advancedpottery217x2 - Tumblr blog

advancedpottery217x2 · 2 years

Text

ミツメイしか勝たない件について

I don’t know how many people actually look at this, but ミツメイ至高主義者 is the first line of my Twitter bio. I wouldn’t blame anyone for not remembering since I don’t talk about it much online but there is very much a reason why I put it before everything else.

Mitsumei (ミツメイ) is the Japanese pairing name of the characters Miles Edgeworth and Franziska von Karma from the Ace Attorney series (I will be mainly using the English names in this post because I would feel weird otherwise in this English language post). 2022 marks the 10th year since I have started shipping these two, which also makes it the 10th year since I started learning Japanese. Since 2012, I have held an unwavering belief that nothing I will encounter will ever top Miles/Franziska for me, hence the Twitter bio. This belief has shaped a large portion of my life for better or worse. Ten years of time have not changed that, so I thought now would be a perfect time to try to indoctrinate people reflect upon this.

In the first half of this post, I will talk about the pairing itself within the context of the Ace Attorney series and my own experiences. As such, there will be spoilers for the first three games. In the process of talking about why I like it so much I will also probably turn into a incomprehensible fangirl so don’t say I didn’t warn you. In the second half, I will talk about how it has influenced how I view other media. There will be large spoilers for Mawaru Penguindrum, Mirai Radio to Jinkou-bato, Soukou Akki Muramasa, as well as numerous others.

I recall why I started playing Ace Attorney.

In middle school I was looking for DS games to play and I knew a friend was playing the first Ace Attorney. I asked if they found it interesting to which they replied yes, which led to me playing the first game. After finishing that, I continued with the second, third, fourth, and even Investigations, eventually finishing all the available games on the DS in English at the time.

I do not particularly recall why I started to ship this pairing.

I remember being excited for Franziska's appearance in the second game for some reason to the point of staying up a bit to get to the part where she showed up in court for the first time. I remember feeling a bit excited the times she was the partner character in Investigations, the spinoff game where Edgeworth is the protagonist, and the time I spent walking around the map during those times just to see the sprites walk with each other. Timeline wise, something must have changed in the time I spent playing the second game, third game, and Investigations, but I just can’t seem to remember what happened ten years ago. I’m almost frustrated at this fact considering how deep in I am now.

In time I came to do what any budding fan of something does and went online to look for fanart and fanfiction. I searched... and I searched... and I continued to search yet again to the point where I believe I have exhausted most of the available English language content on Mitsumei as of now (If there’s something you want to show me, then by all means go ahead though). This is, in fact, the direct impetus for me improving my Japanese reading skills. And in the following years I worked on that through scouring the internet again for more content, this time in Japanese. While I am less confident than I am for the English side, I have seen a lot of what can be found online. If any people reading this know me as the person who manages to find shit online, I’m pretty sure it comes from this period of my life.

The Story So Far (Roughly)

Okay okay enough of my own backstory that I sometimes type the basic version of when the topic of learning Japanese come up, what I’m here to talk about today is my insane thought processes that lie behind this backstory.

First, an overview of the characters and the stories in the first two games where most of their background is established.

Miles Edgeworth (御剣怜侍, Mitsurugi Reiji)

Everyone’s favorite Ace Attorney prosecutor with lots of trauma. When he was younger, he wanted to become a defense attorney like the father he greatly admired. In fourth grade, he defended his classmate Phoenix Wright who was falsely accused of stealing lunch money, saying that there was no evidence that he did it. Afterwards, Edgeworth became friends with Phoenix as well as another classmate Larry Butz. Then the DL-6 accident happened.

On December 28, 2001, Manfred von Karma killed Gregory Edgeworth in a courthouse elevator. Earlier that day, the two had faced each other in court with Gregory managing to expose a small part of Manfred’s evidence manipulation to the public. As a result, Manfred received a penalty from the Chief Prosecutor--the only one in his entire career. Later that day, an earthquake hit the area causing the courthouse to temporarily lose power. During that time, Gregory and his son Miles were in an elevator along with a bailiff. The power outage led the elevator to stop, trapping the three for hours and the increasing lack of oxygen (or perception of such) led to a skirmish between Gregory and the bailiff. In the confusion, the bailiff’s gun dropped in front of Miles and he desperately threw it towards the fight in an attempt to get them to stop. In a curious turn of events, the gun ended up firing through the elevator window right into the shoulder of Manfred who happened to be standing outside. At that moment, the people in the elevator lost consciousness and the courthouse power came back on, leading to the elevator doors opening. Manfred looked inside the elevator to find the unconscious Edgeworths and a gun on the floor. With the anger of Gregory destroying his near 30-year flawless win record still fresh on his mind, he pulled the trigger.

Of course, Miles didn’t know that Manfred was near the elevator at all. All he knew was that he threw a gun and heard it go off, and that afterwards his father was dead with a bullet in him. Gregory did not know of Manfred’s appearance either, and when his spirit was channeled by a spirit medium in attempt to clear the situation he naturally named the bailiff as the culprit. The bailiff’s lawyer got his client free by pleading insanity. But this created a dilemma for Miles. If the bailiff was truly not guilty, then he was the only other person able to kill his father. If he denied that possibility making the bailiff guilty, that would make the lawyer who got him off a heinous and despicable person. For the boy who had admired his father so much, the prospect of choosing between denouncing defense attorneys and loathing himself was a harsh one to face at such a young age. The fact that he had recurring nightmares about shooting his father and a debilitating fear of earthquakes now probably didn’t help. These conflicting feelings eventually resulted in him wanting to be a prosecutor, someone to make sure criminals were given guilty verdicts.

This led Edgeworth to study under the legendary Manfred von Karma, a prosecutor who had never lost a case. Beneath that prestigious veneer were suspicions of underhanded tactics used to maintain it, such as manipulating witnesses and evidence. When Edgeworth’s career started at the tender age of 20 and he also became known for having a perfect win record, those rumors began to circulate around him as well. This continued until his first loss to Phoenix Wright in the first game (1-2, Turnabout Sisters). Coupled with his loss in the following case (1-3, Turnabout Samurai), Edgeworth again began to question the values instilled into him for over 10 years. This culminates in Turnabout Goodbyes (1-4), where Edgeworth is accused of a murder days before the statute of limitations for DL-6 was to take effect.

In the end, the key persons of that case were all related to DL-6. The accused, Edgeworth. The victim, the lawyer who defended the bailiff in the DL-6 trial. The actual perpetrator, the bailiff who had his life ruined by DL-6. And the person who planned it all, Manfred von Karma. Manfred intended for Edgeworth to be convicted all along. And with any luck, he could also get him to confess to killing his father all those years ago and make sure no one would ever find out about Manfred’s actions. Since the trial ended on the last possible day before the statute of limitations would go into effect it probably would have even worked too if it wasn’t for Phoenix Wright, who partially became a lawyer because of Edgeworth’s defense of him in elementary school. With Phoenix’s unwavering belief in his client, the two of them eventually reach the truth of both the trial at hand and DL-6.

While Edgeworth was finally able to reconcile with the fact that he did not kill his father, the issue of his existence as a prosecutor still remained. His job was to convict criminals in court, but that worked on the assumption that the accused was always guilty. If that was not true, then would his decision to become a prosecutor over a defense attorney have been for nothing? His answers to these problems and more are discussed in the second game...

Franziska von Karma (狩魔冥, Karuma Mei)

With Edgeworth not the main prosecutor anymore, we have a new kid in town. Before Phoenix faced her in court in Reunion, and Turnabout (2-2), he only knew that the prosecutor for the case was a von Karma. Of course, Phoenix had no idea what this meant as he brought Manfred’s crimes to light in the first game. When the trial began, he learned that his opponent would be Manfred’s daughter who became a prosecutor at the age of 13. Although she was born and raised in Germany (localizationized America), she stated that she flew over to face Phoenix Wright in an act of revenge. Of course being an Ace Attorney game, Phoenix gets a Not Guilty verdict in this case, shattering another prosecutor’s perfect record (starting to sense a pattern here).

In Turnabout Big Top (2-3), Phoenix and Franziska end up in a conversation about her revenge. Phoenix assumed she wanted to defeat him in revenge for getting her father convicted and was about to point out the futility of such an action when Franziska pointed out she had never mentioned her father up until that point. Her true reason for revenge was Miles Edgeworth. At the end of the first game, Edgeworth left behind a note in his office saying “Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death” and disappeared. So in “revenge” for this, Franziska decided to defeat the man who had presumably driven Edgeworth to such a state. She also wanted to confront Edgeworth for sullying the von Karma name and figured defeating Phoenix would be the best way to drag him out of hiding.

Of course being an Ace Attorney game, there is a small scene at the end of this case showing Edgeworth looking at a newspaper with Franziska’s picture in it, and not because she won that case. This leads into the finale of the second game, Farewell, My Turnabout (2-4).

What at first seemed like another Ace Attorney Case for Phoenix quickly took a turn for the worse when his assistant Maya Fey got kidnapped and the kidnapper pressured him to get a Not Guilty verdict if he wanted to see her safe. While he was busy worrying about accomplish this, Edgeworth made his return to the frustrations of both Phoenix and Franziska. In any case, Franziska’s third attempt to defeat Phoenix Wright would have gone on just as planned if it were not for the fact that someone shot her on the way to the courthouse on the first day of the trial. Not only was she shot in the right shoulder just like her father in DL-6, Edgeworth took up the prosecution in her stead to her great dismay.

On the final day of the trial, Franziska helped deliver the final pieces of evidences to the courtroom after an accident nearly prevented the detective in charge from doing it himself and the trial ended with the truth behind the case revealed. Phoenix reunited with Maya and his client got his due justice. Edgeworth revealed that he discovered his true duty as a prosecutor was to not only believe in the defendant’s guilt, but to believe in the defense attorney’s belief in the defendants innocence as well, leading to more possibilities being brought up and the truth being revealed. But Franziska didn’t understand how Phoenix could look so relieved when his client was guilty, or why Edgeworth was so confident in his approach while going against her father’s teachings, and left the scene of celebration while discarding her whip, which Phoenix picks up.

Later, Phoenix gives the whip to Edgeworth and encourages him to return it, leading Edgeworth find Franziska at the airport about to board a flight. Like Edgeworth in the first game, Franziska was on the cusp of questioning her ideals and the very meaning of her existence up until that point, which was part of why she attempted to leave her whip behind. In response, Edgeworth clearly stated that this moment would be their fork in the road if she decided to stop pursuing the path of a prosecutor. In that moment, Franziska burst into tears and declared her intent to keep “competing” with Edgeworth while leaving for her flight.

~The End~

Sorry to anyone who hasn’t played Ace Attorney because I omitted a lot of details here, some because I felt they weren’t strictly necessary for this post at all, some because I will elaborate on them later, and some because I felt they veered more into the personal conjecture territory (and probably some combination of the latter two). If this somehow made you interested in playing the games, then by all means go for it.

You may be thinking “Well this is quite the relationship, but how did you end up shipping this for 10 years?” and you would be absolutely right. Honestly Edgeworth and Franziska don’t interact much in the main games, although there is some improvement in this department in the Investigation games, so I’m used to not seeing much content about these two, official or fan-made, romantic or platonic. Like I said earlier, I don’t remember why I started shipping this. But I do remember the thoughts that have gone through my brain countless times after that point.

The More I Think About This The More I Go エモくね？　～沼怖ぇよ編～

Before I get into the finer machinations, I want to establish the physical/technical characteristics of this pair to make them easier to visualize in the mind after the lengthy story discussion.

