I've been using Takuma since I started playing the game and I really like playing as him, but I just recently bought the DLC characters and since everyone agrees Mr. Karate is top tier in this game, I decided to try him out and replace Takuma. I found that I don't really like playing Mr. Karate as much, and his combo execution is just harder for me in general. So lately I've been struggling between keeping at it with Mr. Karate or going back to Takuma, and you know conventional wisdom tells me to keep with Mr. Karate since he really does have so many more options and can deal with a lot more stuff. However, I can recognize a few advantages that Takuma has over Mr. Karate and it just seems like Takuma's play style fits my mindset more. I dunno, it's a little hard to tell since I still have such little experience playing with Mr. Karate; the demanding execution of Mr. Karate is definitely a drawback at this point though.