Akuma.
I played Ryu but I felt bored and restrained because of his playstyle.
I played Ken but I didn’t like his stubby normals and lack of versatility (and he looks like a freakin’ wimp !).
Akuma is just perfect, he is the balance between Ryu’s defense and Ken’s offense and is extremely fun to play.
Plus he look like a freaking BEAST with his beard, animations and voice.
I really wanted to embrace Urien but his offense is lacking; like I finally get in and I’m like “Now what?” and find too few tools to use for opening opponents up and keep the damage going. CC st. HP is saucy but is hella overrated since it doesn’t come often.
Would be playing Alex if he weren’t bottom tier. He doesn’t feel THAT bad at footsies range but none of his attacks lead to anything when successful except more midrange low damage poking. Love Power Bombing dudes but against decent players the situtation doesn’t come often. Will reconsider if he gets buffed out of bottom tier, which is probably never.
So Necalli’s the one for me. Sure he has short reaching normals but his ground pounds gives give him something to do outside footsies range and are rather good at keeping zoning on check; once close one can go full unga bunga with the bazillion CC buttons and the command grab that gives the certainty of opponents never been 100 % safe from pressure. Plus the damage output is decent.
My perfect character was Fei Long. I love rekkas that can be used as a poking tool. No one in SF5 has the kind of rekkas I’m looking for except Karin in V-trigger. That’s not good enough!!! So no, I have lost my perfect character and my sense of purpose as a human.