Kuzukaze

Kuzukaze (lit. "Scum Wind"), often dubbed affectionately as the "Scum Gale", is one of Iori Yagami's attacks, first introduced in The King of Fighters '95 as his kick throw before being re-introduced in The King of Fighters '97 as a command grab.

Description
Iori leans in with his following hand while also bracing with his leading hand, then clutches his opponent. He then pulls them to then shove them aside, often towards the other side of himself. Doing this leaves them in a briefly stunned state, allowing Iori to start a combo if he's fast enough (and provided he can also reach them on time).

In many games however, if Iori has put his foe into the flame-stasis caused by the Ura 108 Shiki Ya Sakazuki, the Kuzukaze in this case is programmed to whiff on the victim even within range.

Strategy
As another avenue for Iori to start his scary offense, the Kuzukaze allows Iori to break through conditioned defenses that are already used to his rather more risky forms of pressure and high-low mixups. While it still only offers room for a single bread-and-butter combo to land into a finisher such as the recurring Aoihana, Iori is still rewarded with a chance to setup his usual hard knockdown vortexes.

However, the side-switching properties may or may not be detrimental to Iori depending on his and his victim's current positions on the stage/screen.

The attack only becomes quite scary if Iori himself is cornered, due to suffering from no pushback should it side-switch his foe into the corner and allows him to often land a small confirm into yet another Kuzukaze in the same vein without worry. However, only some games pushback the victim at a small enough distance for Iori to run up to connect a light normal>Kuzukaze chain over and over again as a guaranteed loop, albeit with very strict timing.

Trivia

 * In its debut game and a number of others, Kuzukaze and other similar non-damaging grab moves are infamously known for being a straight component of various Infinite Death Combos (via rushing up to the foe close enough to combo them onto the grab over and over again). However, this was often fixed in later games and updated re-releases, especially with how far Iori shoves away the opponent and the startup of the grab itself (or how more strict timing is required to achieve the same result).
 * The move's infamous utilization for infinite combos is referenced in The King of Fantasy manga via chapter 18.


 * Miss X's version is known as instead the Kutsu Wind, which is the same as before, albeit with one kanji changed in its name.

Similar Attacks

 * Ura Kumo Kakushi - A similar non-damaging throw used by Geese Howard.