I want to know why everyone picked Ibuki because she is not an easy character to learn. Sure, she may dominate in the lower levels, but she doesn’t do the same at higher level play.
I only picked Ibuki because she was a ninja lol. Nothing else. I didn’t know she had a vortex, I didn’t know she had super jump, and I sucked ass. I still suck ass, but I improved after researching and practice 
Probably one of the reasons I picked her and stayed with her was one we all know for a fact that she’s a ninja, but her playstyle really appealed to me. The best thing was the way she was designed. Those three bang things that defy gravity and double ponytail. Lol da hell? She just looks really cool and cute somtimes.
Throwing kunai’s at distances where the opponent can never touch you, and being able to play patiently and skillfully. It’s a very difficult character to master, but that’s what I like about her. She can’t just take down an top tier opponent just blindly, you have to focus and be very patient. I didn’t like top tiers that don’t suit my style very much or Ijust don’t find them appealing to me. I don’t know, I think definately it’s the first time I picked up SSF4 and instantly, Ibuki was that character that I began to question the most and my first character I ever used. When vanilla came out I didn’t have any interests but luckily super came out and thats when I immediately began to be interested in street fighter.
So yea, that’s why I picked up Ibuki as a main character. She’s really fun to use and she’s going to be my main in every SF game. 
TL: DR
[details=Spoiler]Fan-girling over Ibuki like a retard.
And blame this game that made me like ninja’s 100x more.
[/details]
She has a very interesting design to her, and I’m honestly amazed she doesn’t have any infinities with her myriad of options. QA testers and dev team did an amazing job balancing her.
She makes the game fun to play, whereas using other characters doesn’t seem so fun. She some pretty easy setups for a lot of her mixups, but being able to be in that position requires a great deal of solid ground game and good reads to even begin to utilize her deadliest tools in her offense.
I knew right away I wanted to play an execution heavy character, since I played RTS games before and I just wanted to hit a lot of buttons lolol.
I also wanted to play a female character, since if I’m going to be looking at this person on the screen all the time, I want it to be attractive/hawt/seksi/etc., right?
In terms of female characters, that already limited it down to Ibuki, Makoto, Sakura, Juri, Chun, CViper, Cammy, Rose. I knew I wanted to play rushdown, and definitely not down back/charging, so Chun/Rose were out. I was playing pad at the time, so I definitely wasn’t able to play Juri (have to hold down buttons to store fireballs), and even now with a stick I’m still against the idea of not having full access to everything I can do at all times. Makoto’s walkspeed was too slow, and I didn’t want to just be simply relying on dashes to get in.
Now it’s down to Ibuki, Sakura, CViper, Cammy. The way I see it, the differences between these four characters are the tradeoffs you’re willing to take between playing solid, ability to play footsies, etc. vs comeback potential, flashiness, autopilot-ability, etc. Sakura being the most solid, and CViper obviously being the flashiest. So:
footsies <---------------> autopilot
Sakura, Cammy, Ibuki, CViper
The primary reason I chose Ibuki over CViper was because at the time my execution was terribad. Though recently I’ve secretly been training CViper (on both stick/pad). Even if my execution with CViper was gdlk I think I will still stay with Ibuki simply for the vortex. Against bad/lesser players you just simply don’t have to do any work except chuck that kunai and then give a mini combo video, and then everyone will think you’re gdlk. I played both Sakura and Cammy (and most of the cast, for that matter) and they just didn’t simply have the herp-derp ability of vortex.
Although I should mention that I was definitely considering switching to Super Cammy, if not making her a secondary main chicken, because she had the best of both worlds simply because of TKCS.
As of now I pretty much main Ibuki, followed closely by Ryu for when I want to play footsies (also because I mained him in vanilla). My Ryu is definitely ass though and I doubt he’ll see much tournament usage.
/coolstorybro
Good thing I saved this post in Notepad++. Stupid shitty SRK forums is dieing again.
I also considered using Cammy in Super, until she lost her tiger-knee air dives. After that, she got pretty boring to use.
C.Viper is too much work, execution-wise, so I never really got into her.
Ryu/Balrog were my mains in Vanilla, but I got pretty bored with them soon thereafter. Plus, AE2012 favors mix-up heavy characters, so Ibuki had the best of both worlds without being too ridiculous on either end.
Lol @ Mingo
I feel like people that recently picked up Ibuki only picked her because of vortex. Many Ibukis I play online have high points, but spam vortex so hard and get owned by my crossup mixups. It’s kinda depressing because I used to do that (I still do it but only as a last resort) and I feel like a noob. In fact, I still feel like a noob because I’m losing to setups that can be reacted to, but I’m too busy looking for something else.
I’m more of an execution person but I don’t wanna give up Ibuki for some character like C Viper.
A lot of people recently picked Ibuki because they saw Sako in action, and they thought that Ibuki was a braindead character. A handful lot of retarded scrubs are continuously ranting about Ibuki being cheap (and most of them are american. Troll country FTW, I received more hatemails in 2 months in the US than in 1 year playing in France…). Then they play Ibuki, realize that they beat 80% of online scrubs with random neckbreaker to jump kunai, and think they are gdlk.
