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rivalsforlife · 3 years

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Phoenix Wright: The Truth Reborn: Oh No We’re Doing This Again

hi.

Nearly two months ago, I wrote an essay summarizing and making very wild conclusions about the second Takarazuka Musical. I did this about two and a half years after watching the first Takarazuka musical. As such I did not have the full context for many things from the musical and was relying mostly on my memory, which blocked many things from this musical for my own safety. However, just this week, I decided to rewatch it, because I enjoy tormenting myself. I said I wouldn’t write anything on it. Here I am writing something on it.

Here’s the youtube thumbnail so that you know what you’re getting yourself into. And here, of course, is the link. This is the HD version which may be slightly more pleasant to watch. Maybe.

It was not quite as cringe in a funny way as the second musical to me, and therefore this essay may be less funny, but I feel like I’m doing a disservice to people by providing a summary of the second musical while completely neglecting the first. Quite possibly doing this is even more of a disservice. I just eagerly await the day that the third musical is translated because *that* will be the day that I finally shuffle off this mortal coil. Either way, I want to write this stuff down so that I never have to watch the musical again out of curiosity.

The following essay will contain major spoilers for both the first and second Phoenix Wright Takarazuka musicals, as I will be using many points from this musical to argue my thesis of the second musical. ... like you were going to watch them anyways.

This one broke 8k. I’m dead inside.

Introducing The Director

Again another disclaimer that I don’t have anything against the actresses or the theatre troupe. I DO have something against Suzuki Kei, who I recently learned is the writer and director of all three of the Ace Attorney Takarazuka musicals, and is quite possibly my mortal nemesis.

This man is the one who brought this monstrosity into the world.

This man, allegedly, cleared the first four ace attorney games *seven times* before sitting down to write these musicals. He played these goddamn games seven times and did not take in a single word. The man clicked through them mindlessly while watching a badly written legal romance drama in the background and got them completely confused. I genuinely have no idea how this man could have played these games more times than even me and yet managed to get so many characters (MAYA!!!!) completely and utterly wrong. This haunts me every day, truly.

This man played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations, and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney seven times. SEVEN TIMES EACH!! and was told to create a musical based on the series. He played these games seven times each and you know what he said?? You know what he said?? “This sucks, I’m getting rid of all of Phoenix’s backstory, butchering half the characters, and writing Phoenix/Lana fanfiction, but also rewriting all of Lana’s backstory so that she was Phoenix’s childhood friend, and you know what, I’m changing her name for good measure.”

I think this man played the games seven times each and then hated it so much and was so sick of it he tried to write something that destroyed as much of the series as possible while still being vaguely recognizable. And then somehow it became a massive hit because people like me see this and go “what the actual hell” and watch it, or people who haven’t played the games see this and go “wow what a great musical!” and then he wrote TWO MORE, destroying EVEN MORE every time in his wake, until finally, finally, he stopped after making Edgeworth straight and time traveling into the past to face off against a corrupt Gregory. I guess that was the last straw.

I have to issue a disclaimer here that for legal reasons this is a joke. I don’t actually hate this man and would not punch him in the face if I met him because that would be rude, and he is entitled to his wrong interpretation of the games. I don’t know what his thought process was. But allegedly he did play the games seven times according to the wiki. This whole essay here is satire and not slander and I don’t want to offend this guy if he somehow stumbles across my nonsense tumblr post. At the same time: Suzuki Kei blink twice if you need help.

Anyways half the reason that I’m making this essay is because I want to share my fake ao3 page for this musical. The other half will become apparent later.

Sorry if that’s illegible because of tumblr quality it’s not really important. All you really need to know is that it’s a fake ao3 screenshot for the musical. Also in the author’s note I said he played the games four times but it was actually seven I just remembered wrong because I didn’t want to believe it.

at this point you may be like “Grace shut up and get to the actual musical” and okay, fine, let’s start this nonsense. Also note that I may be referencing things from my essay on the second musical very frequently; I’m not going to force you to go read that though because the fact that you’re reading this is enough of a torment already.

The Musical Begins

Unlike the second musical, this one opens with some narration from Phoenix.

Transcript:

Phoenix: I’m reviewing a particular case at the moment. To me, this case... is one I’ll never forget.

Immediately I think this is important because it establishes that this whole musical takes place in a flashback that Phoenix is reflecting on. Why is this important? Because we know, by the time of the second musical which takes place three years later, Leona is dead.

Knowing that Leona is inherently doomed to die of her Sad Woman Disease paints this whole musical in a different light. It’s not Phoenix reflecting on how he got back together with his lover; it’s Phoenix dwelling on their past together, and the opportunities they had, before her life was so cruelly and inexplicably taken away. We don’t know if Phoenix’s reminiscing takes place before or after Leona’s death... but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was after.

