Tekken 8’s Harada “accidentally” blocks Arslan Ash on Twitter, just weeks after Murray’s blocking of MrsPlayStuff stirred drama.
The Tekken 8 social media crowd was bracing itself for fresh Tekken Twitter drama after Arslan Ash shared he had been blocked on Twitter by none other than Tekken 8's Game Director, Katsuhiro Harada.
The news of Harada's block on Arslan Ash came just a couple of weeks after Tekken 8's Producer Michael Murray was the target of ridicule and abuse after blocking Tekken 8 creator Mrsplaystuff.
The block seemed almost too crazy to be real, but Katsuhiro Harada himself ended up responding to explain why.
Arslan Ash blocked by Tekken Game Director Harada on Twitter
Arslan Ash is perhaps indisputably the face of competitive Tekken, so him sharing that the Tekken 8 Game Director Katsuhiro Harada had blocked him was a mind-blowing potential storyline for the community.
However, unlike Tekken 8 Producer Michael Murray - who came under immediate attack when he blocked mrsplaystuff - Harada was given the benefit of the doubt the community, with many believing it must be an accident or an auto-block script to protect against intense animosity. This turned out to be true.
Harada responds: Arslan Ash block was "an operational error"
"Huh, I don't basically block him, probably an operational error," said Harada on Twitter in response to a user tagging him about the block. "I've talked to him on dm (I put my bag there when I agreed to a photo shoot with him in Vegas) I've deactivated it now."
"No, you can interpret it any way you want, but I don't block unless I have to (although I will use it if the level is such that I have to report it). We all know that, don't we?" said Harada Katsuhiro on Twitter.
"But since I'm operating one-handed with a cell phone app, I make mistakes often. By the way, I've blocked a few times in the past by mistake on my own @TEKKEN account (the current official one was originally mine) and Michael's account LOL."
On Twitter, the only way to see if a user has blocked you is by attempting to visit their profile. If blocked, when visiting their profile you'll be unable to see their Tweet history but instead will be told "[Twitter account name] has blocked you".
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Michael Murray did it first - Tekken Producer's Season 2 drama
Blocking on Twitter has been somewhat of a theme following the launch of the controversial Tekken Season 2. One April 3, two days after the release of Season 2, Tekken 8's Producer Michael Murray came under intense scrutiny after streamer MrsPlayStuff shared he had blocked her on Twitter.
Much like ArslanAsh, MrsPlayStuff shared an image proving she'd been blocked by Michael Murray, which led to an onslaught of criticism towards Tekken 8's Producer. The tweet garnered over 500,000 impression on Twitter and led to a Reddit thread on the same topic.
While the comments on Twitter were fairly brutal, Reddit was instead a little more creative and delivered some great one-liners in response to the block:
- "Why side stepping criticism when you can block it…"
- "I wish Twitter had chip damage on block"
- "When Twitter has more defensive options than Tekken as a whole"
- "mrsplaystuff is in heat. Murray gets chip damage from blocking."
- "'Send us feedback on Twitter'"' -> receives feedback -> blocks. LMAO"
Tekken 8 drama false alarm
On the eve of the launch of the Season 2 Tekken 8 version 2.00.03, thankfully Harada put any potential whispers of a rift between him and Arslan Ash to bed. That said, there is still evident tension between the community and the Tekken 8 development team even following their official Season 2 apology and "emergency patch" for Season 2.
