[P4A] Kanji vs. Yosuke: It's not like that.

[Circuitous]

...or is it?

~Axis Edit~

Yosuke is a really fast hit and run character, really really fast and he can run away and play lame against everyone.

Full screen: approach him normally, his D attacks are not threatening you can roll or 5B them, if you do find yourselves blocking then just IB the follow up and hit the persona.

Now when Yosuke approaches (yes he covers ground that fast) you have several options safest to least safe:

5B (this beats all his approach options since you don't extend your hitbox when doing it.)

those 2 are the best way with dealing with him just running in, it pops his persona too. (he doesn't need it to win, it just makes punishing you hurt a lot less.)

Mid screen: you have to deal with Kunai at this range and moonsault's here. the same anti approach options are still relevant so use them.

Close range: Yosuke uses staggers to keep you locked down, he can also back dash after running close to bait out a R-action and punish you for it.

He can punish R-action with 2C fatal, it leads to a 5-6k damage if he has meter and sometimes corner.

He can also backflip just to cross you up, R-action normally gets around this.

On offense do the usual 50/50 stuff, just take note that his R-action has a remarkable amount of active frames.

Notes:

Yosuke has a fast fall which is really hard to react to. (like all fast falls.)

Yosuke's EX kunai allows him to move or use attacks immediately after.

Yosuke's moonsault has invul on it so he can avoid some attacks with it and counter.

Yosuke can move arround while shocked with moonsault on the ground or short hop and use backflip.

If I can think of anything else I'll add it to the thread.

[Hawkingbird]

What do you guys do to keep him grounded? The Yosuke's I play always stay in the air and throw kunais at me. He's always moving so EX air throw and lightning doesn't always work. Doing 5C gets my Persona broken more often than not.

[A.X.I.S.]

Don't use 5C or 2C he is way too fast, instead use 5B or just scout him with j.B, don't even use lightning unless he's off the ground and commiting.

Air dashing towards you is not commiting.

I consider him to be like Tao, just hit him and lock him down.

J.C works against his 2B occasionally which is a shame because if you jump and he's below you he gets a free hit.

His R action beats throws too, you can delay 214D to eat it and you can also use 236B~214B to catch him since it's unblockable.

I am still trying to work out kinks for this match.

Local yosuke showed me I have to play the ground game because the air game is really bad.

Ground game is bad too since persona can give panic.

[Edge Reaper]

This match-up is more punishment heavy than others in my opinion.

Love your R action. It's probably one of the best tools in the match-up. He's a skittery little bastard, but he has to approach. His Mirage Slash in particular is pretty bad for him in this match-up as long as you remember to block low. R Action and SB 214CD all inflict shock, and while Yosuke still has some options in this state, they're not nearly as dangerous or as safe. But yeah, stay grounded this fight. There's almost no reason to try and take him in the air when all the big opportunities come from punishing his mistakes come while grounded.

[Siefer]

You can consistently punish Yosuke's DP by simply jumping over him, turning around, and doing j.C. I find this a lot more reliable than timing other punishes, and you get a nice FC combo.

If you can't jump over him (he's in the corner or something), you can just do a normal j.C on him, just have it hit him in the chest area.

[Manbig]

You can consistently punish Yosuke's DP by simply jumping over him, turning around, and doing j.C. I find this a lot more reliable than timing other punishes, and you get a nice FC combo.

If you can't jump over him (he's in the corner or something), you can just do a normal j.C on him, just have it hit him in the chest area.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. His R Action has such an awkward animation and punishment timing that I hate dealing with it offline let alone online where things don't always run so smoothly. Thanks for the info!

[Fluck]

Roll kunais on reaction.

[Omex]

Careful when trying to pressure a paralyzed Yosuke--he can short hop into moonsault (flip over slash attack) to move himself around Kanji quite easily.