In the second game, Franziska is 18 and Edgeworth is 25

Their heights are 162 cm and 178 cm, respectively (Please consult the handy chart below for reference)

In Japanese, they both use the first person pronoun 私 (watashi)

Franziska has a mole beneath her left eye

very important things to keep in mind in this post trust me (especially the last one, fanartists)

Now if you asked me what I liked most about this pairing, the answer I would give would depend on the time of day. But I think I would most likely say the certain immutable aspects of their relationship. Nothing will ever change the fact that Manfred killed Edgeworth’s father, and nothing will ever change the fact that Edgeworth was none the wiser when studying under him. As Franziska also studied under her father, this meant the two of them interacted not knowing just how fragile the foundation of their relationship was for an extended period of time. And as shown in the flashback case of Ace Attorney Investigations 1 (AAI1-4, Turnabout Reminiscence) and S2E6 of the anime, they seem to get along just fine. That probably wouldn’t change much if it weren’t for the fact that they had to find out one of their dads murdered the other. That’s gotta fuck up you relationship at least a little bit. But due to how the games work, it doesn’t quite end up like that.

Although the Ace Attorney franchise mainline games are numbered, you don’t have to have necessarily played the previous ones to play the ones that come later. In fact, the games outright avoid giving major spoilers for previous entries (Dai Gyakuten Saiban being the big obvious exception). This is sometimes talked about online as the no-spoiler rule. Of course, events are sometimes alluded to, but the exact details are never explicitly stated leaving old fans to fill in the gaps and new players none for the worse. This even occurs in the first three games which are seen as a tightly woven trilogy. This means that the relationship between Edgeworth and Franziska’s fathers is never discussed beyond a simple, “Hey these two went against each other in court and Gregory pointed out Manfred’s oopsie.” If you only play the first game with no outside knowledge you don’t even know Franziska exists! This pairing is established through two games but that same requirement means it never explores its full potential in canon!!!

This hurts even more in Investigations 2 which introduces the character Shigaraki (sorry, I played the Japanese version), a former assistant of Gregory and now a lawyer in his own right who heads Gregory’s law offices (he doesn’t even change the name from Edgeworth Law Offices........). When he first meets Edgeworth he is very snappy towards him for his “betrayal” training to be a prosecutor under von Karma because now people know he didn’t exactly do legal things. But the fact that Manfred killed Gregory is never mentioned. Now maybe news in the Ace Attorney world is the kind that doesn’t publicize the fact that a case that went unsolved for 15 years was connected to a prominent figure in the legal world, but if you’re going to hate someone I think hating them for becoming a prosecutor and taking after the person that murdered their defense attorney dad is a very valid reason. No juice in that department though. Although brief, Shigaraki also interacts with Franziska in this game and much like Edgeworth doesn’t dig deep into what the Edgeworths and von Karmas think of each other. Now I understand Ace attorney isn’t exactly the kind of game series you go to for extended character relationship dissections but it does make me a bit sad. Thank you Investigations 2 I enjoyed the game especially that case where you play as Gregory very much but there wasn’t enough bloodlust in it.

Back to the immutable part, even if Edgeworth and Franziska have relatively normal interactions in the games, there will always be that shadow hanging over them. No matter how many people in the world look at them and say that they had nothing to do with the actions of their parents, nothing can ever change the fact that one of them murdered the other. It makes me wonder just what is going through their minds when they talk to each other now that they are adults that know the truth. This contrast between the fact that I wouldn’t blame them if they harbored animosity towards each other and the fact that they don’t show that at all (in regards to their fathers) fucks me up because it’s really good. It’s fucked enough that it works really well as a platonic relationship and I love it enough as it is. BUT it gets so much, much, MUCH more delicious if you decide to add the element of romance.

Perhaps the number one example of this is thinking about when they first realized they had feelings for the other. Lots of juicy variables depending on whether this happens pre-AA1 or post-AA1. While I have imagined a variety of situations and read multiple fanfiction concerning this, usually I settle on Franziska/pre-AA1 and Edgeworth/post-AA1. Pre-AA1 while she does have a desire to overcome him and is slightly antagonistic about this, she knows deep down that they get along normally and takes solace in that fact (but is never fully cognizant of it or shows that to anyone). Over time, those positive feelings would grow closer to what most people would call “love,” whether platonic or romantic, still at the back of Franziska’s mind. The kind of feelings that would have stayed there never to surface if the truth of DL-6 didn’t come to light. When faced with the fact that her father did irreparable damage to Edgeworth, harboring those feelings or even interacting with him at all could be seen as pity/rubbing salt in the wound. And imagining how she channeled those emotions into an intense hatred for Miles Edgeworth (looking back at the screenshots I posted earlier) only for him to interact with her at the end of AA2 in such a firm but nonchalant manner and how this transitions to their interactions in AA3 onward is very good. I have a less firm grasp on Edgeworth’s side of things but I definitely think he would be reluctant in part because of the fact that he was one of the direct causes of her father’s conviction. Due to this and the fact that I think Edgeworth would take the age gap into consideration it would be harder for him to recognize any feelings as romantic love even when compared to Franziska who I think would also have a hard time in this regard. At the minimum I’m actually thinking post-AA2, most of the time around the AA3/Investigations time frame, but having him realizing after the 7 year time skip Apollo Justice (AA4) made the series go through has its own share of delicious minutiae that can only come from these two being around 30 at that point and Edgeworth becoming the Chief Prosecutor. The two of them overcoming their feelings of guilt towards each other and dealing with the ramifications of the sudden absence of a figure who held so much influence on their lives to enter a relationship is one of the most important parts of this pairing for me. I would be here all day if I continued so this is only one example! こじらせ最高！

Another very important part of this pairing is that the relationship between Edgeworth and Franziska is both a childhood friend and brother/sister combination (no not cousins) and not at the same time. Don’t worry, it both makes sense and doesn’t make sense to me too. The fact that there is not much outlined in the games doesn’t help much either.

While it is known that both Edgeworth and Franziska studied under Manfred to become prosecutors, little else is made clear. The exact time Edgeworth began his studies would affect the nature of their relationship and how close they would be pre-AA1 and that is where I’ve seen the widest range of interpretations. For example, in my observations of the western Ace Attorney fandom, it seems to be common consensus that Manfred took in Edgeworth relatively soon after DL-6 and raised him in Germany, with him meeting Franziska around that time as well. When I started reading Japanese fanfiction, it kind of surprised me to see versions where he met her at an older age as the probability hadn’t even crossed my mind at that point. There is also the issue of where these studies took place due to minor setting differences between the Japanese and English versions but that is outside the scope of this post.

There is a clear association of the von Karmas and perfection and there is no doubt that would have extended to Manfred’s education policies as well. This is in fact the focal point of the airport conversation in 2-4. Franziska spoke of the pressure she felt to keep up with expectations with her legendary father and Edgeworth being a prodigy while knowing she was not. Even so, she worked hard enough to become a prosecutor at the tender age of 13—nearly the same time as Edgeworth. But since Edgeworth started his career in America, there would be an ever-present physical distance. In addition, seeing him “choosing death” and coming back in such a seemingly easy manner further instilled the idea that she would never be able to stand on the same level, let alone overcome him no matter how hard she worked (There is also that moment in AAI2 where Edgeworth temporarily renounces his prosecutor’s badge and Franziska has a few words to say to him but yeah... not enough bloodlust...). She thought she could finally achieve that goal by defeating Phoenix Wright while Edgeworth remained in his disappearance, but found herself questioning herself just like Edgeworth must have after the first game. The difference this time was the presence of someone who already went through that soul searching, perhaps the only person who could understand the pressure Franziska felt, as someone who also studied under Manfred. Maybe that’s how he knew he’d get max damage by juxtaposing these lines in that scene.

‥‥キミは今日、私に追いついたのだ。われわれは今、ここに並んで立っている。 ‥‥しかし。私は立ち止まるつもりはない。‥‥キミが歩くのをやめると言うのならば‥‥ ‥‥ここでお別れだな。狩魔　冥。

Bonus: This is the text you get if you don’t present the whip to Edgeworth at the end of 2-4.

Therein lies the crux of the relationship between Edgeworth and Franziska: the exact emotional distance between them (距離感). Or rather, the inexact nature of it. While they did study under the same mentor with an ostensible common goal, the difference in their true goals and inner feelings would later cause events like the above paragraph to happen (especially the AAI2 one... feed me the genuine shock, the unbridled acrimony...). While they did know each other for an extended period of time, the undefined nature of it means that the term childhood friends may or may not be applicable, and that they may or may not be seen as siblings. This ties back to my statement about seeing them as childhood friends/siblings and not at the same time earlier. I believe their relationship is not so easily definable as to allow only one interpretation. I can accept most any interpretation and have it coexist with the others in my brain. I simply believe in all the possibilities of their relationship!

But I do have to dedicate a paragraph to talking about how the western Ace Attorney fandom sees this pairing as incest. In the consensus outlined above that Manfred takes in Edgeworth after DL-6, it seems to be a fait accompli that this was an adoption, making Edgeworth and Franziska adopted siblings. When taken together with the fact that they would have been around the ages of 9 and 2, respectively, during DL-6, I understand why it is an unpopular ship. Now I could go on about about this point in relationship to the western Ace Attorney fandom as a whole and Edgeworth’s sexuality, but that’s a whole other can of worms. What really disappoints me is that I feel calling them siblings, period, without leaving room for anything else erases some of the complexity of their relationship. That’s why it seeing people praise their “sibling” relation makes me a bit sad even if i agree with the points they make. I don’t expect people to think of them the same way that I do but sometimes it feels like an absence of thought. ロマンがない……

Now when that’s all said and done, why do I believe Edgeworth and Franziska would make a good romantic relationship? Their unique shared past of studying under Manfred gives them the opportunity to be emotionally vulnerable with someone who understands them in that part of life and can deal with their difficult personality in a way that other characters cannot. Although on the surface they seem uneven specs-wise, there is a delicate balance when they actually interact from the third game onward and they have a great amount of respect for each other’s careers which sometimes makes me forget they have a seven years age difference (but it is there, a very good one at that). They’re both not good at expressing their feelings honestly even though they’re both capable prosecutors, a profession where words sway the verdict of the case, which makes for one of the the most powerful combinations known to man, the double tsundere. And because I think that having a good talk with each other and choosing to be together in a romantic relationship of their own volition after what Manfred did is pretty raw. ...And so on.

Honestly, I know full well that the version of these two I love in my head is a culmination of everything I’ve seen and imagined of them over a period of ten years, something which is different from anything that was shown or will ever be shown in the games and alien to pretty much anyone familiar with the series. But I don’t care. I’ve been in this hole for 10 years and I’m gonna stay here until I feel like getting out. Although considering the amount of time I’ve already been here I don’t think that’s coming anytime soon...

Miscellanea: This Still Keeps Me Up at Night Sometimes

While I did go over the broad strokes, there are some details that I had to scream about somewhere that didn’t make it so here’s a small bonus section.

While Edgeworth and Franziska are referred to as 兄妹弟子, Franziska always makes it a point to refer to herself as the 姉弟子and I think it’s really cute, just imagining saying Edgeworth is the 弟弟子 to his face when they have a seven year age gap. Due to this I also see the two of them as being both the older and younger sibling type at the same time.

When I said that both of them using 私 (watashi) was very important I meant it. Even if two characters both use watashi, it’s usually a pick two between 私, わたし, and ワタシ. Or maybe 私 is just moonlighting as あたし (atashi), わたくし (watakushi), or any of its variants. But no, in this case both Franziska and Edgeworth use 私 (watashi) which I have not seen much (or at all?) for a het pairing. I didn’t know not being able to distinguish who’s speaking in Japanese from the first person pronoun alone could be so thrilling. As an aside, nine-year old Edgeworth is shown to use boku.

In the third game, Edgeworth calls Franziska to prosecute the first day of the final trial because Phoenix fell off a bridge and got sent to the hospital, with him becoming the defense attorney in Phoenix’s place. At the end of the trial, the following line can be found:

Still thinking about this line since it is quickly moved on from and because Edgeworth uses 相棒 for Phoenix. Tell me what he is thinking Capcom.

While I will consume most anything about this pairing, I will skip most R18 works where Franziska is underage depending on how skeevy the premise is/how it is depicted. Just not into that...