As for the reason I picked Ibuki, well… she is funny to play. Back when I was extremely hyped by the upcoming release of super, I was looking forward to play Dudley because, well… he’s got the swag. When the game came out, I started having fun with Dudley, but I got bored after 1 or 2 months playing him because I was tired of being in the need to be at less than 1cm from my opponent to be able to hit him, playing this “chase your opponent” game was boring, so I tried to change, playing every new characters. I used to main Ken in vanilla but, I got bored of the character. So I tried Cody (liked him, but I was shit at link-combos), Makoto(for god’s sake learn how to walk!!), Guy (floppy jump annoyed me)… And then I picked Ibuki randomly. Fell in love \o/ .
Moreover I’m a bit anticonformist, I don’t like to pick the same character as everybody so… playing Ibuki in super was fun, since we weren’t a lot of Ibuki players (and I was shit at this game anyway). As an example, I didn’t like to play Ken in Vanilla, and I haven’t even thought about picking Ryu ^^
It’s really annoying. I lose to random Ibuki players simply because I don’t know what they’re going to do and I guess wrong. It sucks. I wish people would play a character just because they want to and not because a pro player convinced them.
I picked her because I heard she was top tier
You have to dumb down your game plan against random/worst players in order to beat them. It’s pretty frustrating when you’re trying to play a solid, clean game and then you get hit by some bullshit simply because no one decent would ever do it. And then you lose. >=[
Okay so yeah, Ibuki. I really liked playing her in 3S, so I was pretty hype for her in Super.
I like aggressive, rushdown-oriented characters. I also enjoy playing female characters who don’t dress like tramps. I like ninjas.
Back in Vanilla arcade, I mained Chun because there were too many shoto’s and Sagats and no one played Chun. I would’ve played Viper, but I didn’t have the money to learn an execution-heavy character in the arcades then. I played an aggressive Chun which… didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. Picked up Ibuki when Super came out, and kept her as my secondary because Super Chun was broken.
When AE came out, I got really bored of Chun. And the way the game turned out (being vortex-heavy), I switched to Ibuki for good. I’ve been told to either main Ibuki and use Chun as a secondary or vice versa (especially since I definitely like using Chun for certain MUs), but I’ve been focusing on using only Ibuki in tournaments.
True, but you have to adjust your style of play. It’s not so much that you have to dumb down your game, but you have to play a bit more conservatively, and try to analyse when and where they like to do dumb shit and/or mash DPs. It’s counter-intuitive to most Ibuki players (since they favor they tend to favor the rushdown and gapped attack strings), but you have to just be willing to lame it out and simply apply counters to their idiocy.
This is what I don’t like =)
I’m not having fun if I don’t play in a fun way (obvious shit), so laming my game just to beat a scrub is lolz
None of us like it, but that’s what you have to do to win. Welcome to competitive gaming. At some point, you have to find out whether you want to play for fun or play to win. They don’t always go hand-in-hand. 
I played a bit back in Super and stopped playing the game last summer. Picked it back up when AE came out and figured I’d try a new character out. Went through the 4 new ones and didn’t like them much so I started playing around and Ibuki looked like fun so I gave her a try and haven’t really switched characters yet. I went through a phase recently with Chun to learn how to ground game a bit better and have a secondary character but I am awful at pianoing and doing her cr.fierce legs loop combo so I’m not switching just yet (if ever).
I really don’t mind laming it out because the other person gets frustrated, but I do have a habit of getting impatient. That’s why in some of my replays, I don’t keep proper positioning to counter. I’m usually mid-range or up in their face. I dunno if that’s a good distance for Ibuki. 
On another note, I think Ibuki’s storyline appeals to guys because she’s a pretty teenage ninja looking for cute/awesome boys to do things with 
(If you know what I mean winky face)
Played 3rd Strike back when my love for martial arts was seriously ignited.
When playing through the roster, I eventually used a shinobi, whose moves stuck out to me. This shinobi did a most appealing, snapping, spinning hook kick (Tsumuji), Capoeira kick Meia Lua de Compasso (f.st.Roundhouse), and just in general had either very recognizable martial arts moves or just plain cool techniques. Ibuki having a Rasengan (Raida), target combos (in the air!), as well as being very easy to combo with (and having flashy combos like cr.RH xx cl.st RH xx HJC RH) made her playstyle even more appealing to me. Even after eventually realizing she required a lot of work to start winning matches, the challenge kept me constantly hungry to better myself.
In SSF4, she’s even better, IMO. What can I say? I especially like her flashy HJC Kasumi Gake — it meshes well with my style of play: pressure with mix-ups and mindgames.
All-in-all, I just got the feeling that Capcom really took their time and designed her well.
I really want to know if someone picked her just because of her new “higher mid tier” rank on the tier list. Honestly, I picked Ibuki after learning Seth in vanilla SF4. I don’t know how that transitioned, but I feel like I always pick the character who isn’t high tier or has hidden potential. I mean, Seth was considered as shit before, but I still picked him up when I first unlocked all the characters! It’s kinda funny
I don’t think Ibuki was ever mid tier. Maybe B/B+ at worst.
Really? In original super I considered her around B/B+ tier. Then she dropped to C+ in ae, then back to B in ae 2012.
Lol my list is wack. ._.
*Edit: Lol wtf, event hubs had Ibuki as ‘A’ tier before? She only won once in a large tournament.
In Super I would have considered her B+/A- tier. Besides doing bad against Chun/Bipson/Cammy, she did well against the other top 3 charge characters, which was no easy feat considering how retardedly good some of Honda’s matchups were, for example. And of course, Ibuki has always done well against shotos or almost everyone with a projectile.