Rolling is a good option if he tries to do a crossup moonsault slash as well, and DP works wonders if you KNOW he's going to try hitting... but since it's so easy to feint, just roll. I generally find rolling to be a very important tool if he starts playing the ground game, as almost all of his persona pokes/shenanigans seem to be punishable by rolling and 214Cing. Outside of that? BE PATIENT. Yosuke has the best neutral game out of everyone (Or tied with mitsuru--your call), and Kanji has just about the worst, so making a mistake can be very easy here.

236D/CD is actually... debatably useful in this matchup. Any Yosuke worth his salt will know Kanji wants to land that sucker, and it's extremely easy for him to stay away from Kanji on the ground, stay out of his reach for the duration and then j.a punish the attack once it goes off harmlessly.

Careful about pressuring his wakeup when he has meter. His Sukukaja awakening super is completely safe on awakening afaik, and his garudyne (tornado) super--even though it's 'unsafe on block' it's hard to punish for Kanji, and has invincibility on startup. If you're at neutral when he does it, you can just mash B+D to punish it if you're next to him, but he can apparently trade the first hit with B+D and OMC it after, so make sure he doesn't have 100 meter. If you need the last hit in, you can 236236A/B the recovery of it, but make sure you wait until the wind is gone, or it'll eat the chair.

Be sure to sit down and learn his blockstrings, it'll be a huge help if the opponent wants to stick to a safer ground based game against Kanji. A lot of his attacks are very tight on block and hard to punish due to the ranges. 5B is positive on block, his 5C has amazing range for poking at Kanji and can go into 2C --> dash spring for a quick poke punish. You can 214214C/D through 5C 2C as a blockstring though. Some yosukes like to go for dash in/out blockstrings after some hits, like after 5B due to the + frames on block, so be wary of that and try to teach him not to do it recklessly. Oh, and all his shite is jump/dash cancelable in sukukaja, have fun w/ that furinkazan matchup.

And, yeah, the unblockable--Always be wary of it, and be ready to either jump or roll through it, rolling preferable if he's close enough to grab. Use 5B to punish the persona afterwards if you jumped it, as it hits behind you.

[Henaki]

yosuke is most predictable when hes landing. almost no yosuke from far away is going to do any of his various air options if hes about to hit the ground from far away, this is usually the safest time to hit a d attack.

idk anything else about this matchup. most bad yosukes will expect you to block when confused so they'll attempt a mixup, not a bad time to be mashing 236236C haha

[A.X.I.S.]

Added info to first post.

[Omex]

...or is it?

Full screen: approach him normally, his D attacks are not threatening you can roll or 5B them,

Now when Yosuke approaches (yes he covers ground that fast) you have several options safest to least safe:

5C/2C (I prefer 2C since it recovers fast so if he jumps you got a shot of blocking.)

5B (this beats all his approach options since you don't extend your hitbox when doing it.)

Mid screen: you have to deal with Kunai at this range and moonsault's here. the same anti approach options are still relevant so use them.

Close range: Yosuke uses staggers to keep you locked down, he can also back dash after running close to bait out a R-action and punish you for it.

He can also backflip just to cross you up, R-action normally gets around this.

Notes:

Yosuke has a fast fall which is really hard to react to. (like all fast falls.)

Yosuke's moonsault has invul on it so he can avoid some attacks with it and counter.

rolling 5D might work fine but know he can wait for it to pause and have the persona attack you again from behind. rolling j.d is a bad idea so don't get it confused.

you got 5C/2C being safer than 5B backwards, and 5A is the safest option out of all o them--Yosuke can very easily bait a 5B and just punish you afterwards, even if he takes too long you won't have time for 5c/2c and 5B won't come out due to the 'no repeating 5B quickly' mechanic. Whiffing a 5A or a 2A and OSing it with 2A+B is a much better option, 5A has the better startup and good recovery considering, and 2a has even better recovery and is a low at the cost of 2 more startup frames. :V I'm pretty sure any solid yosuke will be able to deal with 5C/2C pokes really easily and just counterhit you for even trying.

