Martial artists matches are always difficult to analyze, so I'm going to ask: What are Retsu's achievements in this key? In terms of training, experience, victories etc...
I will expand Chun-Li's profile at some point to include the aforementioned things, for now, I'm quickly going to list the most relevant points here:
- She trained for pretty much her life, under he father, under Gen and on her own, learning kenpo, Kung Fu and other martial arts
- Is considered among the best fighters of her world
- Entered 3 world tournaments
- Regularly fights and trains against other expert martial artists due to her job and personal missions. These characters include (the bolded names are people she is comparable to and/or has defeated at least once): Birdie, Guile, Cammy, Ryu, Vega, Balrog, FANG, Gen, M. Bison, Juri, C. Viper, Urien, Rashid, Charlie Nash. She is also acquaintanced to Abel, Ken, Zangief, Karin, Dhalsim and such, meaning she might have fought and/or trained with them.
- Also, consider that opponents such as FANG can kill you with just a graze, and he himself is already an exceptionally expert assassin, meaning that defeating him wouldn't be easy at all, especially when he wasn't holding back.
As said, AP is almost the same, but Chun has a few ways to boost her own, so that's an advantage.
In terms of fighting styles, both use chinese martial arts, so they should be already somewhat used to such styles, but Chun's is more unorthodox and less realistic, thus Retsu could have problems analyzing and reacting to it, even with his own enhanced senses, which are pretty good and an advantage to not underestimate.
Chun seems much more agile, with all the acrobatic moves, somersaults, slides, wall jumps, body climbing etc... but I don't know to what extend they would represent an advantage.
Chun has better projectiles, as she can basically fire kikokens and ex kikokens more easily and cause higher damage than Retsu's air projectiles, which don't seem to cause any sensible damage, just blind the opponent. Sure, Chun would be hindered a lot by being blinded (although it depends on how much the effect lasts), but from the scans I've seen, such projectile depends a lot on the surprise factor, and on Retsu being faster and stronger than the blinded opponent.
Since Chun-Li has quite a lot of experience against enemies who fire projectiles, she might be able to anticipate and/or react to him firing this attack. After all, you can see Retsu bringing his hands to his mouth as to spit something. A normal person would be puzzled by such weird thing in a fight, but another who's used to deal with fireballs, energy blades, ki blasts and such might behave differently.
Also, Chun-Li's Kikosho is a good tool in a purely cqc fight, as she can pull off this focused ki sphere/dome from close range, and its power is decently above her average AP output.
Retsu's weakness of losing self-control might be incredibly detrimental depending on how much it affects Retsu, as Chun is quite composed and focused (especially by SF3) and it might make a huge difference in the fight.
Retsu's pressure point strikes are a very good advantage, but I must point out that Chun has trained with Gen, who makes extensive use of such attacks, and as mentioned above she has experience dealing with characters who can kill or deal huge damage with a single hit, ranging from FANG to just Vega having a bladed gauntlet.
It also seems that Retsu has better intelligence because "Is one of the best masters at Chinese martial arts"
You can basically say the same of Chun-Li tbh
and "As a trained martial artist, both physically and mentally, Retsu Kaioh possesses a level of intelligence unachievable by most commoners,
What are the actual applications and feats related to this?
Because even in SF you have a bunch of moments where normal people are amazed by things performed even by mid tiers, considering them impossible to perform.
Like, even just using ki in the SF verse means you transcend what can normally be achieved by humans.
This was the power of "ki," a product of training and self-discipline. A pinnacle of martial prowess attained by those select few fighters who transcended the natural in their pursuit of championship.
and like other master martial artists in the franchise, Retsu can easily decipher one's fighting technique, how it is utilized and its weaknesses. Was considered skilled and versatile by Musashi Miyamoto", which could help him deal with Chun-Li's long-ranged attack and short-ranged attack.
This is true, although I'd like to know what kind of opponents has he analyzed and how.
I'm not trying to downplay him at all, and I believe that, if such ability is legit, he could analyze Chun's style, but it might prove difficult due to how unorthodox it is, and ki attacks could still be difficult to deal with even if you know how they work.
And remember that these are abilities that martial artists normally develop, although not to supernatural levels, meaning that Chun-Li could do the same to some extent.
