Reading ninjas' attacks on NG+

Question

The Situation

Ninjas have the option of either doing a regular attack (blue squigglies) or a multi-swing move (yellow squigglies). Picking the appropriate response is simple enough when you have the squigglies to go by, but on New Game +, it's a bit trickier.

Solutions I don't really like

1. Jump over heads. This is an appropriate response to just about everything, which makes it boring.
2. Wait for the problem to go away. Story mode just doesn't have enough ninjas in it for your ninja-fighting skills to make a big difference.
3. Blade dodge when one ninja attacks and multi-counter when several of them come at you at once. A blade dodge against a single regular attack will become a counter, and multiple simultaneous attacks have to be regular swings. This is what I try to do, but I'd like to be more awesome.

The Question

Is there a difference in their movements you can use to tell what kind of attack is coming, so you can tailor your response to their attack instead of using tactics where it doesn't matter what they do?

Answer 1

Well over time you will learn their animation pattern - for example if ninja is jumping from some other guy's shoulders, it's normal attack.

But in any case, if you press counter + direction, it will work either way. If it was normal attack, you will counter, if it was blade attack, you've just dodged the first one and have to repeat.

To perform dodge takedown, which looks more awesome, you must release the counter button between swings

Answer 2

I THINK (not sure, needs to be verified) that when they are coming for a regular attack, they are already holding their sword while when they're going to 'blade attack' you, their sword remains sheathed until they attack.

I finished the game twice now but I never really paid attention to this.