Phoenix, still in the present, starts to sing. “A wave appears on the horizon like a mirage, it trembles, then vanishes. Your voice, carried upon the waves, fades upon the shore, erasing the splendor of the past.”

This line actually shows up in the second musical, sung by Lucia about her imprisoned fiance quite possibly. It’s kind of hard to tell what the meaning of these songs even are. They’re too abstract for me I think. But this line appears very frequently in the first musical when Phoenix is thinking about Leona.

Then we enter the flashback time.

Phoenix inexplicably yells at a newspaper saleswoman. This is not relevant to anything whatsoever. Then Larry barges in to the office, looking for Maya. Phoenix describes him as “A real trouble maker, but you just can’t hate the guy”, the latter part of which I think many people would disagree with.

Well, afterwards, Maya comes in. Phoenix describes her like this while making exaggerated ��can you believe this shit” gestures.

Transcript:

Phoenix: She’s as ditzy as they come. Oh, and about the outfit... Apparently she comes from a family of spirit mediums. Try not to make fun of her, okay?

Suzuki Kei personally has it out for Maya and I can never forgive him for it. Maya in these musicals is here for pure comedic relief but it’s not even comedic because I just get so angry. How can you play the trilogy seven times and think this about her?? The girl who figured out DL-6?? The girl who told Phoenix to sacrifice her life in order to find the truth?? The girl who put on a brave smile in order to try and cheer up her younger cousin even after she saw her own mother murdered right in front of her eyes?? That Maya Fey?? Ditzy as they come??????

Ugh. Moving on.

Maya and Larry run off, leaving Phoenix to watch the American Broadcast.

Important things to note here are the Godot mug, the little line up of what I think are the messed up little ace attorney figurines beneath the screen, and the fact that while this broadcast is supposedly from and to America the screen is actually not at all showing America. Like literally almost everywhere in the world except North and South America.

The broadcast says that Leona Clyde, age 24, was arrested for murdering the senator Robert Cole! Leona Clyde -- that’s Phoenix’s ex-girlfriend! He runs off to the detention center.

She is not happy to see him.

Leona: Mr. Wright... I’m not the woman you once knew.

Let’s Play A Matching Game

Sorry for the abundance of screenshots that are going to be throughout this section. Phoenix convinces Leona to let him defend her. Some of the conversation seems... familiar.

Leona: No one would defend someone who admits to killing a senator. I’m waiting for a court-appointed attorney.

Edgeworth: Every defense attorney I’ve talked to has turned me down.

Phoenix: In that case, let me defend you.

Game Phoenix: Let me defend you.

Leona: Don’t be ridiculous!

Edgeworth: Don’t be ridiculous.

Phoenix: I’ll never accept that you’re a murderer. Let me prove your innocence!

Game Phoenix: Huh? Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to prove that Miles Edgeworth is innocent.

Leona: I’ve already confessed my guilt.

Gumshoe: He confessed that he did it! In court!

Leona: It’s foolish to think you can win this case.

Edgeworth: My case is near hopeless, Wright.

Leona: (in response to phoenix offering to defend her) No you won’t! Don’t ever come here again.

Edgeworth: Look, just go away, and leave me alone!

Phoenix: You of all people should know. Once I decide to do something, I see it through to the end.

Edgeworth: Once you start on something, you always see it through, don’t you?

Leona: I never thought that you’d be representing me.

Phoenix: Ah, who could have guessed this day would come?

Edgeworth: Not me.

Phoenix: You believed in me. You saved me. And this time, I swear... I swear I’ll save you!

Game Phoenix: Edgeworth believed in me, and I believe in him. I’m the only one who knows the real Edgeworth. I’m the only one who can help him.

I could’ve done a few more, but tumblr is already threatening to murder my laptop.

So long story short, Phoenix manages to convince his lover to let him be the defense on the case. Then immediately after swearing to save Leona, he starts singing a song, which I’m not screencapping because this is enough:

“As long as there are people in this world, there’s only one path I will follow! As long as there is love in this world, there’s only one path I will believe in!”

Edgeworth sings this in the second musical after saying that he returned to California because of Phoenix. Phoenix sings it now after swearing to defend Leona. You draw your own conclusions.

And then we finally get the opening credits. Eleven minutes in.

Just Pretend This Is Narumitsu Fanfiction

Following the credits, we see a beautiful beach. Couples (exclusively heterosexual, of course,) dance and embrace in the background for some time, before revealing Phoenix and Leona, in the Even Further Past, before the LSATs or whatever the ace attorney universe’s excuse for law school exams are.

Phoenix establishes his absolute hatred of change, an important characterization moment.

Phoenix: The view here never changes, huh?

Phoenix reminisces on when they were kids. Leona’s parents were both lawyers (they’re both lawyers) and sometimes they would be like lawyers with her when she was a kid. This inspired her to also become a lawyer after their tragic death of Sickness. They never specify what the sickness is that caused two people who must be relatively young to die while Leona was in her early twenties at the latest. It may be whatever sickness claimed Leona’s life later. Sad Woman Disease. (Sad Man Disease for her father, I guess?)

