I don’t agree. I do think canon should take a part in character features. Akuma and Sagat should always be high on the tiers, Dan should always be lower, stuff like that. Not rigorously correct, but at least vaguely.
I don’t really care, was just going by that little video as a hint to what I think her age is 
I don’t remember seeing anyone saying she shouldn’t have a good fireball, maybe I missed that x_x? I think her EX Hadouken shows that she has improved her fireball, that thing is huge and doesn’t dissipate.
While LP Shou couldn’t be used as an SRK in Alpha it still worked better as an AA (methinks), think it was harder to jump over it.
We’ve seen they’ve increased the range of her Hadouken a bit so people would need to block, absorb or jump it unless we walk back with them. People have said it’s faster and recovers better (although think it’s kinda hard to tell) but if that’s true then we’ve got the Hadouken we want. Ontop of which a nice j.MK cross-up (probably not as good as Ryu’s but better than j.LK), pretty sure I saw a much faster s.HK and a new Ultra that (hopefully) will be almost as diverse as Ryu’s Metsu Hadouken. I’d say things are shaping up 
I wonder, is SFIV your first fighting game? 
CVS2 http://www.shoryuken.com/wiki/index.php/Capcom_vs_snk_2#Tier_List Sakura = Sagat
Alpha 3 http://www.shoryuken.com/wiki/index.php/Street_Fighter_Alpha_3#Tier_List Sakura > Sagat
Alpha 2 http://www.shoryuken.com/wiki/index.php/Alpha_2#Tier_List Rose > Pretty much everyone
Also consider Vega. One of the 4 deva’s, how come he is ranked at the bottom in SFIV? And these are only a couple of examples in SF, there are tons of other fighters where cute gals are top tiered (Amy in SCIV, Noel in BlazBlue, Karin in Fighting Jam, Julia in 5DR). Dan is a joke character, so yes, he is consistently placed last.
I hardly look at tiers btw, but I just wanted to point out that balance in fighters are not based on appearances but on fightstyle and how well they do in the system.
I think cannon often does play some part in move design, but should be completely ignored in overall tier levels. If capcom wants to give her a weak fireball because she is just practicing, that’s fine, just give me other moves to make up for it. This game is played by much more than just hardcore players and I can respect that they like that.
sigh~
“I do think canon should take a part in character features.” It’s not always the case and it only seems to be consistently valid for some characters.
Of course the final position in the tiers always comes down to whether the character has something in the system that makes up for their design weaknesses. For example, Sagat is slow. This is a design weakness, hulking giant, snail-like speed. Yet the system helps him because SF4 is a highly defensive game and he has great zoning tools+Huge health.
And he can move halfscren instantly if he wants to.
Storyline-wise isn’t she meant to be a bit like ryu as she looks up to him? Arnt most of her moves meant to look like a mimic of ryus? Gameplay-wise I doubt that giving her current tools a little somthing like faster fireball will make her play the same as ryu.
story should come into consideration for the look of a character and of their moves - possibly their playstyle also though in some cases the irony is quite hilarious (see Rufus).
also the design weaknesses as you say don’t really make them much weaker and in line with the other characters. who knows why those 2 characters are consistently high/top tier in the games they appear in? maybe the designers got their design to a really good place and don’t wanna change it much or they’re the favorites and get special treatment? no one knows
you can’t be serious…
I’m sorry if I offended you with my remark, it wasn’t meant as such, but it’s common knowledge that canon never was considered in deciding tiers, not in SF, not in SC, not in any fighter, so it’s strange you feel this way: in SFIV, the gals have less HP and wrestlers/grapplers/cyclops have more than average. This is a first in the series iirc, so I thought maybe you got the idea of canon-in-tier-list solely from SFIV (check the whole discussion on misgony specificly for SFIV).
Men shoot fire from their hands, yogi teleport, wrestlers break their opponent’s neck with every throw, beasts electrocute you; a superior fighting schoolgirl should not be a problem in any Street Fighter game.
i bet he would stop playing her if she wasnt low tier in sf4.
Just a thought, do you think he Shinku Hadouken will do LOADs of damage? Because at the moment I can’t see any justification in using it over the other ultra as the other ultra is pretty adept at anti air 9at least i can use it as an anti air) So I’m guesing it’s going to do lots of damage but not be able to combo into, unlike her current ultra which is piss easy to combo into.
some people like to main “bad” characters for the challenge. why you hating?
Ex tatsu into ultra II. I’m hoping that would work, but didn’t Seth (or whoever) say that all the new ultras have completely different setups than the originals? A lot of the ultra IIs aren’t doing much damage anyways. With the damage of her first ultra, I doubt her Ultra II is going to be the more powerful one. I think II will play the role of the easy to combo, small damage ultra. Maybe it has many more setups?
Yeah I see Shinkuu Hadouken as the less damaging option with more opportunities. Haru Ranman can only land after EX Shunpuu, Focus crumple, punishing a long recovery move and if you’re particularly gutsy blowing through another move with its invincibility. Shinkuu Hadouken should be able to do all these (might get trades on the last one) and also be used as AA, Fireball traps (like Seth’s current Ultra but not as “reliable”), EX Hadouken in corner if the recovery has improved enough, EX Hadouken FADC, maybe after AA LP Shou, maybe after LP Shou in corner, through someone’s “predicted” fireball… She might even get a new move or something with another setup for it.
Damage wise it should do no less than Metsu Hadouken, if it does I’ll be pissed. I’m hoping for closer to Haru Ranman damage though. Haru Ranman needs its damaged upped otherwise it will be useless.
Haru Ranman does way too little damage for the difficulty of the setup. Either buff it or give it some other setup. Otherwise Super Firebal #58 is gonna eclipse it by a mile.
Of course Haru Ranman is going to be useless if it doesn’t get buffed and seeing how Shinkuu Hadoken actually seems good.
I mean, I hardly ever use her ultra now so if they don’t change it the only thing that’ll happen is that Haru Ranman stays useless.
Don’t look at it as Shinkuu replacing Haru Ranman, you might as well look at it as Sakura finally getting an ultra, yay!
How is Haru Kanman useless? It does big damage and you can juggle it off of EX tatsu without having to FADC it.
lol big damage. By the time the Haru Ranman comes up in any combo leading to it the damage on it is scaled immensely. Only time it can do big damage is on a random EX Tatsu, which is never a good idea to just throw out there.
Fine, damage may not be big, but I’m pretty sure it’s not useless.
Guile user
I suppose from your point of view almost anything looks good then, lol.