Roger Jr. the kangaroo has been cut from Tekken 7, possibly because of animal rights activists according to VG 24/7.
"Boxing" kangaroos are a trope that's over 100 years old. Traveling troupes in the late 1800s would afford brave souls the opportunity to box against one of these creatures that had boxing gloves appropriately fitted over its forearms. Most notably, a man punched a kangaroo in the face to protect his dog in December of 2016 while he was out hunting and received complaints from organizations such as PETA for the act. However, as the National Geographic article points out, kangaroos are fearsome combatants in their own right and the man had risked potentially being disemboweled by the marsupial's powerful hind legs. It seems that this viral video of a man protecting his dog may have been one of the reasons for the removal of the character from Tekken 7 according to the game's Executive Producer Katsuhiro Harada:
There was a video of a man’s dog being headlocked by a kangaroo, and he punched it in the face. It turned into a big problem. People were complaining about him punching a kangaroo. It seems that in the last few years there’s a lot more animal activists – even though they probably wouldn’t play our game they would still hear about that, about a kangaroo in our game being punched, and would complain about it.Mr. Harada did not detail how many complaints they had received (if any). Reading the words at face value, it seems that the potential for complaints alone may have been a factor in the removal. However, the story might not be as straightforward judging by these tweets from Mr. Harada:
https://twitter.com/Harada_TEKKEN/status/857759327628566528
https://twitter.com/Harada_TEKKEN/status/857762960202022912
In short, it seems to be that Mr. Harada is stating that the development team has concerns about animal rights activists starting a firestorm over the inclusion of fighting animals in the game, but it does seem like it's not necessarily the case that they resulted in the removal of Roger from the console version of the game. Roger Jr. had been a staple of the franchise even since the introduction of his father Roger in Tekken 2 and was one of three boxing kangaroos featured throughout the life of the franchise. Although the Japanese arcade version of the game featured the character, it seems that console players will have to do without.
Why do you think Roger Jr. was removed from Tekken 7? Will the lack of this character affect your decision to purchase the game? Let us know in the comments below!
