#anti kunimitsu ii

[authenssion]

Despite T7 Kuni's success, she goes in a bad direction for the legacy outside of being the most fleshed out appearance and the original Kunimitsu should be brought back without repeating her daughter's mistakes

T7 Kuni has a lot more tools to help her in both online and competitive compared to TTT2 Kuni like her new 2,2 extentions, projectile, stance lows beyond MUS 2 and BT d4 and an uf1+2 that doesn't require Yoshi for damage to name a few but is this enough to consider her a success?

T7 Kuni holds 40 more moves, better movement, a more cohesive 50/50 identity and better viability at all levels. With all of this considered and the fact that T7 is the highest selling game, high popularity would be expected for a character designed for such mass appeal in mind.

Original Kuni was consistently low tier and bare bones until TTT2 where she was only bare bones in the sense that she had to work hard to get in. Having only 2 special tag partners (wiki says Jaycee but I don't know the nature of the interaction) didn't help her popularity either. Mothermitsu has some really generic tools like sure 1, b1, df1 and df2 were great moves but their animations are a bit lackluster. Her df4 has great frames and is an excellent keep out tool however this move is shared with Yoshi, not helpful when trying to make a name for herself and come on, there's enough Yoshimitsu for 2 move sets and you're still doing this for his counterpart? Whatever her true pick rate in TTT2 was, she was judged too harshly considering her constant setbacks like her low tier placements (pre-TTT2) or overall lack of iconography. She didn't need to pass down her legacy, she deserved refinement. What pick rate even warrants replacing?

TTT2 Kuni is fast (outside of CH tools), proficient in rushdown, poking and evasion. 10 frame jab and 10 in SET, 13 frame df1 (her version is -1 on block), SET 2 you can buffer for extra 8 frames, some evasive options like in her BT and she can cancel SET. But her most iconic aspect is her combo game. So much versatility and expression. Style, but also substance. Even with 40 less moves TTT2 Kuni still had more interesting and cooler combos imo. She also shined as a tag partner which isn't a fair comparison I know but they could've incorporated her SET cancels better in combos. A highlight for me would be her 1 dash 1 (I prefer f+1 instead of 1) which sounds simple on paper but requires precise spacing. Good for wall carry, can do it after floor break and it's optimal for df1,3. I saw a video doing 3 of them after CH ff3+4,2,4 but lost it.

But wait a minute, why does this weapon wielding character have so few weapon moves after losing some from T2/TTT1 already? An implementation of unique iconography and more difficulty would help take Kunimitsu's already epic combo game to the next level. Nina's a well designed character (outside of broken balance issues like her interactions with Lars) and has an excellent combo game on top of that. She also has something difficult, iconic and unique to her: iWR+1 butterfly loop. Her cancels were also cool. She does this without a weapon and yet neither Kunimitsu uses their weapon in an interesting way like that. Not just tech but I've always felt both the mother and the daughter lacked iconic moves like Yoshi has. T7 is more of a failure for this because she had more moves and love.

As fleshed out as T7 Kuni is, her combos are somehow less interesting to me. Sure she's flashy but she's also mundane in other areas too like SET 4 and BT 1,3 SET also imagine having better movement but still requiring less spacing precision in combos overall. Not all dashes are the same in combos, if you disagree... go boot up TTT2 and do Michelle's ff3 d1+2 combo.

Now I'm going to do a quick review of her stances, starting with...

Musashi TTT2: FF3 T7: UF3+4

TTT2 Kuni's version has more damage at the expense of being slower which is a fair trade but why does an already evasive stance need a teleport on MUS 2? It's just a hard read move lol

Dust Ton/Doton Tag Only: D1+2

Dust Ton/Doton is my favorite Kuni stance, it started out as just an evasive read move. Severely underrated, I wish it was applicable to combos beyond a niche tag filler and a wall ender but I wouldn't want it to be too broken. I understand why they didn't give it to T7 Kuni. Doton would've been too much evasion for T7 Kuni on top of everything else. It doesn't have overlap with AOP (same input lmao) btw, there's room for both and AOP is Xiaoyu's main stance like Kuni's SET but with way more expression and transitions plus Kuni can't hold any of her stances and Xiaoyu has more ways to go in and out of AOP.

Katon T7 Only: 1+2

Replacement Kuni's replacement stance Katon compliments her 50/50 focus very well with a lot more options, but pivots to evasion as well making it very valuable overall. It fits her new direction but it's what I was worried would happen to doton, they gave it way too much. I mentioned AOP earlier because Doton's like a hybrid of AOP and Taki's Possession stance, perhaps out of fear of seeming too similar to Xiaoyu they shifted to Katon but ironically this makes T7 Kuni fail their goal of creating a unique ninja because it leans closer to possession. T7 Kuni is also a bit more string based than TTT2 and Taki is a string based character.