While imagining situations for fictional characters when listening to music is a time-honored tradition I don’t think anything could have prepared me for this official song from the Ace Attorney Pachislot soundtrack:

どうすれば思い出す幸せだったそんな時をうらやんでいるだけじゃダメだとわかっているよ戻れないことがほら僕たちを明日へと導かせぬけど消えないんだ笑いあった日々もすべて僕の中にあるのさ（だから今は）

(Lyrics are personally transcribed so may not be fully accurate)

VGMDB doesn’t have a lyrics credit so I don’t even know who to scream at but to have lyrics that match this close to my mental image in an official songs is bonkers.

Their in-game themes are the same with a different intro.Thank you GBA-era space limitations.

Edgeworth and Franziska occasionally refer to each other by their first names. This stands out even more in Japanese because of how infrequently first names are used. And because when they do it’s in katakana with no honorifics. Even I don’t use Edgeworth's first name where I can help it. You keep on rocking guys.

Franziska’s voice actress in game-related official media is Sawashiro Miyuki. I want more Franziska content even if it’s only for this reason.

That one image from the second ending of the anime’s second season:

What is the explanation for this anime staff???????? It’s been three years and I’m still thinking about this picture. Who decided to put this in???????????????????? I would like to thank them very much.

Last but not least, an unexpected crumb of content in the year of our lord 2022. I watched this year’s Ace Attorney orchestra concert online and one of the songs performed was the ending theme of the third game. The video played on the screen during this song featured a scrolling timeline of the cases in the trilogy along with characters saying what I think were new lines made for this occasion. And then this line appeared:

Now this line is clearly lampshading the airport scene in the second game, a scene has not been referenced in any Ace Attorney media that is not an adaptation of 2. They decide to drop this bombshell for 2 seconds at an orchestra concert video and here I am now, wondering if they ever plan on making Franziska appear in a game again and talking about something that happened in a past game.

The Search for What Once Was or: The Advent of ミツメディア

Unfortunately, there are no bottomless pits of content in this world. Although I am an Ace Attorney fan, I am 90% I was able to stay one for this long because I got into Mitsumei, meaning that I had but a passing interest in other fandom content after playing all the games. And due to the fact that I got really into this pairing at a relatively early part of my Ace Attorney history, I did not (and still do not) have a marked interest or disinterest in any other ships in this series. With all this in mind I had no choice but to set my sights outward.

Of course it’s not like I abandoned all other media even during the early heights of this obsession. But looking for things to enjoy when you know you pretty much have no content in a certain area feels very different. That is why I yearned for something that reached the highs I felt while engaging in fanworks, something that would leave a lasting impression on me. While it’s easy enough to find things to like, finding things that live up to those expectations and years of emotions is a much more Herculean task. For example, if I reread a fanfiction, it doesn’t matter whether I last read it two weeks ago or two years ago, my heart never fails to swell with emotion and I pretty much will always tear up at the same places. When reading/watching other things it feels harder for tears to well up, but if I hit a certain line in a fanfiction they come out whether I want them to or not. Ever since ten years ago, I’ve only ever been chasing for that high in other media. That’s the real reason I decided to get into visual novels starting with White Album 2. I figured that I could find a romance—or any kind of story really—that could take me to similar heights. And White Album 2 did satisfy me in that front a great deal (I even bought the Vita version and replayed it to get to the console-exclusive scenario before Extended Edition was a thing, and I ended up buying EE too). And recently (okay that was 2018... four years ago...) Tears to Tiara has succeeded in leaving a lasting impression in me and recreating the emotions I felt the first time I played every time I see certain quotes from the @arawn_b account on Twitter (See previous blog posts).

But there was still a certain peculiarly shaped hole in my heart. It was only a few years ago that I realized that shape could only be filled by Mitsumei. I don’t know how long it took me to realize that when I’m probably the person most obsessed by this pairing on this side of the internet. Filling that hole is actually quite difficult, especially when you realize that most romances can never even dream of getting close to what my mind soup has been cooking for years. that While I have seen many relationships that have bits and pieces of what Edgeworth and Franziska have such as shit between the parents that may or may not involve murder, age gap, studying under the same mentor, feelings of inferiority, and knowing each other for X amount of years, there is nothing with all of them at once and to the degree at which they are present in Mitsumei (If you have any recommendations hit me up). And I know that finding such a relationship is pretty much impossible, to the point where I realize it makes me a bit more passive/narrow-minded when seeking new things to try out. But still I continue to consume, in hopes of reaching that mountaintop.

I will now introduce some works that I have enjoyed throughout this journey despite my now permanently attached Mitsumei goggles in relation to the pairing at hand. This will be my last warning that I will not hold back on spoiling anything.

Mawaru Penguindrum (2011)

I first watched this around 2012~13 so I didn’t make the ミツメディア connection that much, even when I rewatched it a while afterwards (I don’t remember when this happened). But seeing other people post screenshots I went to myself, “Oh so that’s why I liked it so much“ and decided I had to rewatch it for this post. I still really, really love this show but I’m sure there are many other blogs out their with their own Penguindrum analyses. In this post I’ll mostly be talking about the relationships between the Takakura siblings and their relation to Ringo.

One of the more obvious parallels between Penguindrum and Mitsumei is the fact that the Takakura parents are labeled as criminals, with one of the victims of the subway attack being Ringo’s sister Momoka. In the present, Kanba, Shouma, and Himari live with the fact that a lot of people in Japan hate them through the actions of their parents and Ringo feels she has to take on the burden of the death of her sister tearing her family apart by “becoming” Momoka. Even then, they eventually grow to see each other as their own persons individual from their relatives. I liked how Panguindrum showed that yes, there were people who didn’t through the character of Tabuki. During my most recent rewatch, when I got to the scene where Tabuki denies any ill will towards the Takakura siblings I was pointing at my screen like that Leonardo DiCaprio GIF. Because then there’s the episode where Tabuki puts Himari’s life in danger at the construction site and reveals the hatred pent up inside the darkest corners of his heart (Yes! Bloodlust!) and how petty he was in how far he was willing to go to take the siblings down in an attempt to find their parents and get revenge. Ringo also comes face to face with Tabuki as an individual with his own past and trauma and not as a prize to be won and become a glue to keep her family together.

I also greatly admire how the Takakura siblings are portrayed in this anime in that they exemplify both ends of the family/strangers (他人) dynamic. In the first half of the show, there is no denying that Shouma, Himari, and Kanba are a family through and through, as shown through both words and actions. It feels natural every time the brothers say they’re doing everything for Himari, every time Himari is shown doing what she can to show her gratitude. But it’s clear that there’s something in the background, and I’m not just talking about that one Kanba/Himari kiss at the end of episode 1 (still wondering what this means). In the second half it’s gradually revealed that none of them are related to each other by blood with Shouma being the sole Takakura from birth. Kanba taking his actions to greater extremes, Himari reflecting on her past and how differently things could have gone, and Shouma desperately trying to keep everything together all while a tabloid reporter is clearly trying to seed mistrust among them strains their relationship as both family and 他人. The fight between Kanba and Shouma and Himari leaving the house acts as both the surface-level culmination of those negative emotions and proof of their strong love for each other, no matter what form it may take. Having Himari receive and give back Shouma’s scarf—the symbol of them becoming a family—in consecutive episodes was pretty devastating. Including these quotes because I just like them a lot.

生きるってことは罰なんだね。でも、罰でも晶ちゃんと一緒にいたかった。だから、選ばれたかった。

これで私と晶ちゃんは他人だよ

Everything comes together in the final episode, and I believe that depicting the Takakura siblings as both family and 他人 at length made the finale and the displays of love that much more impactful. Although I didn’t realize it the first time around, I think this is why I’m so firm on seeing Edgeworth and Franziska as both family and not family at the same time, without denying one or the other. I also just like things being vague and defined at the same time. I will eternally thank Penguindrum for being the show that showed me those possibilities with such conviction.

Anyways time for Triple H posting.

Penguindrum is good... I hope the movies get a US release...

Mirai Radio to Jinkou-bato (2018)

When I played Hakuchuumu no Aojashin (See previous blog post), I knew that Cases 1-3 were somewhat based on Laplacian’s previous games although I didn’t bother to play them before Hakuchuumu. But in the end my curiosity got the better of me and I ended up doing them all anyway. While playing Hakuchuumu, the setting of Mirai Radio interested me the most what with the global network connection pigeons and the concept of living in a world without that. And in the end I think it actually is my favorite setting out of all the Laplacian games even over Hakuchuumu.

I see this game getting blasted online for having not enough content and saying the trial version was the peak and honestly I kind of get it. The common route had that build-up leading to the satellite crash with everyone working together to build and distribute the radios and disable the artificial pigeons. But then Kaguya decided to tell everyone that the reason the pigeons don’t function as a communications network anymore is because they’re working to basically be her life support and if they die, she will too. Since the cast is a nice group of people, they try to find another way to stop the satellite crash but at the end of the common route, Kaguya dies as the satellite crashes into her home at Terminal 1. That’s right, the end of the common route has the protagonist Sora desperately running to the terminal trying to save Kaguya as the satellite plummets towards Earth. I got so into the game at this point that although I was also playing Muramasa at the time I decided to finish this first. After this incident, Sora wakes up a month later with no memories of what happened.

I looked up where the trial version ended after I finished the game and it was right after he first woke up after the incident. I can understand the complaints here because honestly while it is a good stopping point it is way too much to put in a trial considering how much content there is afterwards and after this point it does kind of feel like a different game. But that’s why I like it so much. The second half of the game is actually about how people deal with trauma differently and that’s so sexy of Ono to write about even if the routes still feel half-baked like the previous games. While this theme is also present in Mizuki and Akina’s routes, I will mainly be talking about the relationship between Kaguya, Sora, and Tsubaki.

The artificial pigeons and their network functionality was developed by Hazuki Izana (Kaguya’s mother) and Azamino Tsubaki. It is widely known that Izana caused the pigeons to go rogue and stop functioning but even Tsubaki didn’t know the reason why until Kaguya figured out and told everyone. This made Izana an easy target of hate, especially in this case for Sora, who lost his parents in the resulting airplane crashes. Kaguya’s secluded upbringing in the abandoned Terminal 1 made it that much more shocking when Sora outwardly displayed his disgust at her mother’s actions before knowing the truth behind them. The two later develop feelings and and confess to each other, but that only solidified Kaguya’s resolve to sacrifice herself to restore the pigeons’ network functionality for Sora’s sake. But after Kaguya died, the network didn’t come back.

In Tsubaki’s route, Sora finds out why—he is actually being kept alive by the artificial pigeons as well.

Ironically, Sora found himself in the same situation Kaguya did in the common route. Faced with the knowledge that your every breath is dependent on an event that caused the suffering of many and your death would be able to end that can be a pretty good reason to contemplate suicide when push comes to shove. Luckily, Tsubaki was able to convince him to live a natural lifespan and the two worked on compressing the new info they learned into audio data, banking on the fact that it would be caught by the future broadcasts on Sora’s radio. And that’s how Kaguya’s route proper branches from the common route.

While the end of this route is pretty okay.jpg, I like how it highlights the thought processes behind Kaguya’s decision in the original timeline and how her interactions with Sora help her acclimate to living in a world outside the airport and recognizing the human urge to live. Also Izana creating the future radio because she wanted to know there was a possible future where her daughter was happy and healthy is very good.

While the main relationship between Sora and Kaguya is nice enough on its own it cannot compare to how delicious the one with Tsubaki is. The game’s official site states that Tsubaki is bi and you do find out that she had one-sided feelings for Izana (And has been with women but not men before. Cowards.). That makes it so both Sora and Tsubaki are NTRing each other from dead people.

