Kara Cancels
Japanese term that means "empty cancel".
It is canceling a move during it's startup, before it becomes active, with another move.
In general, you can cancel out of all normal attacks and most upper-body evasion attacks into a special/super/TOP attack, before seeing the attack animation fully finish.
When you complete the special/super/top attack, you continue through one frame (of the normal or upper-body evasion attack) and then kara cancel in the next frame.
The window for kara canceling is the 2F to the 1st active frame of the normal or upper-body evasion attack.
Kara cancels have a few uses:
- You can cancel some non-cancellable moves.
- Gains some extra range on certain special/super/TOP attacks.
- Kara cancel from various normals and evasive moves to hide your buffering behind them to throw off opponents in mind game situations.
- Use longer startup moves to stay on up directions 7/8/9 longer without jumping before kara canceling.
- Take advantage of movement and startup invincibility of moves before kara canceling.
- Use the proximity guard of the move to make them unable to move back, or possibly unable to JD, if they're just holding back.
- Allows for slightly more lenient execution, especially if you press a button before a direction during execution
- Used in techniques like Pseudo Chain Canceling and Ave Maria.
Kara Cancel with Evasive Attacks
Press 
+ 
/
+ + then do a special move to cancel out of its starting animation.
A lot like Kara Cancels in Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike you can cancel certain high/low dodge attacks with every character.
Some are more useful than others and some are easier to cancel out than other characters.
Great tool to benefit from the upper/lower invincibility when performing special moves.
Here is a list of characters that can cancel their + overheards while in the air:
- Tizoc -
+ 
- Hotaru -
+ 
- Jenet -
+ - Grant - +
- Hokutomaru - +
or + - Rock - any of his specials/supers - Rock (His doesn't come off the ground but he uses it the most effectively. Mainly because it opens up so many options for him during wake up situations.)
Self Kara Cancel
(Potential alternate names might be "same button same command kara canceling", "self canceling", or "pre-buffer canceling".)
You can kara cancel a normal or upper-body evasion attack with just a command motion.
If you complete a special's motion during the attack's startup, you will go through one frame of the attack on that frame of completion and then kara cancel into that special on the next frame.
You just complete the command after the button press.
The window for this is 5F after pressing the normal or upper-body evasion attack (6F total window).
With this max window at 6F, with this 1 frame of direction at 6F, the lastest you kara cancel is at the 7F.
And like a regular kara cancel, you are still limited through startup until the 1st active frame.
You'll see this window working whenever you press a button before the motion for the command finishes.
Note: It would be impossible to kara cancel supers like this. That is because most supers (1) take too long to do, and (2) parts of their motions, like the first QCF, would be recognized and kara cancel as a special input.
Misinput by Kara Cancel
Kara cancel behavior commonly causes misinputs.
Common causes of kara cancel misinputs:
- Attempting to special cancel too quickly resulting in kara cancel. (ex: attempting to do 2C > 236B, but getting 2C kara cancel into 236B)
- Doing a command motion too quickly after a button, resulting in self kara cancel. (ex: attempting to do 2C > 236B, but getting 2C kara cancel into 236C)
- Pressing the button slightly before completing the command motion, resulting in self kara cancel. (ex: 23B6 will output 2B kara cancel 236B)
You can be moving around -- quickly trying to put out attacks or just buffering various options -- and then end up getting moves accidentally.
To avoid doing unintended kara cancels, use double button inputs and other simultaneous button presses.
Simultaneous button presses will stop a special/super move from being triggered, just like with the motion storing technique (described in the above link).
For example, you can do 66 A+D 3214 so you don’t kara cancel 5A into 214A.
Same Frame Kara Cancel
Also known as kara canceling due to simultaneous direction and button press for special/super commands.
This happens when the last direction input of a special/super command and its button are pressed at the same time.
This is an edge case of self kara cancel, where you complete the command motion on the 1st frame of the button press.
Like for every kara cancel, there is an extra delay of 1F of the normal animation before executing.
In this case, after the 1st frame of the normal's startup, you kara cancel into the special/super's startup.
Otherwise, you are waiting and holding the last direction for a minimum of 1 frame before pressing the button. (Both cases have effectively the same startup length.)
Generally every special/super command will need 1F of the last direction before executing.
(Similar to how all jumps need 1 frame of landing.)
So if you press the last direction and the button at the same time, the game will add this extra 1F of the last direction for you.
If commands overlap, between the command that is kara canceled and one that is not, the game will prefer/prioritize the command that is not kara canceled.
In other words, the game will do the command that already went through 1F of its last direction, rather than wait to do the other command on the next frame.
For example, Rock 412369C:
9+C at the same time --> double reppuken
C pressed during frames 2～3F of the 9 direction --> command throw
When you press C on the same frame as jump the game accepts it as double reppuken first.
C needs to be input 1F after going to 9 to input command throw.
Other Kara Cancel Situations
Originally noted in the "Air Special Buffer" section:
You cannot simultaneously press direction and button for air specials during hops. The jump normal comes out instead. Most likely because this is a kara cancel on the first frame and you cannot special cancel during a hop.