Phoenix also talks about why he’s becoming a lawyer.

Phoenix: Watching you chase your dream inspired me to become a lawyer too.

So, it’s not “my childhood friend looked sad in a newspaper” because I guess that makes no sense or is too gay or something. But this is another important piece of Phoenix characterization. His entire life so far has been focused around Leona. They’ve been friends since they were kids, and then Phoenix decided to become a lawyer solely because Leona was becoming a lawyer. Not even to try and get back into contact with her after she moved away or anything; just because he’s so obsessed with her that he wants to have the same career as her, then they can run a Mom & Pop Law Firm or something, years in the future, after years of happy marriage and a few children or like whatever the hell.

Well, there’s a few steps they’ll need to get to that. At this point Phoenix still hasn’t confessed his feelings for Leona. He does so here, on this beach.

Leona tries to protest.

Leona: But I’m pushy, selfish, and only care about my goals... You’d get fed up with me.

Phoenix: That’s what I’ve always admired about you. That’s who I’ve been chasing all these years. That’s the only person... I love.

Sooo, Phoenix, your type is pushy selfish people who only care about their goals...? In the first, older lower-quality video translation it was “only care about my work”, too. Hm. Things to think about.

They sing a little duet together. Then we go back to present-day of what’s technically still a flashback. Whatever. Murder is happening.

Back To The Murder

So some plot things to establish: Leona is the legal counsel of Governor Miller, who is running for president in the AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. After the flashback so that Phoenix has some time to change clothes, they show an interview of him talking about the murder.

Governor Miller: I vow to forge a peaceful country with my own two hands, and to prepare myself for whatever may lie ahead.

Reporters: Through thick and thin, he’s a friend of the people!

The Takarazuka musicals are not very good at hiding their killers.

Phoenix: Oh yeah... It’s almost time for the presidential election, isn’t it?

NEVER FORGET, WRIGHT. THIS IS AMERICA. LAND OF THE FREE! god what even was that line.

Anyways, we meet Gumshoe, who is incompetent once again. Maya runs around the crime scene, picks up the murder weapon, puts her fingerprints all over everything, moves things around, all while Phoenix is like “lol get a load of the world’s stupidest girl” or whatever. But who cares about that.

It’s time to get to the only valid part of this musical.

Edgeworth’s Gay Little Villain Solo

You may have seen this one before.

Edgeworth arrives, but not really. It’s like Phoenix heard Edgeworth was prosecuting and immediately entered a dream-like state, where Edgeworth is heralded by the sound of trumpets in Great Revival. He’s played by a different actress than in the other two musicals, since I think she retired in between the six or so months from this musical to the second. She still plays the role well, though, or as well as can be when you’re written in an ace attorney Takarazuka musical.

Shrouded in scarlet solitude... it’s Edgeworth.

Yes, those are six Edgeworths. Yes, they pick Phoenix up and carry him around and dance with him. Yes, it was probably not meant to be at all homoerotic.

He sings a song that’s called “My rule”. I only figured this out later, but it’s loosely based on a “catchphrase” of his in the Japanese version - in game 1 he says something along the lines of “All I can do is get every defendant declared guilty! So I make that my policy.” In DD in his dramatic anime introduction before the trial, he says “I intend to question the defendant with all I have. For that is a part of my creed.” “So I make that my policy” and “For that is a part of my creed”, to my understanding, are both translated from the same line, which I think is like, “sore ga watashi no ruru”, “That is my rule.” (If I’m wrong, please correct me.) In this song he sings about how he’ll reduce all criminals to ash and such, basically talks about his game 1 prosecuting strategy as “my rule”.

It’s very fun and probably if you want to only watch one number of this musical, it can be this one. It starts about 26:10 in the video I linked.

Once the musical number is done, Phoenix and Edgeworth stare at each other, and the background fades into the courtroom, so court begins. I feel like I should note that Phoenix has not picked up any evidence or talked to any witnesses in this investigation except for Gumshoe, since Maya just moved some things around and then Phoenix had some weird fever dream about Edgeworth which presumably took up the rest of the day.

The Trial, Day 1

Edgeworth: Consider it a prelude to the poignant Greek tragedy that’s about to unfold.

Maya: The real tragedy’s your pompous attitude!

Those are the only screenshots I took of this trial day. Here’s a summary, though:

The trial starts off with Leona confessing, Phoenix says “no I think she’s innocent”, and since ace attorney doesn’t care about the defendant’s wishes he’s allowed to proceed. For some reason Leona lets him do this without complaint.

Gumshoe is the first witness, he claims to have caught Leona red-handed at the scene of the crime, standing over the corpse. Phoenix tries to claim that since Gumshoe didn’t see Leona committing the crime, he didn’t actually catch her red-handed, to which Edgeworth responds “What do you think being caught red-handed means?”

