Baki the Grappler's Strongest Fighter Crashes Tekken 8

Of all the guest fighters Tekken 8 could have pulled from, Yujiro Hanma was not on my bingo card. Bandai Namco revealed the final character for Season 3 over the weekend, and it's the main antagonist of Baki the Grappler, the long-running martial arts manga and anime series that's been going since 1991.

Yujiro is Baki's father and is essentially portrayed as the strongest creature alive in the series, a character so absurdly powerful he functions as the franchise's final boss. He's arriving in Tekken 8 in early 2027, and we haven't seen his in-game model yet. Given how exaggerated Baki's art style is, with muscles that look like they have their own muscles, I'm curious how Bandai Namco translates that into Tekken's engine without it looking either too tame or completely unhinged.

This is a wilder pick than Clive from Final Fantasy 16, who joined the roster back in Season 1. Tekken has always had a history of surprising guest fighters, from Noctis to Negan, but pulling from a hyper-violent martial arts anime feels like it's aimed squarely at the crossover audience that watches fighting game tournaments and reads manga between sets. I love it. Yujiro joins Kunimitsu, Bob, and Roger Jr. in the Season 3 lineup. Kunimitsu is first up, releasing on May 27, with Bob following this summer and Roger Jr. in autumn.