Speaking of dead people, one thing I really liked in this route was the treatment of Izana. She died seven years before the story starts so Kaguya and Tsubaki have no choice but to talk about her through distant memories. Throughout the game I kept wondering if there were going to be any flashback scenes with Izana speaking. In the end there weren’t and I find myself appreciating the game all the more for it. There are only fading memories that appear in dreams and that Zippo lighter Tsubaki has with the photo of her and Izana on it. Specifically I would like to point out the residual Izana voice files in the pigeon data banks. It’s two or three voice files and they are all of Izana’s voice lines in the entire game. Seeing Tsubaki desperately repeat those clips really makes it hit that she still isn’t over losing Izana and is a stark contrast from the nonchalant personality she’s shown up until this point. Sora decided to create a simple AI with Izana’s voice, synthesized from those voice clips. Tsubaki is then able to have a simple albeit fabricated conversation with Izana, and ends up leaving the program within the radio Sora gave her in the place where Kaguya buried the dead artificial pigeons finally putting her lingering emotions to rest. It’s so good how the “real” Izana never truly speaks and this game is one of the few times where I really felt for the pre-story death of a character where there were no flashbacks with them. Even when Sora realizes the person he’s been seeing in his dreams is Izana, he is never able to hear her voice or see her face and I love that. I still want to see Izana interactions with Kaguya and Tsubaki though.

Of course, I can’t talk about Tsubaki’s route without talking about the ending scene, also known as:

Gyakuten Kenji 2 (2011)

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Now that that’s out of my system, I love Tsubaki so naturally I love this scene. How she desperately pleads for Sora to live after having to go through both Izana and Kaguya’s deaths. How they both are “selfish” for leaving the pigeon network as is in favor of living their present lives. The piano version of the opening song fitting so perfectly in this scene. One thing I have to point out is that Tsubaki mentions Kaguya dying before her very eyes which would imply her being in Terminal 1 when Kaguya committed suicide but there is nothing else in the game to corroborate this so I am still confused. Other than that I love Tsubaki. Also she is the hottest character in the game.

Mirai Radio really was a slightly good game that could have been a gooder game if it had some more meat to it but it just... doesn’t. It has some parts about trauma and life that I really like mostly because of the Mitsumei goggles so it’s hard to recommend to normal people. One unbiased thing I can say in its favor is that the music and songs are really good, even though I first heard them in Hakuchuumu. In fact when I replayed Hakuchuumu with the Steam version I found myself feeling emotionally compromised when they played certain tracks. Sorry, after playing Mirai Radio any rendition of Seia no Wata being played in scenes without any of those characters is going to make me feel complicated.

To end this section I will leave the common route ending song and the lyrics that destroyed me.

白い鳥に願う　罪の終わり新しい朝のむこうに自由な空あなたが羽ばたけばどこまでも飛べる　明日はわたしを翼にかえて

「白い鳥に願う　罪の終わり」って、うわぁーーーーーーーーーー

Soukou Akki Muramasa (2009)

I have had an interest in playing Muramasa for quite some time, and finally decided to get around to playing it when I saw the English version was going to be released (Note: I actually got around to starting it after the English version was released). I was interested in the alternate history and wondered about the 善悪相殺 memes going in but nothing could have prepared me for how much I would obsess over what would continue to occupy my mind to this day: Ootori Kanae.

I enjoyed my time with Muramasa much more than I expected and found a lot of things to like about it but Kanae simply eclipses everything else in that section of my mind, so I will not be talking about other parts of the game much.

Even in the common route, I could tell Kanae was definitely the kind of heroine I loved, and I’m the type who saves their favorite routes for last so I would have done her route second even if that wasn’t the most recommended order. But seeing her in the common route tempted me just a bit not gonna lie.

First her uniform looks really good on her (not that we have any other female GHQ officers in this game to compare) and I love women with guns so the sprite above sent the serotonin rushing in the brain.

Sometimes she acted flirty but there was definitely an unhinged side to her that I was extremely curious about.

And after going through the emotional turmoil of common route chapter 5 and Ichijou’s route with a basic grasp of 善悪相殺, I finally reached the promised land...

I think just seeing this title card got me excited. And miraculously, that excitement never waned in the entire route.

Even the scene in the very beginning where Kanae and Kageaki are in the rain and you can feel them probing into each other through their conversation got me very worked up because I was sure that this route would deliver what I wanted.

And it did so in quite a spectacular manner with Kanae killing Kageaki’s foster father right in front of his eyes. Since Kanae was in her tsurugi (the mechs in this game, okay I know the European ones are called cruxes) and Kageaki didn’t know she had one, he didn’t even know it was her. But since Kanae did know about Kageaki’s tsurugi, but not the fact that the person she killed was related to Kageaki, this created a very delicate situation, a situation ripe for DRAMA unfolded before my very eyes and I brought out the popcorn for the fun times ahead. I was about to get the bloodlust I wanted, and this time with the blood included.

Also with that brief dream scene that took place after I can’t believe Muramasa made itself Ace Attorney media so quickly.

But what everyone’s looking forward to is the scene after that, the initial confrontation between the two of them after such a charged scene (They also casually drop that Kanae has a sister seven years younger than her no I’m not going anywhere with this).

Kanae reveals that Yuuhi, the boy Kageaki killed at the beginning of the game, was her cousin and one she loved very dearly. And of course, she won’t forgive him. But to her surprise, Kageaki does not beg for forgiveness, but instead thanks her profusely after confirming multiple times that she will never forgive him for his actions. His absolute desperation here after being denied his desire to be put on trial for his actions from the people he thought would give it to him is great. And then he starts going on about dedicating himself to her because he sees her as a sort of savior in a world he believes will never acknowledge the true horror of his actions. The CG in this scene is very good at showing the absence, with neither of their eyes being shown. Everyone rightly screenshots the line where he thanks her and I do agree that that is the highlight of the scene but what really gets me is this small part near the end.

Throughout the scene, Kanae has just been standing there dumbfounded at Kageaki’s reaction to her terse judgements. And then at the end there is this one line, this one simple line that got my brain juices flowing more than Kageaki’s words of thanks ever did. In her stupor, Kanae can only think about how she does not understand Kageaki at all. Thinking back to the common route, she gradually finds out Yuuhi is dead and Kageaki is the one who killed him, all while interacting with Kageaki in an unchanged manner. Due to her nature as an undertaker of revenge, she must have conjured an image of what Kageaki must be like underneath what she could see on the outside. And all of that came crumbling down the moment his knees dropped to the floor in front of her. That was the moment I became enamored between the relationship between Kanae and Kageaki. I think people having imprecise mental images of each other only to realize they don’t actually understand the most critical points is very sexy.

This moment brought to mind that AAI2 scene where Edgeworth renounces his badge and Franziska expresses disbelief at him leaving her behind again which I totally get when you think back to what he said to her at the end of AA2. Franziska thought he would stay in that sort of rival/fellow prosecutor position and he threw it all away in such a simple manner (in her view). Edgeworth certainly had balls for doing that after saying he would part ways from her if she did something similar. This is completely unforgivable if it weren’t for the no-spoiler rule because this is the game where Edgeworth doesn’t recognize DeKiller which I also could not begrudgingly handwave otherwise. I kind of love that Edgeworth just does shit like what I mentioned above and the “choosing death” incident because while he is quick to discern what he wants to do to further his ideals as a prosecutor he also does not really consider the effect these actions will have on the people around him which gives us scenes like Phoenix and Franziska not holding back on the malice when he comes back in 2-4. Edgeworth having that legit asshole side to him in addition to Franziska having an unabashedly selfish personality (although they do improve a bit) is very good actually.

Back to the topic at hand, Kanae finds out that the person she killed in front of Kageaki was his foster father which puts a wrench in her cleanly laid plans to kill Kageaki in revenge. Now that Kageaki unknowingly also has grounds to enact revenge on her, Kanae has to think a bit more about how to apply her life principles. ...But not now because it's time to stop an atomic bomb from being deployed!

Had to mention the airship section. It was pretty fun and I managed to solve it without guides. The atomic bomb couldn’t be stopped though so lots of things went boom and Kanae and Kageaki escaped to the countryside for a bit.

This section of the route includes the infamous coin-stacking scene but I also want to mention the scene the CG above was in and how there is zero comment as to what Kanae is wearing and instead they talk about politics and the types of pottery of cups used in tea ceremonies which I think is sexy in a different way.

I just think this line is kind of funny out of context but if only I knew how true this line would come to be in the coming hours...

After this the gang heads to the Ootori estate for some political fun and turmoil and also to kill Shishiku. The train conversation that happens here before Sorimachi decides to ruin the fun is one of my favorite scenes in the game. I just love the atmosphere of it with both Kanae and Kageaki having so many things to say to each other but voicing none of them, opting instead for empty pleasantries and forlorn gazes out the window. The silent, growing tension between these two until the climax of the route is palpable. It boggles the mind why I did not take any screenshots of this when I played the game.

Sorimachi appearing leads to the trauma-inducing Guts Eider fight—and quite literally at that as Kageaki throws up at the end of it. He already hated himself enough for killing Yuuhi and then he had to realize he was about to kill Konatsu as well when it was too late. Although he didn’t actually end up doing any killing in the end, Guts Eider still came to a deadly stop taking the people inside with it. The horror of these actions furthers Kageaki’s self-loathing as well as his desire for Kanae’s swift judgement.

God he’s so pathetic here... I love it... The pathetic little screams... The fact that Kanae is secretly there just staring in a daze at the scene in front of her...

Anyways they head to the Ootori estate and to one of the funnest arcs in this route.

She’s perfect... Guns under the skirt are so good... I love her...

The scene where she kills Shishiku is very good with them screaming at each other and Kanae’s gutteral laughs and the transition where you only see the sky as the mansion burns and you hear what sounds like Kanae sobbing until it turns into laughter and you really feel the unhingedness settling in. But the best part is still yet to come.

Well there is the H scene where Kageaki fully embraces his fate of getting killed by Kanae, which is excellent and one of the most visceral ones I’ve ever read, but nothing could have prepared me for what lay ahead.

The final showdown of this route, the true beginning and end of Kanae as a character, is what mind broke me (compliment) more than anything else. To be honest, up until this point while I really did vibe with this route, you didn’t really see things from Kanae's side so it felt a bit off. If only I knew they were saving everything for this one moment.

There is a substantial flashback showing how Kanae’s tendencies for killing and revenge got their start in her childhood, and how firm those tendencies were grounded within her to her father’s great dismay (and also partially his fault). Her love of killing and revenge-based justice went well together, so enacting that revenge in place of others became kind of a life duty for her.

I love Ace Attorn(ry

But she had never met anyone who so willfully desired that revenge, who basically prostrated themselves in their desperation to be killed, who denied their right to exist in the world until the moment Kageaki did so right in front of her. Kanae’s revenge had always consisted of both her and the opposing party’s belief in their sense of justice, that their killing was right in the eyes of at least one person. That was why she fulfilled her revenge in combat with the other party. But Kageaki was always hesitant in killing due to Muramasa’s curse. He knew the weight that taking a life would bear on his soul even as his blade sunk into human flesh. Unfortunately due to the denial of his wish to stand trial, the “safety net” he had that tied him to human society disappeared, making him cling to the existence of Kanae all the more. That kind of revenge would be far too one-sided, which plays a part into why both of them use their tsurugis in the final battle. To Kanae, she is getting revenge on Kageaki for killing Yuuhi. To Kageaki, he is getting revenge on the mysterious crux who killed his father. Ironically, this veil of metal separating them was the only way to make their acts of revenge more “equal”.

To Kanae, Kageaki’s thought process was like a denial of her very existence. If her revenge didn’t bring anguish to her target, would it truly be in the benefit for the ones who died? Who does benefit from revenge in the end? This small blip in her world view that popped up was the start of a mental spiral into questioning her actions up until this point. The game poses the age-old dilemma: Is revenge truly fruitless? Perhaps it is; after all there is no shortage of works depicting how revenge draws people into madness and often ends up in their deaths as well.

But this revenge story is not of those people, it is about Ootori Kanae, a woman practically born to enact revenge in this world. And her revenge is not for anyone in the living world, least of all herself.

It exists solely for the dead. It does not matter what she feels about the people involved because she is simply a tool used for that revenge, that justice. And that is why there was only ever a single option in the end—to kill.