Once Gumshoe is dismissed, Lotta takes the stand. She has a photo of the actual moment of the crime, where Leona is holding a knife in the air in front of the victim.

The Takarazuka musicals like to do this thing where the image is blurry and zoomed out, but then Phoenix will go “I’VE NOTICED A CONTRADICTION” and it zooms in really far as the resolution increases drastically in order to show you the contradiction that is impossible to spot for yourself, because they don’t want people figuring out the mystery in this musical based off of a video game where you have to solve the mystery yourself. Anyways Phoenix zooms in on this photo and sees that there’s blood on Leona’s hand, presumably before she stabbed the victim. How did it get there?

Edgeworth suggests the victim was stabbed multiple times. Phoenix says the autopsy report contradicts that. Edgeworth, uncharacteristically, does not update it to suit his argument.

Phoenix concludes that this photo is not showing the moment Leona stabbed the victim, but the moment Leona removed the knife! ... Which somehow casts doubt on her having been the one to stab the victim. Because as everyone knows, anyone wanting to kill someone would never remove a knife, it’s not like they’d bleed out faster that way, or anything.

And this whole contradiction is confusing because presumably if the victim was stabbed and then the knife was removed, they’d know that happened, because then the knife would not be found stuck in the victim’s body, since the victim was only stabbed once. So this shouldn’t be news to the prosecution that someone removed the knife after stabbing. But the investigation was headed by the most incompetent version of Gumshoe ever, so. sure. I guess no one knew.

That at least manages to extend the trial another day.

This Totally Has To Be Illegal

After the trial, Phoenix goes to talk to Governor Miller, aka Mr. Totally The Real Killer. Phoenix asks him why he decided to hire Leona as his legal advisor.

Basically, it’s because her parents were both renowned lawyers. Her father was a Chief Prosecutor, and her mother was a defense attorney. ... a prosecutor and a defense attorney couple... who does that remind us of...

Phoenix points out that just because her parents were good lawyers, it doesn’t mean she’d necessarily be one. Miller says that, sure, but she is actually really talented, and her law school marks were spectacular. Phoenix says “WHY WERE YOU LOOKING AT HER LAW SCHOOL MARKS”, like it’s somehow? suspicious? for a government official hiring legal counsel to look at their law school marks?

Apparently it IS suspicious because Governor Miller freaks out and asks if this is an interrogation. Before Phoenix can press much further, he gets a phone call, and leaves Phoenix alone in a big room.

So naturally Phoenix behaves like a fully grown adult running a law firm.

If all he did was sit in the chair, lift up a desk lamp, and poke his finger on a pen, that’s one thing. But then he leans over, OPENS THE GOVERNOR’S DESK DRAWER, and finds a knife that’s just sitting there casually. It looks like a butter knife. It’s not anything major. Maybe the dude just wanted to butter his toast?

I mean I know Phoenix will dig around in stuff whenever in the games, but he has no reason to suspect Governor Miller at all, much less dig through his drawer probably full of confidential government documents to lift up a knife that he thinks is suspicious. It’s not even covered in blood or anything?

Naturally Governor Miller’s assistant comes in just then, and Phoenix puts the knife. in his breast pocket.

bud. It may look like a butter knife, but putting knives up against your chest is not a great idea. Much less stealing a knife from a governor?

Well, in his panic, he accidentally knocks over a bunch of books on the desk. The governor’s assistant helps him pick them up, and they find a photo. Look a little familiar?

The photo has the assistant, the victim Robert Cole, Governor Miller, and the victim’s brother who died in an incident two years ago. He’s the “Neil Marshall” of this musical, and he died in what was essentially the SL-9 incident. Same general premise, except it occurred in the courthouse, and the names are different.

AND FINALLY WE REACH THE END OF ACT 1. They do a musical number here which is a weird sort of mashup of the main opening credits song, Edgeworth’s Villain Solo, and the love duet between Phoenix and Leona. They are all such different songs that it sounds a little weird.

ACT 2, FINALLY

The act begins on a sour note with Maya playing with the knife and showing off her characterization, which is one of the most infuriating Maya characterizations you’ll sometimes see around the fandom by people who don’t like Maya.

Maya: Let me whip up my special spirit channeler hamburgers!

sigh.

But then we’re saved (?) by the arrival of EDGEWORTH, who is presumably just here to chat. He asks Phoenix if he’s defending Leona in hopes of winning her back, then says to keep out of it, since it’s a very important case and he can’t understand the gravity of it.

Then Phoenix says this.

Phoenix: Would you be saying that if you were the one on trial? The defendant is in a dark prison, reaching out for hope... Can you imagine the loneliness and sorrow of being ostracized?

CAN YOU IMAGINE IT, EDGEWORTH? CAN YOU IMAGINE IF YOU WERE ON TRIAL AND I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO WOULD DEFEND YOU AND BELIEVED IN YOUR INNOCENCE??