Knowing how to deal with kunai is important, especially if he's pressuring you with dash spring--You have to roll it on reaction if you want to get through it (and you need decent spacing as well) and he can't block the entire way down. if he's whiffing the kunai on you expecting you to run at him use xD so you can punish the fall/land recovery. if he's dash springing flipping back and kunai-ing to make it 'safe', you have to immediately run forward out of blockstun and roll on reaction to the kunai then 214C him. but he has so many options off of a flip to screw with kanji it's nigh impossible to do anything.

(Attempting to reliably punish dash spring (run) --> flip, or flips in general, by the way, is pretty impossible for Kanji, the invinc on moonsault and the availability of mirage slash (teleport low) to either go for the low or just moonsault out of the startup leaves kanji pretty open, as most of his options are too slow to punish or react to any of these things. If he's getting too friendly with the moonsaults though, either doing them or empty flipping over you to make you guess when to B+D just jump up and airthrow his butt.)

edit: tl;dr clarification: yosuke's flips and general shenanigans are nigh impossible to punish for kanji because all of them have specific punishes that will get you hit if they do a different shenanigan instead. or they'll get away safely, either or.

Yosuke's staggered blockstrings and whatnot, take note 5B is +1 and +3 in sukukaja, and he can jump cancel prettymuch everything in sukukaja so yeah. make sure to practice dealing with 5C 2C and 5C staggered 2C though since you can punish it on block(?) and definitely on stagger.

and yeah yosuke's backflip can cross you up (Even in the corner, take note!) but B+D isn't a good option to deal with it though. if he flips directly into you in the corner it might be reliable but the 9 frames of invinc per flip plus his ability to make it more vertical/horizontal than normal based on button and the ability to not attack make it extremely hard to punish in any other situation. sure b+d punishes him if he's right inside you or he actually slashes, but if he doesn't there you go.

his fast fall can be used to do an iad shorter in total duration than the startup of your 2b just sayin. not correcting you just bein mad at how silly that is.

and the invuln on moonsault (9f) is more than a backdash, don't even try to 2b him since he can just flip on reaction to dodge it :C

lastly if he does kunai non ex near the end of the round, for the love of god 236236A/B to chair him and finish it, I've had the situation come up sooo often.

EDIT: oh yeah few more notes. you can b+d on reaction to garudyne if he does it on wakeup but be careful, if he's too far it won't catch.

be careful if you try to punish garudyne with a quick 236236a/b projectile to end a round, the wind eats the chair so don't do it too early.

make sure you learn how to deal with yosuke's sweep and mirage cut, especially in sukukaja--sweep is jump cancelable iirc or special cancelable (and if it isn't it probably is in sukukaja) and mirage cut is cancelable in sukukaja so don't get hit trying to punish it when he does roll.

ex run has projectile invinc so don't get hit trying to poke him with lightning lol.

his J.C wind shield jumpin will eat B+D for him and he can space it well enough where you either don't even hit the persona with B+D (iirc) or you just can't super cancel it on the persona trade to punish him too. even worse, it's always + frames so you can't just mash vs the followup either.

236CD is pretty bad to use against him in neutral because any yosuke worth his salt will keep a cool midscreen distance away from Kanji and be able to effortlessly outrun you/escape it and punish it. even in corner it's pretty hard to actually nab him with it unless you're point blank.

sukukaja is like full invinc unpunishable on activate. 5a sweep OS also becomes twice as important when he's in sukukaja since he's so goddamn fast.

what axis said about killing yosuke's persona is really important actually, if you remove his persona he can't do sukukaja or garudyne which means his wakeup is way more free and he can't do mirage cutter... completely removing all of his good damage punishes, he isn't going to get over 2k on a B+D punish anymore! he can just run the hell away while persona broken but at least you're a lot safter.

learn to deal wtih his 2B air unblock setups after his combos leave you air teching as well. tech smartly and use j.214B to move far away from him if needed as well as j.C and... well whatever. he can't cover every option 100% of the time.

lastly he likes dudes goodnight

[A.X.I.S.]

