Movelist
Command Normals:
1. Jackknife Kick - f+B
- Benimaru hops forward slightly and does a high kick
- comes out fairly slow but can evade low attacks
- cancellable
2. Flying Drill - d+D(air)
- Benimaru does a drill kick angled 45 degrees downwards
- free cancellable out of into Kuuchuu Raijin Ken qcf+P(air)
Special Moves:
1. Raijin Ken - qcf+A
- Benimaru extends his arm forward and a ball of energy surrounds his hand
2. Taikuu Raijin Ken - qcf+C
- Benimaru extends his arm diagonally upwards and a ball of energy surrounds his hand
- comes out too slow to be reliable as an anti-air, unless the opponent did a high jump from full screen away
3. Kuuchuu Raijin Ken - qcf+P(air)
- similar to his qcf+P except done in the air. Benimaru does the attack diagonally downward and it comes out fairly fast
- make Benimaru float in the air for a bit, before coming down
- if Benimaru jumps over the opponent and does this move, Benimaru will face the correct direction
- free cancellable into
4. Shinkuu Katategoma - qcb+P
- Benimaru spins around on his hands. qcb+A does 3 hits while qcb+C does 5 hits. The opponent is knocked away on the last hit
- qcb+A is best used in combos starting from strong attacks because the last hits of qcb+C do not connect. In addition, the supercancels can whiff
- supercancellable on all hits but qcb+Kx2 will whiff if supercancelled on the last hit
- free cancellable into
5. Benimaru Corridor - hcb f+P
- command throw
- hard knockdown
- gives Benimaru a lot of time to move around and setup a mixup while the opponent is still down
6. Iai Geri - qcf+K
- Benimaru does a quick knee
- if the top of the knee counterhits the opponent, a counterwire occurs
- can be followed up by Handou Sandan Geri d u+K
- free cancellable into
6a. Handou Sandan Geri - d u+K (after Iai Geri qcf+K)
- supercancellable on the first hit, although this cancel is really difficult to do, requiring speed and timing
- free cancellable out of to all free cancellable special moves except qcf+K
DMs:
1. Raikou Ken - qcfx2+A
- Benimaru extends his arm forward and an electrical ball surrounds his hand, larger than his qcf+A
2. Taikuu Raikou Ken - qcfx2+C
- same as the Raikou Ken qcfx2+A but instead he extends his arm in a 45 degree angle
- decent for anti-airing high jumping opponents as long as you reacted the moment they left the ground, but comes out too slow to punish hops
3. Gen'ei Hurricane - qcbx2+K
- Benimaru disappears and a shadow of him quickly moves across the screen. If it connects when the opponent is on the ground, he will combo the opponent
- if the first hit hits the opponent in the air, the rest of the hits won't connect
- startup invincibility
- hard knockdown (if all the hits connects)
SDMs:
1. Raikou Ken - qcfx2+AC
- same as the Raikou Ken qcfx2+A but more damage, and the ball covers a greater area
HSDM:
Raijin Ten - f db df b f+A/B/C/D
- can be done using hcfx3+P/K, instead of it's original motion of f db df b f+P/K
- can negate most projectiles an infinite number of times, except for DMs which go straight through. The location of the HSDM does matter when it comes to negating projectiles. If he puts it in front of his head, then he cannot negate ground projectiles like Iori's qcf+P. However, placing it in front of his foot will block ground projectiles as well as air projectiles like Athena's qcb+P
- unblockable
- the spark disappears if Benimaru is hit, or if the spark hits the opponent 8 times
Notes:
- cancellable normals are close A, crouch A, close B, crouch B, close C,
crouch C, close D, crouch D, jump C(command moves only), jump CD(high only)
- whiff cancellable normals are crouch C, crouch D
- CD is cancellable into specials and DMs
- far D evades low attacks
Combos
Anywhere:
1. Close D, hcb f+A - 20%
2. Crouch BB, qcf+B, d u+B - 25%
3. Close D, qcb+A(3), (S)qcfx2+A - 45%
4. Close D, qcb+A(2), (S)qcbx2+K - 45%
Counterhit:
1. Jump CD(counterhit), qcf+P(air) - 25%
2. Jump CD(counterhit), qcfx2+C - 35%
Maxmode:
1. (Already in maxmode) Jump d+D(2), (C)qcf+P(air) - 15%
2. Close D, BC, run Close D, qcfx2+AC - 55%
3. Close D, BC, run Crouch B, qcf+K d u+K(1), (C)qcb+A(3), (S)qcfx2+AC - 75%
4. (Corner) Close D, BC, run qcf+B d u+B(1), (C)qcb+A(3), (C)qcf+B d u+B(1), (C)qcb+A(3), (S)qcfx2+AC
Strategies
Benimaru's game specializes on poking. His far B is a good ranged diagonal poke that hit the opponent out of a variety of special moves, including jump attempts. His far D is very good because it also avoids various low attacks. His most useful poke is probably his far C though. It has high priority, comes out fast and its hitbox is high enough that it will stuff many jump attempts. His hop D also has very high priority and horizontal range, not to mention crossing up extremely well.
When it comes to combos, his crouch BB, qcf+B, d u+B combo is his most useful one, because his crouch B's are very good low pokes, and qcf+B is completely safe and easy to it confirm into the followup. If you land a close D, it should immediately be hit confirmed into his qcb+A supercancel combo. To combo the qcb+Kx2 DM, you must supercancel the qcb+A on the second hit. This will make the combo do a sliver of health less than if you were to supercancel after three hits into his qcfx2+A DM, but will give you the advantage of being able to mixup afterwords, since qcbx2+K is a hard knockdown attack.
Benimaru's qcbx2+K DM has very good startup invincibility and should thus be used between attack strings you can see coming. Examples of attack strings where this DM is effective would be immediately after Yashiro's hcf+AC in his Close D, f+A, hcf+AC, qcf+C attack string, or right before Yuri's qcf+A in her crouch D, qcf+P string. Sadly though, this is probably his most reliable counter move, because his anti-airs are generally very weak. He doesn't have any fast reversals that can be used as anti-air, and thus suffers from jump rushdown, especially Whip's. There are some things he can do against this though, such as jumping backwards with an immediate jump D or perhaps even going for an airthrow with jump b/f+D. Generally though, Benimaru is going to struggle against rushdown if you let them start it, so make sure you don't allow them to get in by utilizing his pokes.