Edgeworth responds to this by essentially rehashing his speech in Turnabout Sisters about how he needs to find all defendants guilty because he can’t guarantee their innocence and all that. Maya gets upset and leaves so that Phoenix and Edgeworth can talk about their childhood in private.

Phoenix once again complains about how people change since nine years old.

Phoenix then says that he has something Edgeworth doesn’t: the POWER TO BELIEVE! Then Maya comes in and tries to spike Edgeworth’s coffee, so he leaves.

The Class Trial

Phoenix explains a bit about Edgeworth and his backstory to Maya. Namely, the class trial. Phoenix was accused of stealing lunch money, Edgeworth stood up for him, but instead of Larry, Leona stood up for him. I guess Suzuki Kei thought “oh the class trial, if Leona stood up for him, it would be so romantic, because she’s a woman, and he’s a man”, or something like that.

Edgeworth wanted to become a Great Lawyer Like His Father! But then he turned cold as ice.

Phoenix: His father got too deeply involved in a case... and paid for it with his life. Edgeworth saw him murdered. He was never the same again. I bet he couldn’t forgive the criminal.

Yeah I bet he couldn’t ever forgive the person he thought killed his father all these years, Phoenix. I bet he really hates that person, Phoenix. I bet he has nightmares about that person killing his father or something, Phoenix.

Phoenix: He vanished, then returned without his mercy or compassion. He had become a monster. When he lost his father, he also lost the ability to believe in others.

So like... one of the most chilling things about this musical is that they never actually solve DL-6. This probably roughly takes place 15 years after DL-6, since they were about the same age when the class trial started, and at least Leona is 24 now. The next musical takes place three years from now, and in it, Edgeworth refers to von Karma as his mentor, implying he’s still around and doing things.

So, in addition to everything else going wrong with this musical, DL-6 still happens, but von Karma never frames Edgeworth for it fifteen years later. The statute of limitations runs out, and von Karma forever gets away with his crime. And Edgeworth has no idea.

What changes did they make to DL-6, though, you may ask? I’m desperate to know as well. In the third musical, which I’ve watched because I hate myself but am unable to fully understand because I don’t know much Japanese, there is a scene where Miles flashbacks to DL-6. It’s abstract, but he makes gun-throwing motions at Gregory, followed by a gunshot sound.

Therefore, in this musical’s internal canon, either Miles Edgeworth shot his father, or he believes he did for the rest of his life.

... moving on.

Phoenix: But he still has his humanity. It’s still there, deep down inside!

At least, if nothing else, Phoenix still believes in him. Even this Takarazuka Musical couldn’t touch that.

The Feenie Sweater

Right after this, Larry barges in, and Phoenix leaves him alone with Maya. The musical tries teasing Larry/Maya, but fortunately, Maya’s having none of it.

Maya: You’re barking up the wrong tree.

Props to this musical for not being as bad as it could have been.

After this, the two sit down on the couch, and Maya asks for more gossip on Phoenix and Leona. Larry launches into a story, which turns into a flashback that ends up being narrated by Phoenix halfway through. This one’s about Phoenix and Leona’s relationship.

This is an interesting line in here, “I’ll guide you to the future”, for it loosely referencing the sort of love ballad Phoenix sings with Lucia in the second musical which is about “I’ll take you to that radiant future”, and he later sings to the memory of Leona right around the time of his big spiral into despair.

I’m sorry if you haven’t read my other essay and just said “wait what” to what I just typed.

Leona was getting ready to move to New York to defend the weak “in the big city”. This is rather strange wording because it implies that California does not in fact have a big city. She says some things in her conversation with Phoenix that probably plant some of his later issues.

Leona: This is the first time we’ll be apart since we were kids.

Leona: We promised we’d always be together.

Leona: I’ll be waiting. Waiting for you to come to me.

Haha. Sure would be a shame... if something were to happen... and they wouldn’t be able to be together anymore...

So some dancers wearing black come in and take off their outer jackets, to symbolize the passage of time. They circle around Phoenix and Leona. In this, you can just barely see, Phoenix is wearing a pink sweater beneath his jacket.

“Oh,” I think to myself, “Is that the Feenie sweater? Are they including it here as a reference to the games?”

Then the dancers keep moving.

THAT IS NOT THE FEENIE SWEATER. That is a pink sweater with a sexily drawn woman on it.

This is the other half of the reason why I decided to go through with making this essay.

This is so incredibly funny to me. Suzuki Kei Who Has Played The Games Seven Times has seen the hand-knit bright pink sweater with a giant red heart on it seven times. The sweater Iris, Phoenix’s girlfriend, lovingly knit for him that he wears all the time even though it is one of the tackiest, cheesiest items of clothing to ever exist. And so, when the costume designers were designing the clothes for College Phoenix Wright, they asked themselves: “Should we include the Feenie sweater?”

and “NO,” someone must have shouted, “NO, we can NOT include the Feenie sweater, it is PINK and it has a HEART on it and it’s TOO GIRLY. Phoenix Wright is a MANLY MAN. He would not EVER wear something PINK with a HEART on it.”