5D travels fullscreen and you can actually roll around the persona and block before the attack comes out.

Happened to me many times.

5A is not the safest option on approaching Yosuke, his attack hurtbox does not extend far enough for 5A to be too reliable.

Yosuke can actually whiff punish a 5A...it will CH and you will be mad, trust me do not try to 5A OS Yosuke you will only get hit.

2C can at least trade or just shut down the approach when done early enough.

5B is the safest because it doesn't extend your hitbox and although Yosuke can bait it, it's harder to punish than 5A.

Do not roll moonsault he can react to it with Kunai and he can teleport low and catch you as well.

Oh fun fact about dash spring:

I have been told that you can air grab to punish it, I never tried it but Yosuke players told me it is consistent.

Edit: Killing Yosuke's persona takes away some options yes but it doesn't get rid of the core problem: Mobility.

If breaking his persona killed his reversal then that would be great.

I forgot breaking characters persona is important but it doesn't feel that good in this match.

(Like it would against a character like Yu or Yukiko.)

[Ctrlaltwtf]

If he uses 5D/j5D at a distance (he likes doing this to get you pressured so he can close distance) you can easily smash it with 5C on reaction for a clean Persona card hit.

236C+D instantly counters Yosuke if he tries to do his ground rush (and you block it, obviously). Especially useful for when he is Persona broken and he might try to do the super ground rush. This is rather humorous because Yosuke's first thought upon seeing 236C+D might be "Oh darn, I'm stuck on the ground now. Well at least I can do ground rush then!"

Ground rush (I don't know what it's called, okay?) is also like Yosuke's knee-jerk reaction to getting hit by Paralyze, so plan accordingly.

If you time it right, 214D is a great way to counter his 2C in midair. He's not locked into this choice though, so consult your Yomi skills before attempting.

Apart from that, a bit of non-matchup specific advice against Yosuke that really helps is to just Evasive Action his Tentarafoo. You may not have enough time to actually grab him though, so I'd recommend just going straight for 5A if you get this.

[A.X.I.S.]

Erhem If Yosuke uses 5D/J.D you can safely 5A/5B the persona and just break the card, in the case of j.D you might as well just let it go over your head or 5B it.

Hitting persona's actually add on to your recovery since the move is staying active which gives Yosuke a punish. (Believe me he is fast enough to do this)

The move you were refering to is called Dash spring moving on.

What you say is true, Yosuke can get hit if he dash springs if you set a 236C+D trap but he can also use EX dash spring to reaction punish you setting it up.

He can also high jump and trigger it and the move will with (Yosuke's jump height is really high.)

The smarter Yosuke's will use every tool at their disposal to hit you when paralyzed including the following:

Jabbing (good normals so he can do this)

Hop moonsault (Moonsault has 9F of invul on the first flip)

Dash spring as previously mentioned

DP

Beware of all of these things.

In the case of J.2C you can actually block and grab him for doing it.

Because he can actually just use j.2D which is the delayed version and see what you are trying to react with and punish you.

If you see tantarafoo roll and 214C him.

214C is 5F

5A is 6F

If you can jab him then you can and definitely should grab him.

[Ctrlaltwtf]

I fiddled about with it in Training, I would say it's really rather hard for Yosuke to attack you if you 5C his 5D. The active frames/range on Kanji 5C are so nice that if he tries to immediately run towards you after 5D he's gonna be forced to block or get hit. Even a EX Ground Spring literally just dives straight into a FC. Even if Yosuke waits for you to hit Jiraiya with 5C, then tries to punish you with a Dash Spring or something, you're allowed to cancel off of hitting Jiraiya, so 5B/2B/DP will CH regular Dash Spring, DP will counter EX Dash Spring. There's really nothing Yosuke can do safely to attack Kanji after Kanji hits Jiraiya with 5C. Admittedly you could do 5B and recover faster, but I still prefer 5C for the huge hitbox.

As for rolling Tentarafoo, my experience is that I'm not always in grab range afterwards, so sometimes I go for a sweep instead.

