Anti-Air

An Anti Air describes attacks that are meant to be optimal in the function of hitting airborne opponents in Street Fighter.

Description
In terms of Hitboxes, anti air attacks usually extend streight up or angle upwards their attacks. Although some like Guy's crouching medium punch look like any other character's regular attack would. Some attack thrust upwards such as Ibuki's Agemen, others look like uppercuts, and others look like an upward sweep. Many special attacks that go up like Kazekiri work as anti airs.

Tactics
Anti airs are usually defined in power. Jump in attacks can be so dominating by some characters such as Pre USFIV Sakura who was infamous of having a disappearing hitbox underneath of character model (crotch down) when using her Jumping hard punch. This let her bully a high amount of the cast who depend on 1 hit anti air normals and Unique Attacks. Other characters such as Vega have strong jump in attacks that weaker anti airs can not defeat. Usually Anti Airs are balanced by character archtype. Dhalsim is known for having good anti air normals that cover different angles as his type of character depend on a zoning poking playstyle.

It is advised players learn to Anti Air as one of their primary objectives to learning their characters to use said attack to it's highest possibility. Discouraging jumping takes away a tactic that allows the player to come on at postive Frame Data on both hit and block and keeps the opponent having to find new ways to Approach. Even characters such as Sagat who have a powerful anti air in Tiger Uppercut should learn to anti air normal in the case he is battling a character who can delay or change their trajectory in the air, as these attacks leave the user vulnerable to punish.