“BUT,” someone else said, “it’s a REFERENCE to the original games, where he DID wear a pink sweater with a heart on it! We MUST include it to pander to the fans!”

“WAIT,” a third person interjected. “I have a BRILLIANT IDEA. We can keep the pink... But to make it VERY CLEAR he is a heterosexual, masculine male... we put a sexy woman on it.”

And Person Three Got A Raise.

Thank god we’re finally halfway done this musical.

We Just Have To Go On With Our Lives Now

There’s plot or something happening. Leona breaks up with Phoenix inexplicably over the phone. Probably because of that freaking sweater. Imagine wearing that. God.

Eventually we go back to Phoenix talking to Leona, and he asks about the Jack Lyon case, which is the rip-off version of the Joe Darke case. Leona is pretty cagey about it, but Phoenix proves that she was there in the gallery that day. Leona refuses to answer, claims again that she killed the victim in her case, and leaves.

This makes Phoenix sad, so he starts singing.

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

If this sounds familiar, it’s the part where I started absolutely losing my mind in the second musical because this line had never shown up before then, I’d forgotten it was in this musical, and Phoenix was screaming it alone in a red room, so I thought he was like desperately resorting to a necromancy ritual in hopes of bringing Leona back to life.

Instead, this line actually has CONTEXT, though it does just end up enforcing my theory. This is Phoenix mourning what he used to have with Leona, wanting to bring the “old her” back, because he’s devastated that people sometimes change. There are several flashbacks of their college days where he’s wearing his Sexy Woman Sweater. He does succeed in winning her back at the end of this musical. Before she dies, of course.

Phoenix in musical 2 still believes that he can bring back what he used to have with Leona... even beyond death. That’s something affirmed by this musical. I’m very grateful to it for somehow managing to enforce my nonsensical theory.

Doctor Ema

After this, Phoenix returns to his office, and meets with someone new.

That’s right! Only now, halfway through the musical, do we actually get to meet the Ema-equivalent to Leona’s Lana-equivalent. Her name is Monica Clyde. She has little rainbow heart stickers on her briefcase, which is the closest thing this musical has to acknowledging that gay people exist.

But what does this little briefcase contain, you may ask? Scientific investigation tools? No.

A full surgical toolset. Because you never know when someone’ll get sick, or when someone will need an entire operation in front of you. I guess.

So yes, Monica Clyde is not a forensic scientist in training, but a doctor! She decided to become a doctor because of her parents, who passed away of The Sickness, and so became a doctor in order to save lives like theirs.

Once more this has much darker and deeper implications than the musical is even aware of, because Monica is so anxious about treating sick people that she carries a full surgical toolset around with her at all times, scared to lose someone like she lost her parents... and then sometime in the next three years, Leona, her big sister, is going to die.

Of what? The strange Sickness that claimed her parents? A car accident? A botched spur-of-the-moment surgery? Whatever it is, Monica was unable to save her, even when she’d been training her entire life for it.

Monica is not mentioned at all throughout the second musical. It’s as if she does not exist.

Because unlike Ema of Rise From The Ashes, Monica is not at the heart of this story. She is, primarily, a plot device here to make Leona not trust Phoenix so that he can angst about their relationship.

What a mess this world is.

The Trial, Part 2

Rather than try to prove Leona’s innocence, Phoenix wants to link the current case to not-SL-9, the Jack Lyon case. He does this by showing this picture.

Senator Cole, the victim, is in this picture. His younger brother whose name I’ve forgotten, the victim of not-SL-9, is also in this picture. They are brothers. It is apparently novel that they are in the same picture, and somehow makes their cases linked.

As well, Governor Miller is in the picture. I guess you could say like... Governor Miller’s legal counsel is the defendant, so that’s another link? Even though the Governor would presumably know a Senator, so this isn’t an unusual group. Right now Phoenix has absolutely nothing to prove that these two cases are linked other than “hey, these two victims are brothers”, but apparently it works. So they spend a lot of time talking about not-SL-9, since Leona has confessed to the murder on day 1 and there is absolutely nothing indicating that she can’t be immediately declared guilty.

They hid the fact that Monica was a hostage in this not-SL-9, meaning that some of the case records were forged. Here’s Edgeworth’s reaction when this comes out.

Edgeworth: This is an outrage! I’m the most influential prosecutor in America! There’s nothing I don’t know!

In RFTA, when Edgeworth learns he’d been using forged evidence to give a man the death penalty, he is devastated, his entire worldview is shaken, he sees himself as a monster who could end up becoming horribly corrupt if he isn’t stopped.

