Sunday, March 29, 2015

Meet Josie Rizal - Tekken's First Filipino Fighter

After clamors from fans and the rumored involvement of Jollibee to be the next in the roster of the Tekken series, Namco finally revealed the first Filipino fighting character. Her name is Josie Rizal, named after the national hero Jose Rizal, who uses the Filipino martial art Escrima (Kali) and Kickboxing as her fighting style. 

Though she may not be the first of the Filipino-based characters, Talim from Soul Calibur, and Manny Pacquiao from Fight Night were introduced years prior to Josie. With a combination of Escrima and Kickboxing, it would be an interesting feat to see how can this par with the other existing characters of Tekken.

The interest of Bandai Namco for the Philippines started when they featured a city (which looks obviously as Manila) as one of the battle places for Tekken Tag 2. It was also noted by many netizens when Jolliibee trended to be a future character after Tekken's Game director and Chief Producer Katsuhiro Harada  tweeted about the famous bee.