Katsuhiro Harada, who has led the Tekken series for 30 years, recently shared an anecdote on social media about a cultural misunderstanding with American fans. The story involves him misinterpreting an invitation he received after revealing the Black character Leroy Smith in 2019 as a threat.

Katsuhiro Harada recently took to X to share a story about a cultural misunderstanding involving the American fan community. The story dates back to 2019, when Harada announced Season 3 of 'Tekken 7' at EVO 2019 and unveiled a new original character, Leroy Smith. Leroy is a Black martial artist who uses Wing Chun; Harada developed the original concept for the character, while the visual design was handled by someone else. Shortly after the character's reveal, Harada received a message from an American fan, which is where the misunderstanding began.

The message asked if they could invite him to a cookout because he had created such a cool character. The problem was that Harada knew the slang term 'cooked' could mean 'completely ruined' or 'finished.' He interpreted 'cookout' as an even more intense version of 'cooked.' Consequently, he read the fan's invitation as a threat to beat him up and roast him. He added that because the message arrived after the release of a Black character, he worried that he might have inadvertently touched on a sensitive issue, despite his confidence in his knowledge of American culture.

It was a long time before he learned the truth. Someone explained to him that being invited to a cookout is one of the highest compliments in the Black community, signifying that you are someone trusted enough to be invited to a gathering reserved for true friends and family. Harada said he felt a great sense of relief upon hearing this. In fact, while Leroy had his share of balance issues, he was also known as the 'GrandMaster of Drip'—a title that could be translated as a master of fashion. Even T-Pain, the Grammy-winning rapper and famous producer, once cosplayed as him.

The misunderstandings didn't stop there. When fans called him the 'fxxking GOAT' and flooded his posts with goat emojis, Harada took it as an insult, thinking they were comparing him to an animal. Unaware that 'GOAT' stood for 'Greatest Of All Time'—a term of high praise—he said he tried to ignore it for two or three years. He added that as these misunderstandings piled up, he even thought, 'It's really hard to get Americans to accept our characters. They might be even more sensitive than the Japanese, so I need to study their culture more.'

Users responded favorably to Harada's post. This was largely because he revealed that even when he mistakenly thought he was being criticized, his reaction was to think, 'I need to study their culture much more.'

Meanwhile, Harada established VS Studio last May. VS Studio will collaborate with SNK on the development of new titles in the future.