Hey can anyone spend a little bit of time talking about how difficult it is to play Midori compared to Rook? Like how easy is it to understand his gameplan?
I think Midori is a bit more complicated. Rook’s gameplan is a very straightfoward “walk up and throw them until they stop standing up” against most characters.
Midori is still a grappler, but in human form his execution of this plan is a little bit harder (which is good), and I think sometimes you want to stall a bit. Midori is a bit more reactive than Rook - he doesn’t have super armor on his moves. Instead, he’s got a parry which is great, and his Yomi counter payoff is best-in-game I think.
I don’t know if I’m really qualified to talk about this though because Midori is my spirit animal, so I obviously instinctively understand his gameplay.
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In Midori’s human form, he wants to get in (you know, like a grappler). But he doesn’t have Rook’s set of tools to accomplish that. He’s also pretty slow and has a shallow jump. So you have to be pretty careful as you try to get in.
His parry is an important move. It says “hey, don’t abuse me…unless you have projectiles, then go ahead and abuse me.” It fails against projectiles, so he has to jump over those, or use his air C butt stomp to maneuver over them. He can also use his neutral jump, then hold forward or back and A (like Honda’s floating fierce in ST). For non-projectiles though, the parry keeps people from doing too much nonsense against you. And if you land it, you get two very important powerups in addition to the 1 damage it deals. First, you get super meter (which leads to your Dragon form) and second, you enter an “empowered” state where you glow purple. In this state you AUTOMATICALLY throw anyone who is throwable. So if you’re in neutral state, you don’t even press any buttons and Midori will throw them. This special throw can’t be yomi countered but it can be jumped out of. It’s quite a threat.
Parrying fills up your meter faster, but like all characters it fills instantly if you yomi counter. So Midori’s Yomi counter is the strongest in the game because his super is the slowest meter to fill otherwise.
Dragon from. Do your super (ground or air) to enter this, and you stay in it while your meter counts down. In this mode, you have several generally unfair properties. Your hitboxes being so big and high priority allow you to get in even accidental hits a lot. Your jump A is a 2-hit thing (for 2 damage!) that is one of the best moves in the game. You lose your parry, but you get the equivalent of Rook’s C throw…on a RUNNING grab. Air C is a divebomb throw that only works vs grounded people. Your B torpedo attacks become even faster and higher priority and can crossup even better vs an opponent standing up from a knockdown. I think you pretty much go nuts in this mode and one way or another you can find some damage. I’ve generally been able to do a lot with this mode.
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Waiwaiwaiwaiwait
Midori can do that thing Honda has where you jump straight up but move slightly forward/back when you attack?!
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Yes he can. In the soon-to-be-ready build, it will no longer be buggy. And the amount of float is slightly increased as well. The animation is still his kick, but it should really be a punch that hits higher up imo. Maybe someday.
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THE STOP SIGN COMETH
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Thanks for the write up! 
So, having played a bunch more Midori, I have more questions! First, this guy is really fun to play. He feels less oppressive than Rook while in human form, and then there’s this big “o shit” moment for your opponent when you activate Dragon Form.
One thing that I had to get used to was that Midori’s throws don’t knock the opponent down. This leads to some incredibly fun stuff against Grave specifically: if Grave presses ground.C after getting thrown, and you pressed ground.B immediately after having thrown, you’ll fly through Grave and land fast enough that you can just throw him again. 
That alone is pretty great.
This normal-throw property gets really interesting if you’ve cornered your opponent and they don’t have (or don’t choose to press) an invulnerable reversal option. If they stand still, you get chop for free, and then potentially some slaps damage or chip, and if they don’t, you can go for another throw immediately?
You get a similar, but scarier situation in Dragon Form, where it doesn’t even matter where on the screen you are. If you throw them in human form, mash super, you’ve got either toward.A into A (bite + fireball) if they don’t block, or immediate C for the running throw if they do, or B for headbutt to get their jump?
Having super on-deck against jump-ins is also great, since you can activate and then double tap A for anti-air into launch.
His neutral jumping.A is a ton of fun to play with too. Lots of fun mobility on it!
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