Musical Edgeworth goes “I DIDN’T KNOW SOMETHING???”

It’s certainly strange characterization, but I guess Edgeworth is further behind in his character arc than in RFTA, so... ugh. Fine.

Phoenix calls Monica out as a witness to prove she was involved in the case. This causes Leona to panic, and try to dismiss Phoenix as her attorney, like Lana in RFTA, but Edgeworth interjects to call Monica in anyways. He and Phoenix have a little moment.

Edgeworth: You said to believe in others. I suppose I’ll try believing in you. Try to keep up.

Phoenix: Edgeworth!

So Monica comes to the stand to testify. We get to see this picture of Monica being held hostage, and not-Joe-Darke’s incredible eyeliner.

Lots of it is very similar to the actual RFTA, except instead of the victim being stabbed on the knight with the giant knife, he’s instead stabbed with a regular old knife. Leona still refuses to admit to what really happened, until Edgeworth convinces her to believe in Phoenix.

Edgeworth: Your attorney is a runaway train with a one-track mind. Yet he placed all of his faith in you. Believe in him. You owe him that much.

Leona testifies, and says that when she found the victim, he was stabbed with a scalpel.

Here is where things get weird.

Scalpels Can’t Kill People

So basically earlier in this trial, they talk about how Leona knew that the knife that stabbed the victim was double-edged despite being buried in his chest. The judge questions if this means Leona killed him, but Phoenix is quick to say no, she was searched when she entered the courthouse and couldn’t have concealed a knife.

Yet, Monica was able to bring in her surgical toolkit which contains several sharp knives, scalpels, scissors, etc.

This is the first major contradiction.

Leona continues to say that when she found Monica, and the scalpel stabbed in the victim, she also ran into Governor Miller, who if you haven’t been able to tell yet is the Gant-equivalent of this musical. He offered to help her with the cover-up, etc.

The next bit goes a lot like RFTA. Phoenix accuses Governor Miller, who barges in, says Phoenix has the decisive evidence in his pocket. This is the “butter knife” that Phoenix took from his office when he dug around in confidential documents and stole it for no particular reason. It has Monica’s fingerprints on it! ... And Phoenix’s and Maya’s too probably because they were handling it without gloves, but they don’t mention that part.

Leona cries about how she shouldn’t have trusted Phoenix because he was apparently now blaming Monica, Monica looks terrified, she and Leona have some good sister moments but it’s not as good as it could be if the story was actually about Leona and Monica like how RFTA was about Lana and Ema. But Phoenix has the decisive piece of evidence that can turn this around.

It is this:

Phoenix: Scalpels are made for medical incisions, not stabbings. So how did it stab the victim?

...

... What?

So like. Yes, scalpels are made for medical incisions. Medical incisions often involve cutting through flesh, very easily. As a result, they are sharp. Extremely sharp. As in: their purpose is literally to stab people, very specifically.

Yes, they’re easier to control, so that surgeons don’t regularly stab people how they’re not supposed to be stabbed, but it’s not like, impossible to stab someone in a killing way with a scalpel? Admittedly, I have never tried to kill someone using a scalpel. And I do not have experience using a scalpel for surgeries because I am not a surgeon. But I’m pretty sure, if you take a sharp scalpel, and you stab someone in the chest with it with a reasonable amount of force... they die.

Like, is this a particular kind of scalpel that is not very sharp? Is the problem that the blade doesn’t match up with the initial wound? But even then, we don’t have the original unforged autopsy report or even a picture, so how would Phoenix know what the original wound looked like to say it didn’t match up? And even then why wouldn’t Phoenix say that instead of SCALPELS CAN’T STAB PEOPLE???

This is his decisive contradiction and it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE TO ME!!!

Well Darn I Guess Scalpels Can’t Kill People

This is such a decisive piece of evidence, that scalpels can’t kill people, coming from the man who thought “caught red-handed” does not involve being caught standing over a corpse with blood on your hands, that it causes Governor Miller to confess.

Unlike Gant, who created the murder with Neil Marshall both to ensure that there was decisive evidence to convict Joe Darke, a serial killer who had not left any decisive evidence behind, and gain control over the prosecutor’s office in order to pull similar stunts to get criminals convicted using false evidence, Governor Miller does not have that as his motive. After all, he’s not a police officer. Instead, he ended up accidentally killing not-Joe-Darke, and then set up the incident in order to get Leona on his side. As her parents were both influential lawyers and very respectable, having her and her parents’ reputation on his side could help him become President of America Where This Takes Place.

So, let’s just take a moment to run over some of the things that made the original Rise From The Ashes great, in my opinion. Just for fun.

1 - The heart of the story between the Skye sisters. Lana closing off to protect Ema, Ema wanting to get through to her sister and get back to the way things used to be. Phoenix, in this story, is more of a bystander to this plotline rather than in the heart of it himself.

