Sorry. Late. Forgot I wanted to check this and then it got accepted (basically feos reminded me).
This game has manipulation via Pause Buff:
And at points it can actually be faster than avoiding the buff.
My opinion character choice (from what I've checked so far) is pointless.
You might as well just choose the character they set at the start (Kyoji) and power through with him.
Also again I apologize for being late...
You can skip all this with Y:
You can probably skip all the cutscenes with Y as well. I didn't go that far into checking.
Here's my input:
48466622789621603
My input is definitely not optimal entering the game itself.
I just didn't want to check that wanted to focus on the fighting.
As for just fighting. N?K is slower in first fight by 26 frames.
There's more to dive deep into this game and figure out, this is a good starting point but I don't think that something like this should be accepted.
I apologize for not bringing any of this up sooner.
Edit: Oh and downing yourself and your opponent at the same time works too and may be fast if executed in that round depending on if it's possible to do (I can't recall seeing something like that in your TAS).