I usually end up using either 5C or regular throw against Yosuke when paralyzed. 5C because fuck your stupid normals, Yosuke, and regular throw if he tries to evasive action. He's a character I don't really like getting close to on Kanji, for once.

I think you're grossly overestimating Kanji's 236C+D recovery time as well. I simply cannot see Yosuke "reaction punishing" it with EX Ground Spring, no way. He would have to predict it at best and even then Kanji will likely block it in time. However, if you're point is that 236C+D won't hit Yosuke if he does this quickly enough, I'll concede that point. You'll get put into a normal moonsault situation with Take-Mikazuchi sitting in front of both of you. Take-Mikazuchi willl lunge if Yosuke does a moonsault off EX Ground Spring but it'll just whiff. Take-Mikazuchi only seems to successfully punish Ground Spring (any kind) when Kanji is in the corner. Same story with Yu's Raging Lion I believe.

In the end, unfortunately, 236C/D or j214A/B are really not worth much (if anything) in this matchup. Yosuke's air movement is just too weird and too fast. Even if you do a 214B right at the perfect time when he uses shurikens, he'll land faster than you fall and he'll get put into a crouching state that dodges your j214. I stick to jB spam mainly.

[A.X.I.S.]

Yosuke can still roll on your 5C or just use Kunai to punish your frames.

Just use 5B to stuff it, you have no reason not to.

It's safe and recovers faster than 5C.

You can also j.214B tantarafoo too.

Just something to add.

I had several Yosuke players use EX spring raid when they saw me flash blue during 236C+D startup.

Worst part was it was a full screen punish.

Kanji's 236C+D has 27F of recovery and Yosuke EX dash spring has 19F of startup.

Definitely possible if he does it during your startup of 236C+D.

Just something to keep in mind.

I found j.214B/A+B to be useful.

There isn't a match up where the move is pointless its all about where and when you do it.

I land it on Yosuke players quite a bit.

Oh one last thing to note.

Be very careful on using slow moves on a shocked Yosuke he still has R-action as a option to trip you.

Of course you can mess with him by delaying your 5C/2C.

[Ctrlaltwtf]

If he rolls the 5C you can then 2C him. I repeat, you can cancel your 5C into stuff after hitting Jiraiya. It's no different than smacking Nirvana when fighting Carl (you can even use 5B immediately afterward to quickly counter anything, which you can't do after a 5B itself due to its weird cooldown effect). Kanji is not stuck in recovery for hitting Jiraiya. It's a matter of preference, and I prefer the 5C because hey, it looks like I'm punishable when I'm not. He might be tricked into diving me and paying the price.

As for punishing 236C+D with EX Spring, you literally have to do EX Spring before Kanji even starts. There's no way in hell you can punish him on reaction. Yomi godliness, sure, maybe. But not way can you realistically expect Yosuke to go "oh! Kanji used 236C+D! I wasn't expecting that, but I know I can use EX Spring now!" I'm literally pushing Yosuke's "do EX Spring" button in Training the instant I'm inputting 236C+D, I'm doing C+D+Playback button, and it's not even coming close to hitting Kanji before he can block. Like I said, if he calls you out with mad predictive Yomi skills sure he can get a counter on it, but he has to input it before you do. This isn't all that unusual, though, because EX Spring is a move Yosuke loves to throw out at long range when you're playing footsies. I do understand what you're trying to say, I get countered by EX Spring all the damn time when he does it randomly the moment I use anything, but there's no way I can believe he can dive fullscreen and punish Kanji, on reaction, for throwing out 236C+B.

Honestly I'm giving up on 236C+D anyway though, because it doesn't work properly unless you somehow move forward after using it. If Yosuke pressures you immediately, which he likely will, Take-Mikazuchi is too far forward to do squat (unless you're in the corner, or Yosuke is incredibly stupid). Even in the corner I'm sure Yosuke could jump or something and avoid it.

The j214B on Tentarafoo tip is nice though, I'll have to remember that.