Urakarin (BT): B3+4

BT in TTT2 was fine, I wouldn't mind additions if they were actually cool or interesting like 3, d+4 or 3+4 but Kunimitsu II offers nothing of the sort... why should this unnecessary replacement character should return over Kunimitsu I again or even exist in any mainline roster?

Setsunagake F+3

Finally we move on to their main stance Setsunagake, pretty much the same issue with BT but less interesting for both outside of combo usage. F+4 is a pretty decent move and a common opener to SET stance. Chakra drop is awesome btw, go flat damage.Putting Kuni's SET cancels on the move list officially just to not incorporate them into her combos like OG Kunimitsu had in her tag combos and adding frost slide, her most useful low to do after a SET cancel imo (though db3 is faster but shared animation with Yoshi) is just beyond lame. We get it, you want to improve the mixup game. I'm not a fan of this stance, we already have characters like Lars and Shaheen doing something similar in T8 so does Kuni really need this as a main stance? To what end? I thought the goal was to create a UNIQUE ninja, as least doton is a creative spin on AOP.

The most egregious non-stance change T7 did for Kuni was Growling Jewel (f3+4). With OG Kuni it was such a good move. It was a high homing, a CH launcher, a wall break and most importantly a combo filler. T7 ruined that last part and made the animation look weird as a bonus. It was such a stylish combo move and it required good spacing and/or timing. It's without a doubt her most iconic non-stance, non-weapon and non-fire move and T7 butchered it with an easier CH combo route as well... why?

Making a masked character hand down their legacy just to have that character's mask be optional is just rubbing salt on the wound. It was bad enough they exposed part of OG Kuni's face on DEFAULT oufits imagine if they did this with other masked characters. Double standards much? That is another reason I can't accept this replacement, you broke allure of using a masked character and for what? A new audience? Then why not just make a new character that doesn't try to destroy and overwrite an existing character's legacy?

T7 Kuni feels like an overreaction to TTT2 Kuni's weaknesses the way aspects of her identity get overloaded like how T7 Zafina was an overreaction to T6/TTT2 Zafina leading to a weaker identity. Oh she's a rushdown character? Let's give her good approach tools. Oh she's a poking character? Let's give her hard to deal with strings. Original Kunimitsu had such bad lows so they made her daughter more of a mixup character, however what they failed to consider was that OG Kuni had an evasive playstyle so they should've toned that down in exchange beyond removing doton to not overshadow the original any further. Now she's a rushdown, poking and mixup character with evasion, better movement, a good projectile and viability at all levels of play... no wonder she's more popular than TTT2 Kuni.

If you prefer Kuni 2 that's one thing but consider Kuni 1's setbacks before judging her too harshly about how underdeveloped and unpopular she is, I just can't look past those 2 aspects yet I see it get ignored or boasted about like it's a completely fair comparison to make. TTT2 Kunimitsu was punished too severely, forget about T7 Kunimitsu and go back to the drafting stage, suggesting to replace a character that has been so wronged is so messed up. She was failed and has repeatedly been failed throughout the entire series and you just give up on her like that? I'm hoping this ends up as a Law situation, Kunimitsu created her own archetype and deserves to be the one to see it through.

I'd like to see T8 OG Kuni lean away from a 50/50 playstyle, having bad lows is fine just improve from TTT2 at least. Give her evasive moves that require mastery and hard reads to pull off effectively but more practical than ub3. The more unique iconography the better. I want T8 Kuni to have the coolest combo game in Tekken 8 with style, substance, high execution requirements, precise spacing, tricky inputs (beyond qcf and ewgf), blue sparks, cancels and more creative uses of stances. Bring back her fire stuff and remove T7's "Katon" which steals the name of OG Kuni's DB1+2 by the way. Refine her hitboxes and i12 2 punish. Give her a unique identity not just in the game but across most/all fighting game ninjas. Putting a 3D ninja like Taki alongside her would help to keep as a reminder of what's been done before so OG Kunimitsu can stand out as much as possible. Don't be afraid of how weak she was in TTT2 to the point where you have to overcompensate. I don't like T7's direction, keep the mistakes of the daughter Kunimitsu with her in T7 and bring back the mother Kunimitsu. She deserves to keep her own legacy and a fair chance for once.