Leo Kliesen

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Leo Kliesen
German

Leo Kliesen (

non-binary. Originally voiced by Veronica Taylor
, in later installments they were voiced in German by Philipp Zieschang.

Scholarly works have observed how players have reacted to the character due to their undisclosed gender status, and what this entailed in light of gender signifiers in fighting games amongst playable characters. While Leo is neither non-binary nor transgender, some have discussed how the character can be read as such. Leo has also been cited as a positive example of how to approach

LGBTQ
characters, seen as a subversion of both common tropes in games involving such characters as well as gender performance as a whole.

Conception and design

Leo was created by series producer Katsuhiro Harada for Tekken 6, who asked the development team to create a female German playable character. However, when he saw the submitted designs, he felt the character could be popular with both men and women, and focused on making a "cool" character that could be loved regardless of gender. According to game director Yuichi Yonemori, this caused some difficulties, particularly for the voice actors for Leo as they had to try and appeal to male and female players.[1] In an interview with 4Gamer, Harada stated that the character's name was a shortened version of their real name, though refused to state what it was. He further noted that while Tekken was a popular series, their characters were seldom featured in fan works. However, after the release of Tekken 6, he noticed that alongside the character's high usage rate amongst players, Leo featured significantly in fan art and doujins, something he felt made them "really valuable" to the Tekken franchise.[4]

Despite the stated ambiguity regarding Leo's gender, the artbook included the character's concept art under the "male" section.

non-binary, Harada said no, stating "Leo would not want to be categorized as such. In any case, it doesn't matter, right? Leo is Leo".[8]

Leo is a slender person with short blonde hair, and an

ahoge sticking up in the center. Their default outfit consists of a black shirt with several straps, and a red, white, and black jacket atop it. Red and black gloves cover their hands and wrists, while a red tied scarf covers their neck. A pair of jeans covers Leo's legs, with brown shinguard boots. A brown pouch hangs from the right side of their belt, while a holster is strapped to that thigh.[6] This outfit persisted until Tekken 8, where their attire was changed to a white strapped shirt, a red coat with many trailing straps, a harness around their hips and pelvis, and the removal of the scarf in place of a black cloth tied around their right arm.[9] Leo has had several alternate outfits throughout the series, including a Chinese-themed martial arts outfit. During development of Tekken 6, several other designs were considered for the character, including a painter outfit with overalls, and a similar one that would have had lion themed accessories including a tail, with stylized text of their name on their belt and left sleeve.[5]

Appearances

In games such as Tekken Tag Tournament 2 titles, Leo can equip customization options regardless of gender, such as male and female swimsuits.[4]

Introduced in Tekken 6, Leo Kliesen is a Bajiquan practitioner from Germany whose father was a world-famous

shmup mobile game Full Bokko Heroes X.[4][13][14]

In terms of gameplay, the character was intended to be easy to use by both new and experienced players,[15] utilizing short-ranged attacks as well as various elbow and shoulder strikes. Some attacks allow for a variety of combos, such as the "Rising Bei Zhe Kao", while others allow him to change to stances such as the "Jin Ji Du Li".[9] Due to Leo's gender ambiguity, the character can be customized to use both male and female-specific clothing and weapons.[16] In Tekken 8, Leo was given a "Rage Art" move, a new special attack that can be used once when the player is below a quarter health.[17] In it, they knock the opponent back before utilizing a grappling hook to swing into them with their shoulder.[9]

Outside of video games, Leo appears in the manga

Asuka Kazama.[19] After Lili's company is bought out by Jin Kazama's corporation, Leo at first attempts to quit, but after aggressive coercion on Lili's part, helps the girls attack Jin directly to try and get it back.[20]

Critical reception

The paper "An Analysis of Gender and Sexuality Performance in Digital Games" in the journal DiGeSt cited Leo as an example of how "non-binary gender performance in digital games can be subversive". Emphasizing the character's "genderqueer" appearance, the authors noted that their attacks had a "possesses the kind of grace typically associated with female characters in the series". They further praised the fact that Leo's presentation was never "problematic", something uncommon in Japanese media in their eyes, where they felt such characters were typically used mainly for comic relief.[21] The book Queerness in Play meanwhile cited Leo as an example of representing a genderless "butch" archetype, though noted beyond that the character represented stereotypes associated with their country, and argued their role in a fighting game as a playable character afforded them a "privileged relational status" as any other character in the title, downplaying their ambiguity.[22]

message boards that when discussing the character acknowledged Leo's gender ambiguity as an aspect of the character, but then questioned if the character was male or female directly afterward. Fecher observed that some players also made derogatory comments towards the character if they considered Leo to be male. He stated his observations were not meant to paint players in a negative light, but instead observe how they reacted when an anomaly such as an ambiguous character was inserted in a game series that had to that point defined clear gender identifiers amongst the cast, and hoped developers could learn from such reactions when implementing such characters in future games.[6]