[Omex]

in addition to what's been said, random 236C+Ds are very bad vs yosuke at a lot of spacings, as he's got quite a few options to deny it on reaction--I've set it up and had a training partner of mine just jump/superjump backwards to trigger it and iirc double jump or airdash back to dodge it and get a free punish safely with j.a after. most yosukes I've played with refuse to sit anywhere outside of that range at neutral so it's a bad idea regardless of what it counters rather situationally.

as for ex spring countering 236C+D startup, talking about frames and whatever else--the spacing is going to determine whether it punishes or not and I'm willing to bet dosh that that same good spacing for yosuke vs kanji, it can beat C+D on reaction to Kanji, so what spacing were you testing at? I'm thinking you took it to mean that yosuke would literally sit fullscreen? try it at more realistic spacings and I'm sure it'll CH kanji easy.

5D vs 5C etc etc: first, yes, if you do punish 5D with 5C, a smart yosuke is going to just kunai you from range and take a card; sure, he just lost a card as well, but yosuke's best options vs kanji aren't persona reliant, and Kanji's best vs Yosuke are. bad idea imo! If you try to cancel 5C to make yourself mildly more safe vs his followup to the persona, you're likely to be...:

1. hit by kunai anyway because 5b, 2c, 2b, 236A/236B/whatever you want to cancel into, the recovery frames are rather similar or worse than 5C's recovery. (yea, 5C 5B makes you safer? same recovery frames, you just get 5 active frames in there in case they run at you too fast. plenty punishable in a lot of ways, especially kunai.)

2. stuffed trying to 2C after 5C: first, i don't remember 100% how hitstop+active frames on trading with a persona works in this game in terms of this argument-I'm fairly sure it's in yosuke's favor, tbh. Let's say yosuke rolls on the FIRST POSSIBLE frame to dodge 5C-he's got 31 frames of recovery before 2C will become active. he's only going to get hit if he's in 2C's hitbox, as it's got a deadzone right next to kanji.

scenario 2: he rolls earlier than the perfect first frame,last possible frames for a dodge to work scenario possible and uses roll invinc to go through 5C on reaction to startup: he's 1 frame earlier than that? he recovers 1 frame sooner than 2c. 2? 2 frames before 2c hits. 5 frames? he just counterhit your 2c with 5a and CH dash spring'd your recovery. even earlier? yeeeeah.

scenario 3: pray to god he's not baiting you to do this crap and just 2cing you for 5k for trying

realistic scenarios? he's not going to roll far enough away from you that 2c is going to hit him. realistically, worst case for him he's going to block a 5C on reaction to it's huge startup and be safe from your 2C because of the horrid startup, he's just going to stop his dash out of 5C range and dash in and punish you with 5A or just dash, glide over 5C hitbox and counterhit your 5B/2C/whatever with j.a. Or just kunai you, y'know. He sets the pace of the match, he can bait 5C y'know, tho it sounds like you haven't practiced enough against good yosukes to see that?

like all of this is awful theorycrafting, you're trying to make things more risky for really really meh returns. it seems like you're making a lot of poor assumptions in the process as well to keep it appealing-why does yosuke have to dash spring punish things all the time? dash 5a/sweep are plenty fast. And 5C canceling is a really really bad option in the first place regardless of all the issues with your theory; if you want 5c so bad why not hit 5D with 5B and cancel that into 5C/2C? it's still a bad idea but it's better than what you're suggesting, since you can cancel 5B in all of the ways you can cancel 5C but with more options, it doesn't involve your persona, it's harder to bait/punish... um yeah! Hell, it'll even be good practice for/if Yosuke persona breaks you, since those on reaction 5C 5D punishes won't be available, but 5B will still be there! all of this has been assuming yosuke isn't in sukukaja as well, in which case haha yeah he's going to punish you easily just by baiting that and dashing.

btw if you insist on bolding parts of your post for emphasis i suggest keeping it on the main, valuable points of information in your posts rather than whether an imaginary, theorycrafted yosuke is dumb or not