Tag Archives: Tekken

Game News, Manga Anime

TEKKEN! CARTOON Premieres July 10 — Kazuya, Kuma and the Gang Get Adorable

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The fighters of Tekken 8 are leaving the ring — and entering your feed. Bandai Namco’s official TEKKEN! CARTOON animated shorts series premieres on 10 July 2026, free to watch on the TEKKEN YouTube channel, X (Twitter), and Instagram. If you have ever wondered what Kazuya does when he is not throwing people into volcanoes, now you are about to find out.

TEKKEN! CARTOON Official Teaser Trailer — via Bandai Namco Entertainment America on YouTube

The Tekken Fighters You Know, But Make Them Cute

TEKKEN! CARTOON is an official spin-off short-form animation series produced by Bandai Namco, directed by Sohta Ozawa at NERD, with character design and animation by Amehiro. Each episode is under a minute long — perfect for a quick fix between rounds — and the episodes focus on the daily lives of the Mishima family and their circle of fighters in a laid-back, pop-art world that is very far from the blood feuds and devil genes of the main canon.

Five characters headline the first season: Paul, Yoshimitsu, Kazuya, Alisa, and Kuma. The teaser trailer already shows the kind of absurdist, slice-of-life comedy the series is going for — the Tekken roster reimagined as superdeformed, pastel-hued versions of themselves with catchy original music. King also appears in character visuals from Bandai Namco’s press materials.

TEKKEN! CARTOON key visual showing cartoon characters alongside their realistic Tekken 8 counterparts
Image courtesy of Bandai Namco Entertainment

Where and When to Watch

TEKKEN! CARTOON launches on 10 July 2026 — that is this Thursday — and will be available globally and for free across three official Bandai Namco channels:

  • The TEKKEN YouTube channel
  • The official TEKKEN X (Twitter) account
  • The official TEKKEN Instagram

No streaming subscription needed, no region lock. Singapore and Southeast Asian Tekken fans can watch the same day as everyone else, making this one of the more accessible anime spin-offs we have seen from a major fighting game in a while. Bookmark the channels now so you do not miss the first drop.

Tekken 8 official cover art featuring Kazuya Mishima and Jin Kazama
Image courtesy of Bandai Namco Entertainment

Part of a Bigger Tekken 8 Season — Bob DLC Arrives 24 August

The CARTOON announcement did not arrive alone. Bandai Namco used EVO 2026 to reveal that Bob — the lightning-fast heavyweight from Tekken 6 — is returning as the second Season 3 DLC character. Season Pass 3 holders get early access on 19 August; general availability is 24 August 2026. Bob joins Kunimitsu as the second Season 3 addition, with further characters still to be revealed.

Whether you are here for the competitive scene, the Bob DLC, or just to watch Kuma stumble through everyday life, Tekken 8 is having a very busy second half of 2026. Follow our game news and manga and anime coverage for more updates as TEKKEN! CARTOON episodes drop.

Event

EVO Singapore 2027 Confirmed at Marina Bay Sands in January

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Fighting game fans in Singapore, mark your calendars right now. The Evolution Championship Series — the world’s longest-running and most prestigious fighting game tournament — is coming to Singapore for the very first time in January 2027, and it is bringing the Tekken World Tour Finals with it.

EVO Singapore 2027: January 15-17 at Marina Bay Sands

EVO General Manager Rick “The Hadou” Thiher confirmed the inaugural EVO Singapore 2027 from the main stage at EVO 2026 on June 28. The event is locked in for January 15-17, 2027 at Marina Bay Sands, making Singapore the first Southeast Asian city to host an official EVO event.

EVO Singapore 2027 — January 15-17 at Marina Bay Sands
Image courtesy of EVO

The announcement is part of a significant global expansion for EVO. In 2027 the organisation is rolling out regional events across five continents — Saudi Arabia, China, Morocco, Brazil and Mexico are also on the calendar — but Singapore is one of the first to have a confirmed date and venue. Locking in Marina Bay Sands immediately signals the scale EVO is aiming for here: MBS is one of Singapore’s premier convention and entertainment destinations, and has hosted major international esports and gaming events before.

