Yatagarasu/Kou

Kou

Introduction

Kou is the traditional shoto character. His playstyle is very straight-forward and effective with good pokes and strong damage output. Compared to Crow, he lacks a meterless reversal and can't force pressure as easily, but he has the ability to deal high damage in footsies whenever meter is available.

Pros:

• strong footsie game
• low execution requirement
• meterless multi-hitting DP for anti-airs

Cons:

• no meterless reversal
• poor ability to convert off BL counters

Move List

Normal Moves

Move: Startup/Active - Hit Adv/Block Adv

LP: 6F/4F - +4F/+3F Standard jab. Chains to c.LP, hits Hanzo, Jyu and Chadha crouching

cr.LP: 5F/3F - +4F/+3F Crouching jab. Hits mid. chains to all light normals.

j.LP: 5F/11F - ?/? Randy Savage its not but, its an elbow. Stays out a long time.

LK - 8F/4F - +3/+2 Mid-hitting toe kick. Max damage light normal.

cr.LK: 5F/2F - +1F/±0 Hits low, decent range.

j.LK: 7F/11F - ?/? Jumping knee. Good downward hitbox.

HP: 10F/4F - +4F/+1 Longer range than it looks. Hits crouchers.

cl.HP: 7F/6F - +2F/-1F Upwards hitting punch that may stop some crossups. Faster startup and slightly more damaging than cl.HK, but less frame advantage.

cr.HP: 9F/3~4F - -1F/-4F Good anti-air normal. Max damage normal. Slightly slower than Crow's.

j.HP 9F/4F - ?/? Awkward superman punch. Highest damage jump in.

HK: 8F/4F - +2F/-1 Upwards roundhouse kick. Hits crouchers.

cl.HK: 9F/10F - +3F/±0F Close knee kick with an unusually large amount of active frames as well as a high activation range. Strong meaty attack.

cr.HK: 9F/3F - -1F/-3F Low forward yo. Special cancellable, super cancellable. You're going to get real familiar with this normal.

j.HK: 7F/5F - ?/? Downwards jump kick. Crosses up.

Command Normals

LP+LK (Overhead) Short-hop j.LP. The box is out for a lot longer than it seems, and extends a bit farther down as well.

HP+HK (Unblockable) A slower f.st.HP. Despite low speed, has decent range.

3HK Sweep. Similar to Ryu's in that it extends out moderately far but recovers slowly.

6LP A standing overhead attack. Generally worse than LP+HP due to the fact that Kou can't combo after it, but may catch an unaware opponent more easily thanks to its lower visibility.

6HK A hop kick. The recovery frames may be canceled into a special move for a combo. +1 on block.

Special Moves

Ateyumi – Kagebi 236P Kou's fireball. Worse recovery than Crow's, but faster travel speed. LP: Lowest travel speed. Recovery slightly faster than the HP version. HP: Medium travel speed. EX: Two hits, fastest travel speed, significantly lower recovery and knocks down on hit.

Manchuin – Toriuchi 623P Standard anti-air uppercut. LP: Invincible to lows on startup. Single hit. HP: 3 hit DP. Fully invincible until the active frames at which point it has upper-body invincibility. EX: Fully invincible startup. 4 hits and fastest startup at 3 frames.

Himezori – Yuzuruha 214K A series of kicks similar to the standard Hurricane Kick from SF. The normal versions whiff on crouching characters, but the first hit forces standing and may be super-canceled. LK: Negative on block and hit, and won't combo from anything under any reasonable circumstances. Useless. HK: 5 hits. Knocks down on hit so it could see some situational use. EX: 6 hits. Hits crouching characters and combos from cr.LK. Gives Kou more time to set up a wakeup game compared to ending a combo with DP.

Supers

Issha Zetsumei - Onibi 236236P A multi-hit fireball that knocks down the opponent. Very short startup invincibility so it gets counter-hit easily by meatier attacks. Easy to connect in all kinds of circumstances.

Kasanejumonji - Kijimuna 214214P First hit causes guard break for a low damaging 2-hit combo. Has some invincibility, but not enough to cover the entire startup. Abysmal range so its prone to whiffing outside of point blank range. Overall far inferior to Crow's version of this. Avoid using.

Combos

0 bars:

• cr.LK, cr.LK xx 623HP
• 6HK xx 623HP
• UOH, cl.HK xx 623HP
• (meaty) cl.HK, cl.HK xx 623HP
• cr.HK xx 214HK
  • only works against standing opponents
• (aerial BLC), dash forward, 623HP
• (corner only) (aerial BLC), 623LP, 623LP, 623HP

0.5 bars:

• cr.LK, cr.LK xx EX 214K
  • gives Kou more time to set up oki than most of his other combos.
• cl.HK xx EX 236P
  • works from max range

1 bar:

• st.HP xx 236236P
  • Scary footsie tool. Also Kou's highest damage punisher.
• cr.HP xx 623HP xx 236236P
  • Lower damage than the previous combo, but more meter efficient.
• cr.HK xx 236HP xx 236236P
  • doesn't work from max range
• (air reset) 236236P
  • not a real combo, but safe even when fully parried.

1.5 bars:

• EX 236P, 236236P
• EX 214K, 236236P