is a Japanese game producer, director, and general manager from

Bandai Namco Entertainment is a Japanese multinational video game video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Entertainment America and Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe, are respectively headquartered in ...

, best known as the former producer (now Michael Murray ) and current director of the popular

fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...

series ''

Tekken is a Japanese Media mix, media franchise centered on a series of fighting game, fighting video and arcade games developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment (formerly Namco). The franchise also includes film and print adaptations. The ...

.''

Biography

Harada was born in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

, Japan, and grew up within the

Nara Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of . Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the northwest, Wakayama P ...

region. He later moved to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, Japan. During his childhood, video games were viewed with a great deal of suspicion in Japan. His parents would not buy him a home console, and as a result often sneaked into arcade centres, where he would occasionally be discovered and dragged out. He worked hard and ended up securing a place at

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

. He has studied

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponi ...

karate (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ...

and a little bit of

taekwondo ''Taekwondo'', ''Tae Kwon Do'' or ''Taekwon-Do'' (; ko, 태권도/跆拳道 ) is a Korean form of martial arts involving punching and kicking techniques, with emphasis on head-height kicks, spinning jump kicks, and fast kicking techniques. T ...

in the past. He attended Waseda University along with '' Dead or Alive'' creator

Tomonobu Itagaki (born April 1, 1967) is a Japanese video game designer best known for creating the '' Dead or Alive'' series and also reviving the ''Ninja Gaiden'' franchise in 2004. Joining Tecmo in 1992, Itagaki produced two video game franchises that were com ...

and holds a degree in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

. During his university studies, he took a few Chinese language courses, albeit finding it very difficult. After graduating from university, he joined Namco to become a promoter. His parents were initially unhappy with his pursuit in a career with the video game industry, but have since accepted him in his work. During his first year working in the Namco arcade, Harada smashed the sales record two months in a row, and subsequently received an award of commendation from the president of Namco. Thanks to the award, Harada now had a platform to approach the management and request that they move him into game development. Towards the end of the first year at Namco, they gave him a position on the first ''Tekken'' title. He voiced Forest Law in ''

Tekken 3 is a fighting game, the third entry in the ''Tekken'' series. It was released to the arcades in 1997, before being ported for the PlayStation in 1998. The arcade version of the game was released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2 as part of ''Tekke ...

'' and ''

Tekken Tag Tournament is a spin-off of Namco's ''Tekken'' fighting game series. It is the fourth installment in the ''Tekken'' fighting game series. ''Tekken Tag Tournament'' was released as an arcade game in 1999, before becoming a North American and European launch ...

'',

Marshall Law ''Marshall Law'' is an Australian television series, which aired on the Seven Network in 2002, starring Lisa McCune and Alison Whyte as lawyers and sisters. History The show was originally conceived as a legal drama mixed with '' Ally McBea ...

from ''

'' until '' Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection'',

Yoshimitsu is a name used by three different characters who appear in the ''Tekken'' and ''Soulcalibur'' series of fighting games by Namco. The first version of Yoshimitsu made his debut in the original ''Tekken (video game), Tekken'' in 1994. The second ...

from ''Tekken'' until ''Tekken Tag Tournament'' and Kunimitsu in ''Tekken''. He is known within the fanbase for his sense of humor, such as his comical rivalry with former ''

Street Fighter , commonly abbreviated as ''SF'' or スト (''Suto''), is a Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting video and arcade games developed and published by Capcom. The first game in the series was released in 1987, followed by six ...

'' director (he was director from 1998-2020), Yoshinori Ono, jokes around the character Leo in ''

Tekken 6 is a fighting game developed and published by Bandai Namco Games. It is the sixth main and seventh installment in the ''Tekken'' franchise. It was released in arcades on November 26, 2007, as the first game running on the PlayStation 3-based ...

'' because of the ambiguous gender, and for attending EVO 2017 in a shirt that read "Don't Ask Me for Shit". Harada is also a member of Project Soul (the team behind the ''

Soulcalibur is a weapon-based fighting video game franchise by Bandai Namco Entertainment. There are seven main installments of video games and various media spin-offs, including music albums and a series of manga books. The first game in the series, '' ...

'' franchise) and makes an appearance in ''

Soulcalibur V is a fighting video game developed and released by Namco Bandai Games for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012. The sixth main installment in Namco's ''Soulcalibur'' series of fighting games, ''Soulcalibur V'' is the follow-up to ''Soulcalibur ...

'' as a bonus character. By 2019, Harada had been promoted to lead the fighting game esports division of Bandai Namco, as well as to being a general manager at the company overall.

Works

References

External links

Katsuhiro Harada
on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Harada, Katsuhiro 1970 births Japanese male video game actors Japanese male voice actors Japanese video game directors Japanese video game programmers Living people People from Osaka People from Nara Prefecture 20th-century Japanese male actors 21st-century Japanese male actors