Tekken World Tour 2026 Finals Run Concurrently — in Singapore

TEKKEN World Tour 2026 Global Finals Trailer — via Bandai Namco Esports on YouTube

The headliner alongside EVO Singapore is the Tekken World Tour 2026 Global Finals, running concurrently from January 14-17, 2027. This is the first time in the TWT’s history that the season-ending Finals — the event that crowns the world’s best Tekken player — will be held at an official EVO venue. Tekken 8 will have a major presence, and the Finals format guarantees the field will be the strongest possible: spots go to winners of the three Master+ events, the EWC 2026 champion, the top 16 players from the Global Leaderboard, the top 15 from Regional Leaderboards, and one Last Chance Qualifier slot.

Tekken has always had a massive following in Southeast Asia, and the prospect of watching the TWT Finals live at Marina Bay Sands — with the region’s own top players competing for a world title on home soil — is exactly the kind of moment the Singapore FGC scene has been waiting for.

What Games Will Be at EVO Singapore 2027?

EVO 2026 Las Vegas lineup featuring Tekken 8, Street Fighter 6, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising and more
Image courtesy of EVO

EVO has not yet announced the full game lineup for the Singapore event. Tekken 8 is confirmed given the TWT Finals. Beyond that, EVO 2026 in Las Vegas featured Street Fighter 6, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes, Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising and Rivals of Aether II — and some of those titles will almost certainly appear on the Singapore bracket too, though nothing is official yet.

Tekken 8 — the confirmed centrepiece of EVO Singapore 2027's Tekken World Tour Finals
Image courtesy of Bandai Namco

EVO 2026 also packed in a run of Tekken 8 news SG fans should know about: Bob (the Onigiri Savior himself) joins as Season 3 DLC with early access from August 19 and general availability from August 24, 2026. There is plenty of reason to brush up on the game well before January.

Tickets, Registration and How to Stay Updated

Ticket sales and player registration details for EVO Singapore 2027 have not yet been released. The official site evosingapore.gg is live, and PlayStation Singapore’s EVO page is another place to watch for updates. Tekken World Tour bracket registration details will appear at tekkenworldtour.com when they open.

EVO Japan 2027 is also confirmed for April 30 – May 2 at Tokyo Big Sight, giving the region back-to-back major FGC events in the first five months of the year. For the Singapore FGC — a community that has been grinding locals, travelling to overseas brackets and building grassroots scenes for years — having a world-championship event with the Tekken World Tour Finals at Marina Bay Sands in January is the biggest home-turf announcement in a very long time.

Game News

TEKKEN! CARTOON Revealed at EVO 2026 — Chibi Kuma Is Here

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Bandai Namco dropped a surprise at EVO 2026 last night: TEKKEN! CARTOON, a brand-new animated project that trades the franchise’s signature grittiness for chibi versions of Kuma, Kazuya, and the rest of the gang. The official teaser is out now — and it looks nothing like what most Tekken fans expected.

TEKKEN! CARTOON Official Teaser Trailer — via Bandai Namco Entertainment America on YouTube

What Is TEKKEN! CARTOON?

Revealed at EVO 2026 in Las Vegas on 26 June 2026, TEKKEN! CARTOON is a newly announced animated project from Bandai Namco Entertainment. The teaser puts familiar faces — Kuma the bear, the masked warrior Yoshimitsu, android Alisa, martial artist Paul Phoenix, and the perennial villain Kazuya Mishima — in a superdeformed, brightly coloured style that leans hard into comedy.

The chibi TEKKEN! CARTOON game case shelved beside real TEKKEN 8 cases in the EVO 2026 teaser
Still from the official TEKKEN! CARTOON teaser — Bandai Namco Entertainment

It’s a sharp change of direction from Tekken: Bloodlines, the 2022 Netflix anime that adapted the story of Tekken 3 with a dark, dramatic edge. TEKKEN! CARTOON is pointing in the opposite direction entirely — think animated shorts in the vein of game-studio chibi spinoffs, rather than a prestige series. Given how distinctive the Tekken cast is across three decades of games, there’s a lot of comedic mileage in that aesthetic.

Who’s Making It?

Bandai Namco has assembled a dedicated team for the project:

  • Director: Sohta Ozawa (NERD studio)
  • Character Designer & Animator: Amehiro
  • Director of Photography: Yuta Kakei
  • Creative Directors/Planners: Syohei Hashimoto and Hironori Hasegawa
  • Brand Supervisor: TEKKEN Project
A horned, winged Devil Mishima firing a laser in TEKKEN! CARTOON's chibi art style
Still from the official TEKKEN! CARTOON teaser — Bandai Namco Entertainment

Amehiro handling both character design and animation suggests a tight, focused production rather than a large-scale studio effort. The superdeformed style plays to each character’s strengths: Kuma’s sheer bulk, Yoshimitsu’s erratic energy, and Kazuya’s perpetual scowl all translate naturally into visual comedy. Whether this expands into a full series or stays as a run of animated shorts is still to be announced.

