The Karateka clan
Karatekas are the clan in white, and their three finishers split into two hand combinations and one launch-and-kick that leaves the defender on the floor. "Clean technique and big kicks." undersells the punching a little.
White gi, pencil names
A Karateka wears a white gi with lapels, grey cross-hatched trousers, a black belt whose knot trails behind, and a red headband with two tails. On the minimap their pieces are white discs, the only light ones apart from the pale grey Sumo, so a Karateka against Ninja or Monk match is easy to read at a glance.
Their fighters are named from the pencil case: Lead, HB, Shade, Stub, Sketch, Grit, Tip, Hatch, Shavings, 2B, Scuff and Graphy. Karateka is simply the Japanese word for someone who practises karate, and the clan borrows the art's most recognisable trappings: the white uniform, the belt and the shouted kiai, which turns up as a comic word.
Hands first: Tiger combo and Hundred fists
The chooser describes Tiger combo as "jab, cross, roundhouse", but the animation actually throws one more punch: jab, cross, jab, each with a hit-stop, a little screen shake and a spray of ink, and only then a slow-motion spinning roundhouse (KRAK!).
Hundred fists is not quite a hundred. In slow motion the Karateka throws twelve alternating punches, leaving afterimages and an ink splat on every third, then steps through with one lunging cross. The comic word that closes it is the karate shout itself (KIAI!).
Sky breaker
Sky breaker starts low. An uppercut, marked UP!, launches the defender into the air with arms flailing; the Karateka leaps higher still in slow motion and brings an axe kick down on them, with heavy dust and a shake as they hit the board (SLAM!). Unlike most finishers it leaves the knocked-out fighter on the floor where they fell instead of throwing them across the board. The narration line sums it up: "Graphy launches Kage skyward and axe-kicks them into the board."
Heaven Splitter
The ultimate is one chop. After a crouch the master springs up high above and behind the defender, spinning one full turn in slow motion, hangs at the top for a moment and drops with a downward chop: a slash across the screen, dust and a shockwave, and HAAA! in big letters. Heaven Splitter throws the defender further than any other attack in the game, a distinction it shares only with the Monks' Mandala Palm, and the stagger it causes among nearby fighters reaches further than usual.
When a Karateka is the one knocked out, the figure shrinks and crumples into a ball of paper that is flung away in a burst of scraps. Storm Ninjas and Nak Muay go the same way. There is no comic word for it; the paper ball is the joke.
In badminton: the clan that jumps
The badminton powers reuse a checkers name. Sky Breaker (2 uses) arms a leaping mid-air intercept that ends in a flying jump smash, which is the answer when the opponent tries to lift the shuttle over you. Iron Guard (3 uses) is insurance: each use arms one automatic return from almost anywhere nearby, so a long defensive rally does not end on one bad read.
The badminton Heaven Splitter sends the shuttle straight up and brings it down on a red X inside a ring on the opponent's court, with STAY OFF THE X! printed beside it. The tell reads: "It rises to the sky and chops down on the red X. Anyone inside the ring gets struck by lightning." A computer opponent that reads it waits just outside the ring. Computer Karatekas jump for the shuttle more often than any other clan.
Counting the hits
Karateka fights are easy to count. Tiger combo lands four blows, Hundred fists thirteen, Sky breaker two, the uppercut and the axe kick, and Heaven Splitter just one. On the minimap the Karateka discs are white with an ink outline, the opposite of the near-black Ninja discs.