Ness (SSB)/Neutral aerial

Overview
Ness does a quick split kick with his feet in front of him in the air, dealing 14% during its first eight frames with average knockback for a neutral aerial and very high shield stun. This move is a sex kick, dealing less damage over time with the move dealing 11% with lower knockback for the rest of its animation. Like most of Ness's aerials, this move is excellent for juggling purposes, though a bit less so than his other aerials (though more than ) due to its horizontal launch angle. Combined with the double jump cancel technique, which is very important to Ness's metagame and vital in most of his matchups, it is possible for Ness to do even shorter short hops, allowing him to use the move a very short distance from the ground, making it possible to chain multiple hits of this move together. Ness can also potentially perform zero-to-death combos on opponents, as he can rack up huge damage with his neutral aerial in conjunction with his other aerials (especially into a  spike but his other aerials are considered to be much more useful for this. This move in short is more commonly used at low percents, as the hitstun is high enough combo but the knockback isn't too high to follow up or at mid percents (around 30-50 depending on character) to lead immediately into a down aerial.

However, the move, along with Ness's other moves used for DJCing, has short range, so the technique has since lost recognition and known effectiveness.

Even though it is one of Ness's slower aerials, it still has shield break potential due to its high amount of shield stun, though it is noticeably harder than down, forward, or up aerial due to its awkward hitbox combined with its poor auto-cancel window; forcing Ness to Z-cancel it, especially when used out of a DJC.

Hitboxes

 * }

Landing lag

 * Normal
 * L-cancelled
 * L-cancelled

Trivia
* The late hit's hitboxes are programmed to be active until frame 43 although due to the move's animation length, they are only active until frame 40. It is likely that the developers intended for the late hit to only be active from frames 13-29 but due to a timing error, the hitboxes are programmed to be active for 30 frames, rather than being active until frame 30.