Found out the hit box on that boss grab is way bigger than the animation shows
I was stuck on the second boss in a game I got used to on normal mode, dying to the same grab move over and over at around 2am. Out of frustration I pulled up the community wiki page and someone had posted frame data pulled straight from the game files. The grab hit box actually starts 6 frames before the arm even swings on screen, which is why my dodges kept whiffing. I tested it out by dodging way earlier than felt right and got past him on the next try. So now I'm wondering, how many other moves in games have hit boxes that don't match the animation, and is there a list somewhere for this?