When I say counter poke up close, I mean when he’s put a step behind rather than simply gotten hit by a lucky jab. I would call his approach more human, in the sense that it moves without fidgeting. Whereas Rikimaru spends his time looking for the parry punish, and uses Chun no less so it requires much less of the skill that Kuroda displays. I can’t imagine Rikimaru could do well with any non shoto, chun, yun characters but that’s just my opinion.
Also, what’s up igloobob spending so much time talking with UK players. I don’t think he notices but it really shows.
several Japanese players have said MOV is the best. several have also said Rikimaru is the best etc. I doubt there’s universal thought on the subject anywhere. it’s just one guy expressing his opinion in an interview.
my guess is there’s not real argument whether Rikimaru is really strong, it’s just a feeling people have that if it’s Chun, it just doesn’t count as much. Sure Rikimaru could beat everyone, but he plays Chun. it’s silly.
Kuroda doesn’t always win, but I’d wager that he’s pushed the game farther than anyone else has. He just tries shit, if it works, great, if it doesn’t, the rest of the community learns because he tried it and he’s great enough that he tried it and gave no fucks if it worked or not.
And that said, I’ve watched tons of his videos and I STILL have no idea who his main is!
DoctaMario posted before me, but I’d like to ask as well - does anyone know which character Kuroda mains, or at least focuses most of his time on?
I’ve sometimes seen it referred to as Gouki, especially when Kuroda was rumoured to have been playing on GGPO under the name HoshinoAki (the player pretty much only used Gouki).
Somebody should conduct a poll of the top players in Japan (maybe the top 16 teams in the next Co-op Cup) and ask them who they think the best player of 3rd is.
I dunno, his Gouki’s pretty legendary but looking at SBO performances it wasn’t even his strongest year. In 2010 he’d go first with Ken and just destroy people; OCV’d two teams that year including KO’s. In 2009 with Q (and with only one other teammate) he didn’t let MOV play at all until Momochi’s Makoto finally stopped them both just outside of Grand Finals. That year was an unbelievable display, watching Kuroda take out players like Nuki and Yakkun at such a disadvantage…
i think kuroda was trying to show off with gouki even while at sbo. you dont attempt to beat throws with instant air sa1 vs rikimaru unless you’re showing off. but yeah his 2009 performance is just fuckin out of this world. no matter how many times i watch him vs nuki and yakkun im in awe of his control
in 2009 Kuroda/MOV were also last chance qualifiers… where Kuroda also OCV’d all the teams. so 6/7 OCV in a row
Kuroda’s 2008 SBO performance (the Gouki year) was good but not excellent… after the awesome qualifiers / pre-tougeki footage at least. He lost against every Chun he faced, and frankly did unexpected mistakes (I’m still wondering about his game vs K in the grand finals, where he could have chipped him to death with KKZ and instead went for an UOH… WHY??) but his “worst” SBO performance was 2012 with Oro
Yeah, I just think it is stupid to try and split hairs about better players.i would never be so stupid as to say anyone among mov, nuki, Kuroda,haitani etc.is better than one another. It seems they all have beaten various combinations of one another plenty of times