Goddddd everything in this sequence just sequentially destroyed my brain (compliment) more and more. It answered all the questions I had about Kanae’s character and then some. It made all the little moments in the route fall into place in such a satisfying manner. And the “answer” to revenge that she derived was really refreshing to see and quite fitting for her character. Really, a perfect conclusion to this route.

But my true favorite scene in this route (and possibly the entire game) is the post-credits scene. Kageaki is dying in the snow after the two of them attacked each other and then he faintly recognizes Kanae and goes “大鳥大尉...” Right at that moment her theme starts playing, which made me absolutely convinced that that song was made for that moment alone because of how well it fit the scene and how perfect the timing was. I’m probably wrong but let me dream with this one.

At the very end, they were able to kill the person they wanted to, and at the very end, they died without ever truly knowing each other. Kageaki doesn’t even realize that Kanae killed his father (although he does get very close). And so, the curtains close on their tale of revenge.

Honestly I would give Kanae’s route alone an 11/10, that’s how much I enjoyed it. I have nothing bad to say about it. It’s the one thing I’ve read that’s come the closest to what I’ve been searching for all the time. Some of the finest クソデカ感情 I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing. Kanae is definitely one of the most characters ever. I also enjoyed the rest of the game but I never reached the ridiculously high highs when playing Kanae’s route. Somehow I ended up playing the fandisc/spinoffs Janen-hen and Shokuzai-hen right after and while I enjoyed them in varying degrees I was also pleased by the new Kanae art in them. She is very pretty.

Special mention to Kanae’s crux which is my favorite tsurugi in the game for a very simple reason: it has a fucking crossbow. Its dormant form is the bass she plays. What really makes it special is that its power is a copy of Williams Tell’s auto-tracking arrow ability but shittier, so the user has to manually change the target coordinates every time they want to change the arrow’s direction. In the hands of any other person this would be way too inconvenient to use in battle due to things moving around all the time, but Kanae just so happens to have some... ”special” eyes so she has the ability to perceive time at a far slower rate than humans normally can, making her able to control the direction of her arrows at will. The fact that Kanae and Barrows were pretty much made for each other is very sexy.

Also couldn’t resist screenshotting every instance of “The paradox of ‘Tell and apple’.” because of how cool it sounds.

Bonus: this game has a character named 来馬豪 when Manfred’s Japanese name is 狩魔豪(かるまごう) so this makes Muramasa certified ミツメディア. You cannot change my mind.

Honorable Mentions: It’s Almost Over, I Swear

Unfortunately, not every piece of media can cause my brain worms to multiply like the ones above did, but there are a lot that get me thinking. Here is a small selection of such instances.

In Aete Mushi Suru Kimi to no Mirai, the protagonist is an adopted child of the Sawatari family and in his sister Nanagi’s route, it is revealed that this was due to the guilt the Sawatari parents felt as the other party in the car accident that caused the protagonist to lose his parents. There were some good quotes in there but unfortunately this revelation happened after the H scene quota was filled so there was no brooding over this fact while having sex, although I guess I shouldn’t have expected to see that from a brand named Alcot Honeycomb. Also Nanagi is a pretty standard Eroge Imouto™ so the relationship doesn’t set my radar off in any other department.

I have never interacted with anything in the Muv-Luv franchise, but sometimes I remember that one of the characters is named Mitsurugi Meiya (御剣冥夜) making me wonder if I accidentally stepped into the worldline where Mitsumei is married (no).

I played Riddle Garden because one of the heroines also voices Arawn from Tears to Tiara and I really enjoyed it (except for Phils route fuck Phil's route). It made my heart beat faster than anything I've read outside of fanfiction which I have to tip my hat to. Interestingly enough, there were two (2) characters I liked more than the one voiced by Arawn, although I liked them all (except Phil(ry). It also made me think that maybe 女性向け is really where it's at because in my time scouring the Japanese web for content I have a feeling most of the Mitsumei content was 女性向け (furtively glances at my doujinshi collection). The same goes for Ace Attorney in general I guess, especially now that its doujin heyday is way past. I do have an increased interest in otome games but I am still as lazy in starting things as ever. Where else can I scream at things like this?

ｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｱｯｯ

In the novel series Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru, there is a line in one of the earlier books that’s remained in my mind: 「遺族は一生遺族」 (paraphrase). The series is pretty good at going through the implications of this while Sakurako solves mysteries and the like, especially near the end when she finally finds out the truth behind the death of her little brother. When’s season 2 of the anime........

I think this cover of the season 1 Kaguya-sama opening (the best one) by Kaguya and Shirogane is very good.

(Direct link because cucked from embedding by Sony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=motF91gTdO0)

Here’s to Ten More ～至高主義者の道～

Congrats, you made it to the end of this post! If you read it all, good for you. If you just decided to just skip to the end, I commend you for wanting to see what the hell is down here. This concludes my post on how I ended up shipping something 10 years ago and how it affected my life way too much.

The first ideas of this post came around the time I played Mirai Radio and Muramasa. Because I played them both in a very close time frame and had all those thoughts I wrote above pop up in my brain in the same time, I felt that I had to write them down somewhere. But I also felt I couldn’t truly express why I liked them so much without also explaining how Edgeworth and Franziska dominated my mind and media consumption. I also kind of wanted to let people know that no matter how much anyone thinks I ship them, it’s actually much, much deeper and much, much worse than other people can feasibly imagine. I saw that this descent started nearly 10 years ago and came up with the mega post idea for this year, which leads me here.

Will I ever stop thinking like this? Maybe, maybe not. What I do know is that finding something you truly enjoy from the bottom of your heart is a very lovely feeling and I hope everyone gets to experience that in their lives.

Thank you for reading about the endless thoughts in my head and I hope you have a nice day.

ミツメイはそのうち万病に効くようになると信じてるあと世界平和の鍵にもなる。まる。

#ミツメディア

5 notes · View notes

advancedpottery217x2 · 3 years

Text

Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2: Chronicles of the Wild Ride

Way back in the far off year of 2017, I decided to play Dai Gyakuten Saiban 1. Later that year, the second game would release (I applaud all the people that waited from 1′s release). I found myself posting in the Ace Attorney discord because I knew I needed a place to dump my thoughts while playing.

Now the year is 2021 and both games are getting an official release (in English nontheless!) and port, allowing many more people far and wide to experience Shu Takumi’s Wild Ride. For nostalgia’s sake, I decided to dig up the pastebins I posted to the Ace Attorney discord back then and post them here. Of course this is not the full extent of my thoughts but back then Discord didn’t have the spoiler feature which means there is a lot of ROT13 text I do not want to dig through.

There will be spoilers after the cut, but I will list the links and say which parts of the game they correspond to before posting the links for real. Names used are the common romanizations for the Japanese version of the names at the time.

All times are in US Eastern Time.

Date: August 3, 2017 Chapter: end of 2

Link: https://pastebin.com/5y1Ld5Ur

Date: August 4, 2017 Chapter: 3, investigation day 2

Link: https://pastebin.com/ukhTFYfd

Date: August 4, 2017 Chapter: end of 3, murder details

Link: https://pastebin.com/ChNDvwuX

Date: August 4, 2017 Chapter: end of 3, you know what this is

Link: https://pastebin.com/6Evy1UjV

Date: August 6, 2017 Chapter: 5

Link: https://pastebin.com/Jfz5fTSK

Date: August 6, 2017 Chapter: 5 ver.

Shu Takumi MURDERED Me in Cold Blood and He's Standing There Laughing at Me

Link: https://pastebin.com/dv5vuA8E

Posting the text for all of these below so spoiler warning for real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Date: August 3, 2017 Chapter: end of 2

Link: https://pastebin.com/5y1Ld5Ur

so the criminal selden who used to live in souseki's room also stole a thousand pounds and hid it there. when he died in jail he handed a key which would be able to access that to petenshy. of course being broke af, petenshy wants to reclaim the treasure but the problem is duncan ross moved into the room.

when someone blows into a gas pipe the connected lamps/stoves in the building go out and cause a gas leakage (tbh I didn't pay too much attention to how the gas leakage occurs but what's important is that it happens). tepenshy tried to do this to scare duncan out of the room but whoops he killed him.

of course viridian is shocked and one day by chance hears souseki complaining about how he woke in the middle of the night to find his stove out and the air hard to breathe. she began to harbor suspicions and bought poison on the black market. she gets tepenshy to leave his room by telling him to meet at a certain pub on matters concerning duncan ross. when he's out, she goes into his room, smears poison on the edge of the pipe and takes the letter and the contents of the box that was found empty later by ryuu.

however, tepenshy couldn't get souseki out of the room in the coming days because of the stabbing incident and ended up poisoned days later, although not enough to kill. when all this is revealed in court petenshy demands proof that the stolen treasure is in the room as if it isn't he has no motive. it turns out the contents of the box was that very key, and viridian has it now. thanks to holmes's ~scientific investigation tools~ the treasure is found the next day: a studded dog collar with a crest with the letter B... and blood on the inside. holmes immediately reacts and makes gregson take custody of it. Iris wants to publish stories about viridian's incident and souseki's experiences in the haunted apartment but holmes tells her that she must not publish the latter...

Date: August 4, 2017 Chapter: 3, investigation day 2

Link: https://pastebin.com/ukhTFYfd

asougi: while his body was supposed to be sent off the ship (probably for burial), it's actually missing and the grave in japan has no body in related matters the masked man started working under barok three months ago and has no past memories. susato thinks masked man is asougi and calls out his name. he stops and slowly repeats the name to himself before leaving.

experiment: the machine is examined again and there seems to be a trap door like mechanism under where the cage would be. the cage itself also has some damage on the bottom. ryuu gets drebber's business card from dovinbow which has an oil stain on the back. However, this is special oil imported from france so gina uses toby (warning: extremely cute) to find drebber's workshop. I just got here but there's another copy of drebber's machine here without that door on the bottom

case 10 years ago: some guy that everyone calls Professor murdered five people of noble standing using a hunting dog to tear their throats out. drebber apparently saw him climb out of his own grave but the story was quickly wrote off. however in the wax exhibit displaying this scene, there's a piece of crystal tower glass in the professor's clothes and blood on the bellows of drebber's camera...

Date: August 4, 2017 Chapter: end of 3, murder details

Link: https://pastebin.com/ChNDvwuX

10 years ago, a man only known as Professor was convicted of serial murder and sentenced to death... only he didn't actually die and sithe forged the papers to make it look like he did. back then, drebber was a poor college student who occasionally dug up bodies to sell to hospitals. one day he was in the cemetery when he saw the professor climb out of his own grave, with a steel mask on to conceal his face. drebber gets the shit scared out of him and a gunshot from behind him is fired, killing the professor for good (I don't think it was made clear who it was).

drebber runs the fuck out and tries to tell his story to someone but only a tabloid paper will hear him out and that's how the story spread. btw the author of the article is meningen.

in the present, meningen goes to drebber to ask him to build dovinbow's contraption and this is where drebber gets His Idea and the whole murder shit starts. the large amount of smoke coming out of the machine was to hide meningen's cage falling through the trap door. the cage that fell into the crystal tower came from drebber's balloon etc.(ok this stuff is from day one) the body in that cage was the professor's wax statue stolen from the museum. of course this means that drebber needed a conspirator, sithe in this case. she had to cooperate or else the truth behind the professor's death 10 years ago would be exposed. since her team had exclusive rights to the crime scene switching things was easy enough.