Release Date and Platform: Nothing Confirmed Yet

As of the EVO 2026 announcement, there is no confirmed release date, platform, or distribution partner. As reported by Push Square, Bandai Namco’s official statement reads: “Your favourite #TEKKEN characters are coming out of the ring and into the cartoon world. Keep an eye on our socials for more news about the TEKKEN! CARTOON.”

More details are expected at upcoming events later in 2026. For now, Bandai Namco’s official social channels are the best place to watch for updates.

Tekken in Singapore — A Ready-Made Audience

Tekken 8 has been a staple of Singapore’s local FGC scene since launch, with a dedicated player base spanning community meetups and competitive online play. The timing of the reveal — right in the middle of EVO 2026, where Tekken 8 is one of the main featured titles — puts it in front of the global fighting game community at peak attention.

Kuma the bear in TEKKEN! CARTOON's chibi art style
Still from the official TEKKEN! CARTOON teaser — Bandai Namco Entertainment

After Tekken: Bloodlines found an audience on Netflix, there is a reasonable precedent for Bandai Namco’s Tekken animated content reaching streaming platforms that are accessible here. Nothing is confirmed — but when more details drop, we’ll have them. Watch this space.

Event, Singapore Gaming Scene

EVO 2026 Starts Tomorrow — What Singapore FGC Fans Need to Know

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The world’s most storied fighting game championship opens tomorrow — and for Singapore’s FGC, this year’s EVO carries bigger stakes than usual. EVO 2026 runs 26–28 June at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and alongside the enormous on-stage moments, we now have official confirmation: EVO Singapore is coming in early 2027.

Whether you are planning to stay up for the livestream or just want to track the reveals, here is what you need to know.

EVO 2026 crowd celebrating at the Las Vegas Convention Center
Image courtesy of EVO

The Lineup: 12 Games Across Three Days

EVO 2026 features 12 titles in open-bracket competition, with the six highest-entered games earning arena stage spots on Finals day. The full roster:

  • Street Fighter 6
  • Tekken 8
  • 2XKO
  • Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
  • Guilty Gear -Strive-
  • Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
  • Rivals of Aether II
  • Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes
  • BlazBlue: Central Fiction
  • Invincible VS
  • Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage
  • Vampire Savior

A total of 5,774 unique competitors from 50 countries are attending — with Street Fighter 6 leading all entries for a fourth straight year at 2,414, followed by Tekken 8 at 1,354 and the newly launched 2XKO at an impressive 1,080. Rivals of Aether II more than doubled its 2025 entry count, the biggest growth story of the week.

The 2026 Evo Announcement Show — via Evo Events on YouTube

Confirmed Announcements to Watch For

Publishers regularly bank their biggest DLC and new-character reveals at EVO for maximum audience. This year, several are already locked in.

BlazBlue: Central Fiction — First New Character in Nine Years

BlazBlue: Central Fiction‘s first new playable character since 2017 has been confirmed for a reveal at EVO 2026. Nine years between new characters in any fighting game is a long time; for the BlazBlue community this is genuinely historic. Who it is and when they drop: we find out this weekend.

Guilty Gear -Strive- — Robo-Ky Incoming

Arc System Works will premiere the Robo-Ky gameplay trailer at EVO 2026 as part of the Blazing Pass Duel 2 update (Ennui Protocol), which launches on 2 July. If you main anything in GGS, the Sunday showcase is must-watch.

Tekken 8 — Bob Makes His Grand Entrance

Tekken 8 fight at EVO 2026 — Steve Fox vs Law
Image courtesy of Bandai Namco Entertainment

Bandai Namco is using EVO to drop the Bob gameplay trailer, with his release date expected alongside it. Bob is the next confirmed DLC character for Tekken 8. With T8 placing second in total entries at 1,354, this reveal will land in front of one of the biggest audiences of the year.

Street Fighter 6 — Capcom Saving Something Big for Sunday

Street Fighter 6 Metro City World Tour environment
Image courtesy of Capcom

Capcom has confirmed it is withholding its Street Fighter 6 news for the Sunday Top 8 — meaning whatever the announcement is, it drops at peak viewership, during the finals of the game that leads all EVO entries and carries the tournament’s top prize pool of USD $40,000. Speculation is running hot; we will report the moment it breaks.

