” But Yoshimitsu seems
like he has the makings of a pretty compelling hero, honestly. He’s a Robin Hood type—odd,
sure, but this more humorous side is merely the surface to a character who both gives a shit
about helping those around him, especially those he’s close to, and becomes driven by a burning
need for revenge when those people get hurt. As far as Tekken lore goes, he’s one of the more
complex characters of the bunch and, as evidenced by the solitary shot you see of him in Bloodline,
he’s a character that, throughout the franchise, barely gets any substantial exploration; one that
I can’t help but think would make for a series at least as interesting as the one I’ve just watched.
I mean, at multiple points the show itself acknowledges—alongside the absurdity of
Paul fighting a grizzly bear and the fact that Xiayou is going up against an actual
assassin—that everyone has their reasons for being a part of this tournament, and that Jin’s story
isn’t inherently more important. This is adding a layer of complexity to Jin’s character that the
games never have—part of the reason the story of Tekken 7 fell as flat as it did for me was
the relegation of all these characters as far to the wayside as possible, and here we have a story
straight up saying that those stories of those different characters matter just as much as
Jin’s… and yet, again, probably as a result of the short, six episode run we’re provided,
the show just ends up telling that same familial feud story one more time.
To be clear, Bloodline is about as close as we’ve ever gotten to a decent Tekken adaptation
outside of the games, but over the multiple attempts to bring this densely packed lore to
screen over the decades, part of me will always wonder if it’s better off as just that—lore;
tidbits that allow you to fill in the blanks, that ask you to get on board with the multiple,
winding timelines the games establish, in which control over the most powerful
military conglomerate in the world goes to a bear or his goofy biker rival—stuff
that might ultimately be too daft to spin out into a grand, traditional narrative that asks
the audience to take it seriously, but where the team’s dedication to this absurdity makes for such
a fun challenge piecing it all together, alongside the silky smooth combat mechanics you’re here for.
It strikes me, as I write all of this stuff about wanting a show based on the weird sword alien or
the martial arts restaurant owner, there’s an argument to be made that the intended audience
of Bloodline is kind of unclear. I get the feeling that, outside of some technical showiness—that,
as we’ve established, the show often manages to undermine—Bloodline will do exceedingly
little for newcomers to the franchise unaware of why this chunk of the Tekken timeline is so
significant. They’ll probably be asking, “ok, why did someone as seemingly on-the-ball and able to
read people as Jun, someone who explicitly wanted to protect her son from the evils of the world,
decide the best course of action was to send Jin to specifically find Heihachi—a dude we’re
told is well-known for being comically evil?” Or they’ll be asking “wait, is that it?” as
credits roll on episode 6, in a move that could be said to capture the abruptness of the cutscene
it’s drawing from, as well as leaving more than enough room for future seasons to expand the
narratives of later games… but at the expense offering much at all in the way of narrative
resolution. Indeed, outside of serving as the logical conclusion of Jin’s tragic arc—becoming
just another part of the Mishima bloodline as the devil in him wins out—without knowing where
this goes in future titles (and it’s not even particularly well-resolved there), I can see
a lot of newcomers wondering if there’s some kind of problem with Netflix, confusedly searching
out a next episode that currently doesn’t exist. Further though, for a decent chunk of its runtime,
I also struggle to imagine the show resonating too deeply with seasoned veterans of the franchise
beyond what they already know. However, for those people specifically, as the season goes on,
it introduces enough wrinkles in its storytelling that, at the very least,
justify the relatively short amount of time you’ll actually spend watching it;
whose surprising competencies certainly don’t make for the most mind-blowing piece of television
ever produced by any means, but do illuminate the very real potential of this franchise for
further stories to be told down the line. Basically, why are we further bleeding the
stone of this tired family beef we’ve seen a million times over, when there’s a perfectly
good heist tale with more relatable, sympathetic characters that meets just as tragic an end,
just waiting for the screen treatment? If there’s ever a Bloodline season 2,
I know which story I’d rather see told. ---
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