Ruchi Kher Jaggi, in a paper for the Mass Communicator International Journal of Communication Studies, noted that the ambiguity regarding Leo's gender, and public assumption that they may be

GamesRadar commented briefly on the latter, stating that after Harada's statements regarding the character, Leo saw increased appearances on "dodgy fan-art sites all over the Internet" due to the implied "newly-announced femaleness".[24] Stacey Henley, in an article for VG247, acknowledged that while the character's gender status was ambiguous, they could be read as male-presenting transgender by audiences, and helped emphasize in Henley's eyes how few well-handled female-presenting transgender characters there were in major gaming titles in comparison to their counterparts.[25]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Katsuhiro Harada & Yuichi Yonemori interview, Nipponbashi Tekken Museum (4/30/2012). April 30, 2012. Event occurs at 21:30.
  2. ^ a b Putri, Tiza (March 4, 2023). "Tekken 7: 7 Leo Kliesen Facts, The Cute Yet Dangerous Fighter". Dunia Games. Archived from the original on December 3, 2023. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
  3. ^ a b Navarrete, Jarren (January 26, 2024). "Tekken 8 Voice Actors and Cast". Sirius Gaming. Archived from the original on January 31, 2024. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d "鉄拳が目指すアクションゲームの究極とは――本日稼働開始の「鉄拳TAG TOURNAMENT2」。新宿平八こと原田Pが語る格闘ゲーム，その哲学". 4Gamer (in Japanese). September 14, 2011. Archived from the original on January 13, 2020. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
  5. ^
    ASIN B003LUB7S0
    .
  6. ^
    ISSN 1547-4348
    .
  7. ^ Harada, Katsuhiro [@Harada_TEKKEN] (November 26, 2014). "それ、キャラ名も決まってない頃の開発当初は女性キャラ枠だった、が途中でコンセプト全部作り直した、という話ですよ。公式に不明ですから。 RT@negidera 何度も何度も同じ質問されてると思いますがレオの性別は不明ですよね？友達が女だと言ってきかないんです！！！回答お願いします！" (Tweet) (in Japanese) – via Twitter.
  8. ^ Harada, Katsuhiro [@Harada_TEKKEN] (October 5, 2021). "I'm no longer aware of such things, and Leo would not want to be categorized as such. In any case, it doesn't matter, right? Leo is Leo, your game character" (Tweet). Archived from the original on October 5, 2021 – via Twitter.
  9. ^ a b c Muyot, Ron (November 22, 2023). "Tekken 8 Leo gameplay trailer is a showcase of mix-up potential". One eSports. Archived from the original on November 28, 2023. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
  10. ^ "「鉄拳」シリーズ史上最高のボリューム＆クオリティ！ X360/PS3/PSP「鉄拳6」，2009年秋発売". 4gamer (in Japanese). June 30, 2009. Archived from the original on January 31, 2024. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
  11. ^ Sheehan, Gavin (November 22, 2023). "Tekken 8 Releases New Character Trailer For Leo Kliesen". Bleeding Cool. Archived from the original on February 14, 2024. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
  12. ^ "Eines der größten Prügelspiele für PS5 bekommt deutschen Kämpfer, begeistert Fans: "Darauf habe ich gewartet"". Mein MMO. November 24, 2023. Archived from the original on January 31, 2024. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
  13. ^ "「フルボッコヒーローズX」に「鉄拳」とのコラボクエスト最終章が登場". 4gamer (in Japanese). March 30, 2015. Archived from the original on July 12, 2018. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
  14. ^ Nguyen, Landon [@Arc9ine] (November 28, 2017). "Leo announced for Tekken on mobile! Here's an early look at one of his.. ermm... Leo's outfits! #tekken #tekkenmobile #leo @TEKKEN" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  15. ^ "Tekken 6". GamesRadar+. March 28, 2007. Archived from the original on January 31, 2024. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
  16. ^ Singh, Ravjit (June 28, 2020). "Some queer characters from the world of video games". The Telegraph (India). Archived from the original on December 14, 2023. Retrieved December 14, 2023.
  17. ^ Mukherjee, Rishov (January 22, 2024). "Tekken 8: Rage Art system explained". Dexerto. Archived from the original on January 31, 2024. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  18. ^ Jasper, Gavin (July 10, 2017). "The Strange History of Tekken Comics". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on January 26, 2024. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
  19. ISBN 9784088778266
    .
  20. ISBN 9784088790190
    .
  21. doi:10.11116/digest.6.2.2
    .
  22. ISBN 9783319905426
    .
  23. doi:10.5958/j.0973-967X.8.1.002
    .
  24. ^ Goulter, Tom (April 3, 2013). "Tekken Tag Tournament 2 roster – Meet all 55 fighters". GamesRadar. p. 4. Archived from the original on April 22, 2015. Retrieved May 6, 2015.
  25. ^ Henley, Stacey (July 14, 2020). "Games like The Last of Us Part 2 are giving trans men a spotlight nobody else will". VG247. Archived from the original on January 28, 2024. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
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