BUT, when she went to stab the screwdriver in the body to frame dovinbow things got kind of weird. meningen actually didn't die from the 30 foot fall. he was trying to get out but then sithe stabbed him (the true cause of death). she had a motive as well, because when meningen was still a reporter he looked into the professor shit, found out about sithe, and was blackmailing her for money (this is needed in court so I'm including it I guess)

Date: August 4, 2017 Chapter: end of 3, you know what this is

Link: https://pastebin.com/6Evy1UjV

After the trial barok asks ryuu and susato to meet in the courtroom. so the whole gang is there (+ masked man). barok begins to talk about why he has a disdain for the japanese

...16 years ago 3 japanese exchange students came. one is susato's father. and the other...... barok walks toward the professor's wax status in the middle of the courtroom. the mask on his head is locked, but he got the key from rozaic. as you can probably guess from the flow of this conversation it's a japanese guy. The reason why his identity couldn't be revealed is because it would have caused a shitstorm between japan and britain's growing relationship

suddenly the masked man begins trembling...... and then screams very loudly. I could already tell by the voice but he then proceeds to remove his cape and mask to reveal that yes, he is asougi. he rushes toward the professor and .........recognizes him as his father, one of the exchange students. ryuu and susato of course are fucking SHOOK and the three exchange brief comments before ryuu hands asougi back his sword (what the fuck I nearly cried here). he then cuts the head off of the statue. then he says he must go and leaves the courtroom.

(susato later says her father once spoke of a fellow exchange student dying of disease in london.....)

Date: August 6, 2017 Chapter: 5

Link: https://pastebin.com/Jfz5fTSK

jigoku admits to killing gregson in his cabin on the ship, keeping his body in the ship freezer to obfuscate the time of death, carrying the body in his large suitcase, planting the body at the crime scene (the unidentified gun there is jigoku's), and setting the fireworks to go off at a certain time. he also admits to being the head of the japanese side of the "exchange murder". these murders were actually carried out to silence two (john watson and gregson) that knew about the professor's autopsy report (rumored to be fake).

at some point it's established that the english head could have only been the actual death bringer. vortex argues that this is barok because he was the prosecutor in charge of the professor case but then barok reminds everyone that he only became that after his brother was killed and all the evidence and stuff was handed to him from vortex. from this point forward it's pretty obvious that vortex is the Big Bad but of course he doesn't lend an ear to that but we know that barok didn't do it yay

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

of course now we gotta find out the truth from 10 years ago vortex kinda just forgot that mikotoba was at the autopsy of klimt so he testifies as well as goulloyne (in place of sithe who was there too). the "critical" piece of evidence is genshin's ring that was found in klimt's stomach. the general knowledge is that klimt swallowed it to incriminate genshin. but thanks to goulloyne who (illegally) brought the ring to court, we find out that the ring has sharp edges which would leave marks in the body if swallowed. but the autopsy made no mention of anything like that. it becomes clear that the ring was stolen from genshin and then miraculously "found" by watson (who actually performed the autopsy). mikotoba thought it was strange that there was no damage in the body from the ring but was told by watson to write that the ring was swallowed in the report.

but wait... THERE'S EVEN MORE

why would genshin not object to a guilty verdict if he knew the ring was planted? it seems there was an "exchange" where in place of genshin remaining silent at the verdict, he would be assured escape from jail... at this point barricade and mitermont begin to testify and this is where I am now

Date: August 6, 2017 Chapter: 5 ver.

Shu Takumi MURDERED Me in Cold Blood and He's Standing There Laughing at Me

Link: https://pastebin.com/dv5vuA8E

VORTEX WTF

kilmt got tired of nobles getting more leeway in terms of illegal things so he decided to take matters into his own hands by becoming the professor vortex found out klimt was killing people as the professor and blackmailed him by threatening to tell his family. through this, he was able to decide the next victims. btw he asked for the third victim (the former chief justice) to be killed because he wanted that position...

genshin held suspicions and went to vortex, but the latter refused to do anything due to lack of evidence. genshin went straight to klimt and offered him a duel that culminated in klimt being killed. but before this klimt wrote a confession, which told of his deeds and identified his blackmailer

vortex couldn't just let the public know that a noble was behind the killings so decided to pin everything on genshin. this included everything about the fake autopsy. however the "exchange" to break genshin out of prison for making him accept the verdict ddidn't exactly go as planned (btw vortex made him agree by promising to let him go back to japan to see kazuma ;_;). vortex and jigoku were waiting in the cemetery when suddenly drebber saw genshin climb out of the coffin. vortex convinced jigoku to shoot his friend by threatening him with what would happen if he didn't and jigoku reluctantly pulled the trigger. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

and yes the person behind the death bringer curse was vortex

in the present, these facts are coming to light and everyone rightly freaks the fuck out. vortex is smug as usual and goes "ok but do you really think you guys can get me lul" however before genshin was sentenced he wrote a "will". it's two pages and pretty will-like in which he writes he leaves everything to his son. until vortex lets it slip that there are actually three pages. barricade just happened to bring it with him (the real mvp) and it says that the sword [karuma] will clear the darkness surrounding the truth and to turn your "head" with the sword in hand... the "head" actually refers to a certain part of the sword (No. 6 here http://www.nfa.co.jp/ag/images/word/keyimage1.jpg) ryuu twists it to find klimt's confession in there which pretty much seals the deal for vortex

but wait... THERE'S MORE

vortex gets all haughty again: yeah you guys found the truth but can you really just tell the public this? this insane batshit conspiracy would make everyone lose their confidence in the law and the police. ryuu then remembers the holmes doll that acted as a radio/walkie talkie to the iris doll earlier. he pulls on the ears t activate it and then... a hologram of sherlock holmes appears. he explains that since voice can transmit, why not images? (idk how he pulled this off but he's holmes) well then where's holmes??

remember this is a two way transmission holmes is in the buckingham palace and has been showing the entire trial to the queen of england

I hope you enjoyed the game as well as me having my mind blown away playing this on release.

Remember, there is no escape from Shu Takumi’s Wild Ride.

#not 水増

0 notes

advancedpottery217x2 · 4 years

Text

Hakuchuumu no Aojashin thoughts (Spoilers)

Hakuchuumu no Aojashin is an eroge from Laplacian released on September 25, 2020. Contains spoilers for the entire game.

This game first caught my attention when I learned it had a second main visual:

The composition of the image made me wonder about the meaning behind it and eventually I looked through the game site a bit and decided to do the trial.

The beginning consists of the protagonist Kaito viewing the beginnings of three dreams while (unknowingly) having his memory reset before the start of the next. The only other people he interacts with in this strange experiment are Izumo, the android who is managing the experiment and Yonagi, a mysterious girl who seems to be out of it and is also a member of the experiment. After reaching the end of the third dream, Izumo tells Kaito that this experiment is for Yonagi’s sake and that he will regain all of his memories after its completion. What does this even mean? What do any of these dreams mean? Play the game and find out! (This is where the trial ends)

The dreams (referred to as “Cases”) are separate stories that happen to take place in the settings of previous Laplacian games, although it seems nothing was borrowed plot-wise (I haven’t played any other Laplacian games though). The way they are presented is interesting because the A parts are shown in a random order, after which you can choose which B part to view, completing all three in the end. Funnily enough I got 123 in the trial, 321 in the full game, and completed them in 132.

Case 1 deals with 45 year old schoolteacher Arishima Kaoru and his student Hatano Rin.

...Don’t worry I can hear the sirens too.

Both Arishima and Rin have their own reasons for not interacting with society in what would be considered a “normal” way which leads to an unhealthy amount of codependence with both parties acknowledging it.

The link between them stems from Rin’s father, a famous now deceased author and also someone Arishima knew in college.

At first, Arishima approaches her in a attempt to learn about her father’s much hidden private life. As he learns the truth, he slowly begins to face his own perceived failings as a former aspiring writer and Rin comes to terms with the effect that her father had on her outlook on life.

Not in the positive way of course. The only H scene in the A parts of the cases is of Arishima raping his wife in an attempt to get Rin off of his mind. Soon after, his wife files for divorce and takes the house, and Arishima decides to live in Rin’s apartment for the duration of summer vacation.

I liked this one the least mostly because the other two fit my tastes a lot more, but the portrayal of negative emotions only giving way to further negative emotions left me wanting to read more. In other words, “Damn, shit is fucked”. Truth be told, I don’t think I could ever fully understand the workings of Arishima’s and Rin’s minds and why they chose the actions they did, but it was a very interesting experience (especially after reaching a certain point in Case 0).

Case 2 features the playwright William (Will) Shakespeare and Olivia Berry, the leader of a theater troupe.

Will works at his family’s bar serving food and drink of questionable quality to barely support himself and his blind father. As a side gig, he turns the stories his customers tell into plays and sells them to various theater troupes. One day he ends up delivering his script to a nobleman directly and heads towards their estate. Until he sees several deer on said estate and tries to take one for himself because the wealth gap sucks. Of course, he gets caught and is brought in front of the master of the house, who is happy to kill him until his fiancée Olivia realizes that Will is THE William Shakespeare and spares his life (by making him her slave) to make him write for her troupe.

As it turns out, the other troupe members are also people whose lives have been spared through Olivia’s slavery and don’t really care about acting as long as they live to see another day. On the contrary, Olivia is passionate about acting and is adamant on having the troupe become chosen to perform in front of Queen Elizabeth. The main reason for this is her hope of the Queen being able to overturn the ban on women performing theater.

With this and Olivia herself playing male roles, this means crossdressing ahoy! (There is only one woman in this image)

I enjoyed this case the most out of the first three because of Olivia and her relationship with Will (also she had the hottest H scenes). While the plot is what you would expect out of an underdog story, the character interactions with the troupe and the patrons of Will’s bar kept the experience enjoyable.

I also liked how Shakespeare plays played into the story, although the ones I’ve read were not any of the ones actually featured in this case (A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet). As someone who tends to like “romanticism” in stories I especially liked the focus on Romeo and Juliet in the end, even if the “true love” the game paints it as is much more positive than the actual play.

Case 3 is the story of the truant Amei Kanna and Momonouchi Sumomo, a university student working to earn her teacher’s certification in Kanna’s class.

Kanna skips school to try to fix his family’s truck camper RV which has fallen into disuse and cannot start up anymore. He wants to use it to drive to where his deceased mother wanted to take pictures of Halley’s comet and show his father that he has what it takes to become a photographer. Besides the problem of the vehicle not running he also has no idea where his mom wanted to go. Also he doesn’t have a license. He’s been successfully sneaking under the eye of his father to go to the garage for several months until Sumomo visits his house and his dad finds out the truth. After fighting with his dad Kanna decides to live in the garage for a while, but Things happen and both Sumomo and Azuki (↓) end up living in the garage as well.

Luckily for Kanna, Azuki is much more experienced with tinkering with automobiles (and can drive) and offers to fix up the truck. And thus begins the summer adventure...

This is definitely the most fun out of the three cases due to its much more lighthearted nature and the joking interactions between Kanna, Sumomo, and Azuki (especially the latter two). It’s a chill, feel-good story about finding your future and opening up to others and yourself. The romance between Kanna and Sumomo is also quite nice (helps that their ages are much, much closer than those in Case 1) and you really get the sense that they’re bringing out the best in each other.

tfw no summer of chilling in the garage with two (2) hot nee-sans

Also this is completely inconsequential, but this case happens to start on my birthday.

After viewing the last credit roll, Kaito wakes up and learns that Yonagi has also woken up and has left the facility they were in. Where did she come from in the first place and where did she go? The answer lies in Kaito’s memories, and here is where the story truly begins, Case 0.

No, it’s not Cotton-Eyed Joe.

It starts with Kaito’s childhood memories and how he meets Yonagi, and continues to follow them to when they become teenagers and then adults.

Now the first thing I have to say is that Yonagi is a very good heroine and is very cute.

cawaii

cawaii..............

cawaii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (+Izumo and Leap-kun)

There were many times I took a screenshot because of how adorable I found her. Of course, the main reason why I like her so much is because of how cheerful and strong-willed she is even in the face of knowing she might succumb (and eventually does succumb) to early-onset Alzheimer's like her father. I liked seeing her and Kaito gradually getting closer as friends and then as a couple because you can tell from their interactions that they really care about each other among Yonagi’s playful jabs and Kaito’s scientific spiels. That is not to say that they have no setbacks as they end pretty much go through everything in life together, with all of its ups and downs.

