Purpose of the backdash cancel is to briefly cancel the recovery of the backdash into crouch so repeated backdashes can be performed in quick succession. Learning how to do this properly without developing infections in your hands is of paramount importance. Bryan has one of the best kits for winning the neutral and initiating short bursts of offence at his pace as well as preventing people from going full (soap bar in my mouth) on him ie. zoning. Movement is the lifeblood of the character.
If you choose to pick Bryan as your first character you have a more difficult, although more advantageous choice in the long run as you are required to learn the harder version for backdash cancelling. There are 2 effective methods for backdash cancelling, the proper, harder Korean backdash method, which, after the first bb input goes db - b - db - b... Learning to backdash with this method is mandatory for anyone who plays Bryan, Paul or Nina due to them having a qcb (quartercircle backwards) "stance".
The easier, lazy version if you will, is the "reverse wavedash" method. This is performed after the first bb input as follows: qcb - b - qcb - b... this method is favoured among a lot of Mishima players because it's the same as doing repeated crouchdashes (f - neutral - d - df) in a row, a technique called wavedashing.
As a pad player I can't really speak for stick players as to which is harder or which strains the hands more. I think stick might be better for hand health because you use more muscles. The harder version is definitely very tough to learn on a pad for the player 2 side. I still struggle with Bryan's 2p backdash because I play Mishimas as well and use the lazy method, it's just nowhere near the level of movement I can execute otherwise.
