Tested it on the PS2 Melty. Looks like even with the jA, you can block it either way as long as it's high.
Yeah that's cross-up protection. I'm not sure why the game makers put it in, but they prolly wanted cross-ups to be more work/set-up/slower like overheads in Melty. Maybe it has something to do with 623 inputs coming out as 214 inputs in cross-up situations most of the time. With the Roa example I gave, I was more trying to demonstrate that in an air tight block string, you can go to nutral/block the other way, and not get hit for it.
In the case originally posted by Roku, the Ries had corss-up protection from the j2C, even though she woke-up facing the right way. The jA would have had to been blocked correctly, if she came out of block stun from the j2C, because the IH turned the Akiha around. But it looked air tight, like the Roa example I gave. The Ries could have just gone to neutral and it still would have blocked, as long as she did not input 1, 2, or 3, and maybe 7, 8, 9, but I'm not sure about those.
I'm not sure if it's possible for the Akiha to even set this up, but my 1st guess would be that she was trying to wiff the j2C by doing it too early, so that the IH jA would hit cross-up. Or she just wanted to meaty and IH and not get hit, and that's as far as the thought went. Or she messed up some other IH set-up she was going for and then improvised.
Still hype btw.
-TexasTim-