Case 0 is where the science fiction elements really kick off and boy is it really the S in SF. I say this because there are a lot of explanations for the technology behind what Kaito is researching and while I got the gist of it, I’m not sure how much I really understand. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the world built up in Case 0 and the reveals in the latter half that recontextualize everything. This is where I felt like that one guy in that It’s Always Sunny GIF. It’s got it all. Societal commentary! Hubris, sacrifice, and progress! Tragedy! Yonagi!

It is gradually revealed that Cases 1-3 are stories that Yonagi wrote for herself so she can remember her feelings and emotions towards her life experiences for when she eventually loses her memories. As such, the heroines are based on various aspects of herself and the protagonists are such with Kaito. Kuods to the voice actress for pulling off four distinct roles. Slowly putting together the pieces of what influenced what parts of the cases made me feel like that one guy in that It’s Always Sunny GIF, but less crazy.

At the end of the the day, the story as a whole is a very detailed love story between Yonagi and Kaito. This aspect of the game felt just for me because I live for long, dramatic stories that are built around a single heroine (part of the reason I love Asairo so much and also recently read and liked Tasogare no Folclore), which are rare because of the need for sex scenes with different kinds of girls.

I have been intentionally vague with and even omitting some plot points in my already bare enough summaries not only because I’m bad at summarizing, but because there are many intricate points in the game that I feel are best experienced for yourself.

Other than the plot, the game boasts fantastic visuals and sound. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were quite a few dude CGs in Case 0 because it’s always nice when eroge has dude CGs. Case 0 in general has a lot of CGs as opposed to what came before and I generally think that divide is fitting, although it wouldn’t hurt to have one more in each of cases 1-3. Also good H CGs, although I find it amusing that a majority of the H scenes are after the "main" part of the game.

In the music department, each case had a good variety of tracks suiting the mood of the story (the full soundtrack appears to have 80 tracks including some songs from previous Lapalacian games). Although cases 1-3 don’t share any tracks between each other, there were some points in Case 0 where music from the previous cases was used to good effect. I would also like to mention that the use of ambient sound effects really immersed me into the story and it would be nice to see more games do this.

I got really into this game and enjoyed every aspect of it (okay, everything except the abuse of うなずく) and seeing the conclusion of the tale of the girl who’s called the world and the boy who continues to tell her story brought a smile to my face.

And in the end, I got my answer.

Now excuse me while I listen to Into Gray on repeat.

#not 水増

0 notes

advancedpottery217x2 · 5 years

Text

Tears to Tiara: A Return to One’s Roots

It’s been a year since I finished Tears to Tiara: Kakan no Daichi and I feel that the game (and series) has influenced me quite a bit. In this post I will try to explain why and describe my thoughts on fiction in general.

Update (May 10, 2019): Added some things near the end because it was something I swear I was going to put in but I somehow forgot.

I will say this first: A large part of why I like Tears to Tiara so much is because the compatibility level between me and Marui Takeshi is very high. Only by realizing this after finishing TtT1 and rereading some of his work have I come to accept how much his writing has shaped my interests.

I feel that the Tears to Tiara series in which he is the planner and main writer of embodies many of the ideals written about in past works while opening it up to wider audiences (who will be the hero who reads Routes???).

No matter what anyone says, I believe that the most important theme present in this series is “kindness“.

This is what struck me the most after finishing TtT1. Tears to Tiara is a story built on the willingness to be open and kind towards yourself and others, to have the strength to take action and the responsibility to support the people you care about no matter the situation, to be human and humanistic.

While these may seem like empty words at first glance, I never felt that way about the scenario even once. A large part of that is due to the harmony between the voice acting and the text.

I feel that Marui’s text is very good at bringing out the emotions and inner workings of the characters, and sometimes I’ve felt like emotions were pouring out from the onscreen text itself (don’t ask me how this works I don’t really understand how I get this feeling either). While it does sometimes feel a bit long or indirect, it is not unnecessary text by any means and the specific wording used serves to envelop your mind into the workings of the characters and the world they live in. There is a certain steady, rhythmic pace to the dialogue that makes advancing the text feel very satisfying which kept me wanting to continue the game. The voice acting has just the tempo and amount of emotional weight to match, making it almost sound like a story is being read to you.

The wording of the dialogue combined with the voice acting makes lines that would not be considered quotable (aka 名言 level) in most cases still memorable and riveting nonetheless, which is a big part of why I am so fascinated with Marui as a writer. Here is a scene from the beginning of the game to try to show what I mean:

youtube

The story-like nature is heightened by the fact that the game has almost no narration (地の文), with what little there is usually being voiced (in fact, I don’t recall there being any unvoiced narration in TtT2). This leaves the weight of the narrative into the hands of the dialogue, and the performances of each voice actor must be dramatic enough to match. It feels quite dramatic in the theater sense, which is also helped by the fact that the protagonist’s sprite is shown nearly every time they speak. This heightens the sense of being a third person looking into a world as opposed to feeling like being in that world, although I was never really one to self-insert into the protagonist in the first place. Tears to Tiara is the first game I played where I can say that the “protagonist” is my favorite character without hesitation.

These emotions make it feel like the characters are speaking from the depths of their hearts, without any deception or obfuscation. It makes me believe that they will see everything through to the end, that none of it is for show. It is a bit hard to describe in words, but there is no mistaking the fact that I feel sincerity radiating from the characters. This sincerity is one of the main reasons why I like pretty much every character, which doesn’t happen to me that much (I also feel this way about Routes).

The text is also good at conveying just the right amount of information at the right time. There were some lines that I could tell were foreshadowing the first time around, but I was surprised to see just how many there were when looking at some scenes for a second (or third, or fourth...) time.

I feel that this 構成力 is best exhibited in Kusakabe Yuuki’s route in ToHeart2. It took me one and a half hour to clear from start to finish when I replayed it recently, but each event presents information about Yuuki, her relationship with Takaaki, and/or the plot of the route that reveals itself at the end. Discovering how much was shown right from the very first meeting with her was interesting, and going through each scene thinking “So this is what that was referring to...“ was very fun. I had a similar experience with Kajiwara Yuuna’s route in Routes (coincidentally or not, both of these characters are voiced by Satou Rina).

All of these factors also pair well with the other aural element, the music. As briefly touched upon in my previous post, the use of the soundtrack in TtT1 made me conscious of this aspect in other games, although I think the only other works that have approached this level from what I’ve played are the Dai Gyakuten Saiban series from Capcom. It has long been my conviction that Aquaplus’s strongest suit is music and sound (the music in Routes is what actually got me into Aquaplus as a whole) and there is little that would convince me that Tears to Tiara is not the pinnacle of those abilities. The interplay between the BGM, vocal songs, and the scenario is a sight (or sound) to behold, and this only improves in TtT2. My hours with the series have formed deep emotional attachments to the music within me and to this day can get me to cry the most consistently.

The amount of emotion found in the music is truly a strange thing, as I found out for myself a few months after finishing TtT1. It was when I decided to listen to the PC/Gaiden OP song Tears to Tiara. I felt a wave of nostalgia which I thought to be very strange. After all I had just completed the game and it was too early to become an old favorite or anything. Nonetheless, I felt like I had returned home and was filled with a sense of peace and comfort (or maybe this is my Nakayama Arisa bias from Routes). This made me listen to the soundtrack through the lens of “nostalgia” which ended up bringing out more emotion than I thought possible.

Revisiting scenes only serves to remind me how all of these elements work together to get the story’s messages and themes across as a coherent experience. I enjoyed myself immensely, with engaging and important scenes happening throughout the story from the very beginning to the end, although of course most of them are at the end. It blends both 燃え and 萌え (of the male characters for both properties tbh) making it easy for me to recommend to other people actually.

The amount of research done into the names and historical background of the setting is also something I really like, making it feel more inclined towards history than fantasy (historical fantasy?) at times. Marui is a self-proclaimed 設定オタク (seen in the 05.03.30 entry here) and it shows, mainly by my many trips to Wikipedia to see why something is a certain name and what historical events mirror those in the game. He’s even written about one of the trips he’s taken to Europe/Africa and how it influenced some of the locations in TtT2. This kind of attention to detail makes my own research all the more worthwhile (TtT made me realize that I did the same thing in Routes for the Heian/Kamakura periods in Japan...).

In the past year, I’ve been thinking about why and how this series means so much to me and I think I’ve finally found the words to explain these feelings.

To put it simply, I found what I have been looking for in fiction in Tears to Tiara. My foray into visual novels started with a friend recommending me Umineko, but the first one that I chose to start myself was White Album 2 (Skip the next paragraph if you don’t want my backstory).

Part of the reason why I chose this is tied to how I started learning Japanese. It was the summer between middle school and high school and I figured it might be useful in the future. I taught myself kana, read some of the Tae Kim grammar guide, and installed Rikaichan on the suggestion of a friend. Soon I was able to navigate webpages and search results with a bit of confidence. At that time I was beginning to run out of English fan art/fiction of a certain fictional couple that was not very popular. This led to me going through Japanese search results and finding fanfiction in a language that I was not quite used to reading yet, but was willing to try with Rikaichan. I rapidly consumed what I could find leading to my reading skills greatly improving, but that was not the only thing that increased. I had already sensed at the time that I was not interested much in real world romance and so looked to fictional romance instead. This led to me looking for fiction focused on the romantic (Romantic) and emotional elements. While White Album 2 satisfied this desire, I continued to search (and will continue) for something more.

To me, Tears to Tiara is a work of fiction I’ve always wanted; it is unapologetically emotional, unapologetically passionate, and above all, unapologetically positive. There were times where I could only sheepishly grin at a character’s idealistic goals, but I could rest assured that their companions would help them ensure a future where they could be realized. There were times where a character’s despair would wring out the pathos within me, but I could rest assured that someone would be there to hear and validate their worries, to support them when they get the courage to face their problems, and to share the happiness when things get resolved.

Negative feelings are treated as a natural part of being human, as something that must be given equal attention to as positive feelings. To be human is to both give and receive, and to possess the insight to discern how much energy one should spend in each category.

These might seem like obvious things, but Tears to Tiara made me seriously think about these concepts and how they could apply to my life. It is a game that gives importance to feelings that are easy to pass off as “weak” or “cliché” (this is also a reason why I like Kitto, Sumiwataru Asairo Yori mo, a lot).

This made me reevaluate what kind of 感動 I want to experience in fiction. It is not that I want to cry. In reality, I did not cry much while playing the games themselves. It was after I had enough time to think about the consequences of each event and how they connected to each other that I could not hold back the urge to shed tears. It feels much better to cry for the accumulation of a character’s growth and the happiness they acquire over an event that takes those things away. This is the secret behind how the soundtrack can get me to cry consistently: the happiness I feel brings me to an emotional high that has a high probability of being accompanied by tears. When I revisit a scene, the parts I feel emotionally overwhelmed by are usually “slice of life” ones. The nature of the text (described above) combined with the knowledge of future events make the characters all the more precious.

In the end, Tears to Tiara to me a work that is about nostalgia: for the past, present, and future. It is about the joy of being alive and living in a world that possesses beauty all around if you care to look. It is a series whose music and characters I can reliably gain motivation from, and I sincerely hope that more people get their own meanings from it.

それは決して悲しい物じゃなく強くて優しい

―― Until (Nakayama Arisa)

3はよ

0 notes

advancedpottery217x2 · 5 years

Text

Tears to Tiara II: Haou no Matsuei Review

A post was initially planned to be a /r/visualnovels WAYR post for Tears to Tiara II: Haou no Matsuei (TtT2) but I wanted to say too much so it expanded to become more personal and contain my thoughts on the series as a whole (including Tears to Tiara: Kakan no Daichi (TtT1) and Tears to Tiara Gaiden: Avalon no Nazo (Gaiden)) in addition to my feelings towards the main scenario writer Marui Takeshi).

Have you ever encountered a piece of fiction that conformed to your tastes exceedingly well and seemed to be what you were looking for your entire life? After finishing TtT1 (and Gaiden) last year and 2 half a year ago, I've found myself thinking about why I love this series so much, and what I’ve been looking to get out of visual novels and fiction as a whole.