Schedule and How to Watch

All pools run Friday and Saturday. Finals are split:

  • Saturday 27 June: Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, Guilty Gear -Strive-, Rivals of Aether II
  • Sunday 28 June: 2XKO, Tekken 8, Street Fighter 6, Vampire Savior, Invincible VS, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
EVO arena stage with player celebrated on the big screen
Image courtesy of EVO

Ten simultaneous streams run across the weekend on EVO’s Twitch and YouTube channels. At GMT+8, Sunday’s SF6 and Tekken 8 Top 8s will fall in the early hours of Monday 29 June — set an alarm or catch the VOD.

EVO Singapore 2027 — It Is Happening

The headline for the local FGC: EVO Singapore has been officially confirmed as part of EVO’s global expansion, now targeting early 2027 after being pushed back from an originally planned 2026 window. No venue or date is pinned down yet, but the commitment is firm.

Singapore joins Brazil, Morocco, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and China in EVO’s 2027 international expansion — and the fit makes sense. Singapore’s competitive FGC scene has been growing steadily: SEA Major returned, and the city hosted a Capcom Pro Tour offline event at Gamescom Asia. Having an official EVO event here means local players can earn international ranking points without the cost of flying to Las Vegas, and it raises the profile of the region’s entire competitive scene.

Details on EVO Singapore 2027 — venue, date, and game lineup — are expected over the coming months. We will keep you updated as they land. In the meantime, for more gaming events and esports coverage, head to our events section.

Arcade Archives 2 TEKKEN key art — Image courtesy of Hamster Corporation
Game News, Retro Gaming

Arcade Archives 2 TEKKEN Launches Tomorrow — The 1994 Arcade Original Comes to Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox Series

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Hamster Corporation is kicking off its new Arcade Archives 2 sub-series with one of fighting game history’s most significant titles: the original 1994 Namco Tekken. The arcade ROM drops tomorrow, 25 June, on Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, priced at ¥1,800 — roughly SGD $17–18.

The Arcade Original, Properly Preserved

Before the PlayStation home port, before the franchise sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, Tekken was a Namco System 11 arcade cabinet. Eight fighters, digitised backgrounds, and juggle physics that shaped an entire generation of FGC muscle memory. Hamster’s release preserves that ROM without modification — no balance patches, no additional characters, nothing that wasn’t in the original cabinet.

Arcade Archives 2 TEKKEN gameplay screenshot — Image courtesy of Hamster Corporation
Image courtesy of Hamster Corporation

What separates this from a barebones ROM dump is the new Arcade Archives 2 platform Hamster has built around it. The updated framework — launching with this title — adds Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) output for tear-free playback on compatible displays, a dedicated Time Attack mode, a rewind function for frame-perfect practice sessions, and global online leaderboards. It is, to date, the most feature-complete official release the original arcade Tekken has ever received.

Why It Matters for the SG Fighting Game Scene

The original Tekken arrived in Southeast Asian arcades at a moment when 3D fighting was still a novelty. Singapore game centres ran it alongside Virtua Fighter 2, and the character archetypes and combo logic that veterans first learned on that hardware never fully left the series. The sidestepping system wouldn’t appear until Tekken 3, but the core damage economy and the juggle-into-wall-oki philosophy that defines modern Tekken competitive play were already visible in the 1994 build.

For anyone active in today’s local Tekken 8 scene, this is a genuinely useful historical reference — and at ~$17–18, a far more accessible one than sourcing original hardware. It also lands at a pointed moment: Tekken 8 just confirmed its Street Fighter 6 Chun-Li crossover DLC last month, meaning players can now run the series’ entire 32-year arc — from System 11 cabinet to rollback-netcode PlayStation 5 fighter — without leaving digital storefronts.

Arcade Archives 2 TEKKEN key art — Image courtesy of Hamster Corporation
Image courtesy of Hamster Corporation

Official Trailer

At a Glance

  • Title: Arcade Archives 2 TEKKEN
  • Developer / Publisher: Hamster Corporation (original arcade by Namco)
  • Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
  • Release date: 25 June 2026
  • Price: ¥1,800 (approx. SGD $17–18)
  • New series features: VRR output, Time Attack, rewind, online leaderboards

No Singapore eShop or PSN regional pricing has been confirmed at time of writing. The title publishes digitally tomorrow — check your regional storefront for local pricing.

Source: 4Gamer.net