Sho vs. Akihiko

[OmegaDivider]

Post anything relevant to the Akihiko matchup in here! 

 

 

Neutral

 

 

 

 

 

Offense

 

 

 

 

 

Defense

 

 

 

 

Utilizing your tools

[Luke Mayo]

B, C, jump B, C does not work on him, so certain combos are going to be unavailable

[SabataSP]

There really isn't much you should be doing against Akihiko but 4a is hard for him to deal with and theres no way he can beat your j.b. Just play smart. This match up is in Sho's favor.

[R4KID]

This match-up can be very difficult if you don't know how to space yourself against Akihiko.

However if you do know how to play this match-up it can be so difficult for the Akihiko player to do anything. This match-up at worst can be a 7-3 in Sho's favour. Though my personal opinion is a 6.5-3.5.

- Akihiko - (His options)

2B: Akihiko has one of the best 2Bs in the game but it doesn't mean you can't beat it. If you jump in and try to use j.B and he tries to 2B, use j.2C. 
A move which is an extremely good anti-anti-air.

Closeout Blow (Akihiko's Parry): You must be very careful with you approach against Akihiko. Specifically when trying to approach with Sho's Survival Knife, Akihiko can easily parry Sho's Knife and if you are close to the corner Akihiko can just parry and use his Corkscrew B to put you back into the corner. This then will allow him to continue his pressure, so be careful with your approaches with Survival Knife.
(Something I tend to do is when I throw out Survival Knife I try to jump around to see if the opponent will parry or not.

You can also bait the parry on ground or in air:
Ground: If you are on ground you can throw the Survival Knife out (A OR B) and then teleport behind with SB High Speed Movement.
Air: You can wait to see if they will parry and then approach with a j.B.

j.A: If Akihiko tries to aerial approach you with this and you are close, it is going to wreck your j.B as an air-to-air. If done quick enough the best you're going to get is a counter-hit but other than that there really isn't much you can do other than to press j.B before his j.A. (I might be wrong, there might be a way to beat it but I haven't really found a method to beat his j.A, so if anyone does find one, be sure to let us know)

j.C: If the Akihiko player is really getting j.C happy you can beat it. Some Akihiko players however try to either space it so they are outside of the range of being hit during the recovery or they make it safe by OMCing. You can easily beat this by using Sho's underrated 5D. This will force the Akihiko player to go into the recovery of his j.C as he is unable to One More. This is just a quicker option rather than evading as this allows you to recover just a little bit quicker. Unfortunately you cannot go for a crouch confirm as Akihiko is only in CH state when he is in the air, much like Labrys when she is doing her Beast super.

(Important Fact) Akihiko's Airborne hurt-box: Now this might sound a little dumb but Akihiko's hurt-box is a little dumb (OTG confirms still work but the 2nd hit of the sweep sometimes whiffs). Rich coming from Sho I know xD but it can be a huge + for him because if you try to do Sweep > 236A/B during an OTG combo and it whiffs? You're getting fatal'd or at minimal losing about 3K of your health just from a basic punish. I guess I could say the same for Sho as some of Akihiko's combos are harder on Sho due to his hurt-box but it isn't as bad because Akihiko won't get punished as bad. Though even if he does it still isn't that bad seeing as he has 10,000 health points, we only have 8,500 which might seem like a lot but 3K is over a quarter of your health gone from a single punish. So learn your punishes/combos and make sure that the 2nd hit of the sweep doesn't whiff!

- Sho - (Your tools and options)

Spacing in this match-up is very crucial against Akihiko as range is something he struggles with. However this is something we Sho players can easily deal with, with our huge arc-type hit-boxes =P.

5A: Sho's 5A can be a very good approach against Akihiko. Though his 5A start-up is ridiculous and ours is very slow, it can still out-range Akihiko with the right spacing. This means that Akihiko is going to have to respect Sho's 5A. What THIS then means is that we have tons of options with Sho's 5A, I'll list a couple of options:

Using Sho's Gatling 5A to go for an overhead mix-up.
Using Sho's 5A for a teleport cross-up.
Using Sho's 5A and then back-dashing as a safe option to bait things like: throw or DP.

j.B: Sho's j.B out-ranges a ton of Akihiko's approaches and normals:

j.6B > j.C forces Akihiko to block if he is standing as is somewhat tall, this can then lead into a block-string or a mix-up.
Neutral j.B beats Akihiko's IAD j.B clean as shit. You'll see a lot of Akihikos trying to approach this, using a neutral j.B is a very good way to beat it.

j.C: Akihiko players tend to use Akihiko's j.C quite a lot in this match-up as it really is the only normal he has with incredible range. If the player does try to use j.C it can be beaten (if done quick enough) by a j.C of our own. You're then free to do a CH confirm.

Burst: Only use this if its going to win you the round, otherwise keep it as Akihiko's damage is crazy and Sho doesn't have that much health. Your burst is incredibly important in this match-up so use it wisely.

I hope this helps, apologies if I missed anything.