First, my thoughts on TtT2. For reference, here are thoughts I wrote on TtT1 last year.

Some parts will contain spoilers written in white text and placed in brackets. [Like this.] Tread carefully if you are reading this in an environment where you cannot highlight text.

Story/Characters

失われた女神と覇王の物語

As the tagline above suggests, the story is ultimately about the growth of the protagonist Hamil and the heroine Tarte; there is a much smaller focus on the side characters compared to TtT1. Although this made me feel disappointed, the increased amount of focus on Hamil/Tarte versus Arawn/Riannon made me enjoy the main pair much more than I initially expected and became one of the highest points of the game for me. In this case it more than made up for the otherwise loss of enjoyment from decreased side character events, but it in no way erased that loss. I think whether or not you will enjoy the game depends on this point.

Like TtT1, the plot can be summed up with the word 王道, as an adjective as well as a noun. I liked how Hamil’s struggles finding his place in the world amidst the expectations placed on him seemed to be a natural extension of what Arthur went through in TtT1. The existence of Melqart “within” him and the added contrast with his lineage/surroundings supporting his 覇道 side made for more interesting character growth. This is only enhanced by Matsuoka Yoshitsugu's incredible performance as Hamil (true gap 燃え). I really appreciated how his relationship with Tarte felt more equal and mutual than the one between Arawn and Riannon in 1; while the latter are still a very solid couple, I enjoyed the feeling that the former gave off of being two people struggling to sort out their feelings towards each other while also figuring out themselves and the future of Hispania. 初々しい少年少女という感じで大変可愛いであります！！！ Tarte is a heroine with clear motives who is ready to dedicate herself to Hispania and Hamil (for reasons made clear later in the story) while also not afraid to be harsher to push him in the right direction, a position not unlike Arawn towards Arthur in TtT1. The actual reason that I like these two better is probably because they have more イチャイチャ scenes. They can get ridiculously adorable in one scene and then be deadly serious for the next, which is my ideal for fictional couples honestly.

While the plot developments were also very 王道, I was even able to look over the more overbearing ones due to how they fit in the narrative and/or the atmosphere of the series as I understood it. ...Except for [reviving Monomachus. I can see needing a spear unit, but this was just way too convenient. The case of Tarte in the final chapter had build up (along with that fantastic CG parallel) when compared to Monomachus just... coming back.] In the grand scheme of things, that's my biggest complaint about the game.

There is also a clear divide between the first and second halves of the game at the end of Chapter 6. I've seen reviews saying the second half is lacking (and I can understand why), but I honestly think the game kept up my interest more after the middle climax until the story starts moving towards the end then TtT1 did (although I did think "ah... I guess it can't be a true TtT game without a 闘技大会 stage..."), which is something I can praise 2 for.

The distinctly lower amount of events focused on everyday life made me disappointed a little, as these were a large part of what made me enjoy the cast of 1 and made me see them as a family. Dion being the butt monkey of most of the jokes also got stale after a while, although I didn't expect [for him to get all those events relating to Simon, which gives him a great role which makes him more than that at least]. In terms of my overall opinion of the cast, 1's is much higher but in 2 Hamil and Tarte are just very, very good. Some of my favorites this time around other than the main pair were Kleito, Elissa, [Hasdrubal, Ishtar], and Izebel.

System/Gameplay

The system/UI functions are mainly the same as the previous two games (which also means the one line backlog is still present..,), although I was pleased to find that the possible characters for the system voice-like things you hear when you select an item in the menu in the base screen expanded from just two (Limwris/Ermin) to all the female party members (and the male characters on the map screen). It’s fun hearing all the characters telling you you’re about to save (or be disappointed when you back out of it). Not being able to check your items/character stats at the mid-story save points anymore was a downgrade, though. I also felt that there were less of those save points than in 1, which hurts during some of the longer story segments.

The battle system keeps/expands the elements introduced in Gaiden (item synthesis, traps, magic circles) and reworks what was formerly the changeling system into the Quadriga. While I’m happy about not being forced to use the latter unlike the former, sometimes the Quadriga just goes down too quickly... (´・ω・`) taking all the units inside down with it... (´・ω・`) But luckily in this game there’s a rewind feature that can send you to the start of a turn!! No more fucking around with save states While not as good as the one in Utawarerumono 2/3 (although I can’t complain too much seeing how this came before them), it gets the job done speedily.

Another new feature is the ability to use animals as party members, whether buying them as units from the shop or having Charis charm an enemy animal in battle. I didn’t actually use this that much, except for putting Charis on the gryphon you can buy for better mobility or the boar you can buy for better defense. The elephant that pulls the Quadriga is also a great tank so sometimes I put Charis on her too I guess. I also didn’t use the Melqart/Tanit transformations much, mostly because I didn’t feel like dealing with the decreased stats after the transformation wears off, although the increased stats during the change saved my ass a couple of times. Not being able to use chain attacks is also a marked con, but I guess it’s a price that must be paid to be OP. (´・ω・`)

In terms of game difficulty, I played on Normal and felt that it was harder than Normal in TtT1 and around the same level or higher than Easy in Gaiden (although I did get the all bonus and overall S rank trophies on my first run, which may influence this impression). I don’t know how someone who plays this as their first game in the series would feel though, as I was making sure to avoid common mistakes (not paying attention to element cycle, not using skills, etc.) early on. As the game goes on, spending an hour on a stage becomes commonplace rather than an exception. However, I found myself having fun figuring out strategies to clear every stage so sometimes I wouldn’t even notice how much time I was spending. Except the second fucking dragon stage in the main story fuck you ("ah... I guess it can't be a true TtT game without a BS dragon stage...").

The 50 stage (versus 100 in Gaiden) dungeon in the post-game is where I really felt the pain as everything is just out to get you (and there’s way more dragons). I just decided to grind everyone to level 99 halfway through, which made things easier until you reach the point where you can’t just go around whacking things into submission without thinking. The rewind system is not available for use which factors into the difficulty, but there is a poverty substitution in the suspend save feature. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the plot(?) surrounding exploring the dungeon was much more serious that what Gaiden had, although it was still pretty bare. The ending was nice and sweet as someone who did TtT1 but there was no credits roll like Gaiden had. My only real complaint is that it wasn’t voiced. (´・ω・`)

I bought all the DLC units after the main story and Arawn and Riannon were lifesavers due to their attributes more than once; if you end you playing the game I recommend getting these two if nothing else, especially because the chibi Riannon model is very cute (although Arawn is now 100% an ossan). The other units got some use (except for Beard who is mostly used for MP/CS boosting and/or memes) but they had cute models and level up lines so no regrets.

My main frustration is with how low the drop rates for items are, especially since now I’m looking to synthesize the OP weapons which require some of the rarest drops. Taking an hour to get one item is a bit much. (´・ω・`)

Visuals

Why is this game so pretty!!!! Seriously, everything from the backgrounds to the OP movie to the UI to the character sprites to the character cut-ins to the CGs are extremely pleasing to look at. Honjou Tatami’s character designs go way too well with the Aquaplus coloring team, and this game boasts some of my all time favorite CGs. The character sprites are also quite varied, although I’d have to say Tarte is my top pick in this regard. I also liked the character designs themselves in this game much more than the ones in 1, if only for how much more ｙａｂａｉ they are, especially Tarte and Izebel. It kind of feels odd comparing them to the simpler designs in 1, but at the end of the day I love the designs in both.

I think the 3D models worked well in translating those designs to a smaller size (although I can’t help but wonder about the gap between the models’ feet and the actual floor...) and don’t understand the people who were disappointed that they’re in chibi proportions. They’re cute!! I don’t know enough to say anything about the quality of the 3D maps/areas, but the greater location variety is a big plus; for some reason I really love the wheat field one.

The backgrounds have the soft, almost painting-like feel I’ve come to appreciate in Aquaplus games (thanks Kusanagi). There were even some surprise background appearances from 1 which made me smile.

My only negative in this category is that there are simply too few CGs for how long the game is. There is no excusing this point.

Music

How does Kinugasa keep doing it???? I had taken notice of Kinugasa Michio as a composer who does songs right up my alley (even among all the Aquaplus composers who generally hit that sweet spot) after realizing he composed Remote Viewing for Routes, and greatly enjoyed his work in Utawarerumono 2/3, especially 麗しき世界. The fact that Utaware 2/3 came after TtT2 could never prepare me for the ultimate nut awaiting me in this game: 君の前では少年のまま. This song encapsulates the relationship between Hamil and Tarte through very passionate guitar, Sutani Naoko’s wonderful lyrics, and Suara’s vocals. This deadly combination has led to this becoming one of my top two favorite Aquaplus songs (the other being 星座 from Kusari). I had some worries about the transition to the ED as this transition in 1 was one of my favorite parts of the game but those scattered quickly when I reached that point. The catharsis contained in these moments in both games is unreal.

The game’s soundtrack as a whole is quite good at expressing the idealistic and gentle, yet realistic and tenacious nature of the game and series as a whole. There are a few tracks from 1 with new arrangements and they either made me love a track even more or vastly improve my opinions on it which is a great accomplishment. I also enjoyed the new tracks very much, and the combination of these two elements make for a satisfying music experience on the whole, the amount and variety also being a positive factor. The increased amount of comfy tracks makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The vocals songs were also to my taste with all of the new ones having lyrics about the Hamil/Tarte relationship being extremely up my alley. 🙏 thank you Sutani Naoko 🙏 I appreciate the fact that Suara, Uehara Rena, and Tsuda Akari are all in the soundtrack as this has not happened in an Aquaplus game before or since. The returning songs have arrangements befitting of the story and still hold great emotional weight. Except Until which somehow gets even more ずるい how the fuck do the lyrics fit so good every single time it plays how the fuck does it get me every time god I could write a whole new post on this song alone.

However, what elevates this to being my favorite game soundtrack at this point of my life is the usage. The amount of times that I have felt that playing a certain song during a certain part of the story was simply ずるい is not much, but the majority of them are from the Tears to Tiara series. The ずるい level in TtT2 manages to surpass the already high bar set by 1 by refining the art of layering the ずるい , leaving me staring at the screen in shock multiple times. Even in moments not as clearly defined, I generally liked the length that each each track played. I distinctly remember thinking in Chapter 1 that it was cool that the BGM changed whenever I felt like certain songs were beginning to overstay their welcome, which is pretty refreshing. I definitely feel that this game has the best use of music among all the Aquaplus games I’ve played (yes, this includes Utawarerumono 3).

Voice Acting

Someone please stop Matsuoka Yoshitsugu before he loses his voice!!, is a thought I held many times when listening to Hamil’s screams throughout the game. After reading the very interesting blog post by Mochizuki Yuutarou (voice recording director for Aquaplus) about some of the game’s voice recording and how he initially thought about having an additional person voice Hamil, I find it more incredible how Matsuoka managed to handle everything. The contrast between the soft spoken and reserved side of Hamil (his soft laugh is so good) and his hot-blooded and unrelenting side in the context of the story feels very satisfying to experience; the point where he snaps in the climax of Chapter 1 is a scene that has still not left my mind.

While Hamil is definitely the star performance for me, Kugimiya Rie as Tarte and Saitou Chiwa as Izebel were some of my favorites among the lovely voice cast. There were quite a few voice actors that I have since started paying attention to thanks to this game. On the negative side, I think a lot of the mob characters were too monotone.

Final Thoughts

Tears to Tiara 2 is a game that carries the spiritedness and positivity (:elatedsquirtleface:) of the first game and takes it to a logical next step while improving pretty much every part of the experience for a long (79 hours for main story on Easy without skipping voices), emotional journey. This is most of the reason I rated this a 10 on VNDB; the overall experience is very polished and it was the most fun I’ve had with a game that I can remember. There are definitely flaws, but I feel that what I gained from TtT2 was enough to overpower those shortcomings.

Next Post | Tear to Tiara: A Return to One’s Roots →

0 notes