2 - Edgeworth’s Character Development. Basically RFTA creates an interesting transition between Turnabout Goodbyes and JFA. It causes Edgeworth to re-evaluate everything he knows about being a prosecutor. So quickly on the heels of Turnabout Goodbyes, it crushes the last bit of hope in him. It compares him to Gant, who also hates criminals, and forces him to wonder if his hatred of crime will one day lead to him being a criminal himself. He’s already convicted one person on forged evidence; how many others could there be?

3 - The Ends Justify The Means. ... wait come back, don’t leave. What I found neat about this case was also Gant’s motive. At one point he was presumably an honest person who hated crime and wanted to stop criminals. But over time in the police force, he became corrupted. He wanted to have all criminals convicted. So what do you do when you don’t have the evidence to convict them? Joe Darke was a serial killer who has killed several people and may have killed more if he’d gone free. The only way to stop and convict him was by using forged evidence. Other criminals could hide evidence to get away with their crimes, so people like Gant would make it up to catch them; but then when do you stop? What happens if there’s no evidence because someone is truly innocent? When does the line between “this person is a criminal and I want to stop them” and “I just want to convict everyone I’m dealing with” become blurred? This is also something he shares with Edgeworth and helps to advance his character.

All three of these things are either lessened or outright ignored in this musical. Leona and Monica’s story takes a backseat to Phoenix and Leona’s Love Story, with Monica only showing up halfway through, and mainly as an excuse as to why Leona is withdrawn. Edgeworth doesn’t seem to blame himself for the forged evidence he used, and doesn’t have a crisis questioning his morality over it. And Governor Miller’s motive is purely power. Unlike Gant, who would have become Chief of Police whether he solved SL-9 or not, Miller needed Leona to win the presidency. And instead of asking her to help him with his campaign like a normal person, he just blackmailed her instead.

... How do you play the games seven times and miss this much?

The Case Finally Ends

god. we’re almost there.

The case ends, Leona is declared not guilty but will still face trial for covering up murders and such. Probably less of a sentence than Lana because she was not involved in ongoing police corruption? Either way she’s dead in three years, so she’s got something a bit more concerning coming up.

She’s led away. Phoenix sings a bit about Leona before being interrupted by Edgeworth... who has something important to tell him.

Edgeworth: You awakened within me those once-cherished emotions I had discarded. I see visions of a distant, nostalgic past.

So basically this is the unnecessary feelings of the musical. Something along the lines of “seeing you again and fighting for my former ideals is making me question many things about myself.”

How does Phoenix respond?

Phoenix: Edgeworth... Try talking normally for a chance.

Sure, we were all thinking it, but that’s a little cold, Phoenix.

Edgeworth tries a smooth recovery.

Edgeworth: I don’t do... idle chit-chat.

This doesn’t accomplish much. So he leaves to allow Leona to visit with Phoenix alone. He’s got to go change for something more important coming up.

Leona and Phoenix decide that they’re going to get back together once Leona is done her sentence! They make a promise that is very funny if you know she’ll be dead in three years.

Phoenix: I’ll be waiting. For you.

There are a lot of hugs here, I’m not screencapping them all. There are also several moments where their faces get very close together and like, their nose brushes the other’s cheek or something, but they never actually kiss. Is it because the actresses weren’t comfortable with it (valid), or they thought kissing would be too much for the musical (sure, whatever), or since both characters are played by women the show staff did not want two women kissing on stage (probably the real answer)? I don’t like watching kisses, but I kept bracing myself for one and then it never happened, so.

Phoenix ends the main part of the musical with one last musical number starring my personal favourite piece:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I like to think that at this point, this is present-day Phoenix, after finishing his reminiscing, still desperately wishing he could bring Leona back from death.

But alas, he cannot. And so, after one last daydream of them dancing together on the beaches of California, singing about their love, the musical ends.

Dance Time!

This starts at exactly the two hour mark, if you’re interested in watching what is, once again, one of the only fun parts of this musical.

Seriously, Edgeworth’s actress kills it here, when I first saw this I went “oh, this is why I saw so many people being gay for her on twitter.”

Edgeworth’s song is an encore of “My Rule”, so it’s lots of fun. Afterwards Phoenix gets another fun piece.

Then we get to the love ballad part, which I can probably overanalyze, I feel like I haven’t done enough ridiculous over-analyzing in this essay in comparison to the other.

Uhhh so the fog represents how Phoenix feels lost in this world without Leona. You can see it in the second screenshot separating the two of them, representing the barrier of death between the two of them. Idk it’s midnight I’m getting worn out from having to think about this musical for so long.

But his mourning over Leona’s death becomes even more apparent in the credits, where Phoenix sings that one line again:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I’m not fixing that screenshot, I think it’s oddly fitting, in a way. That’s me right now.

Then at the very end, he sings this song.

Phoenix: I’ll spend... this eternal life... soaring through... the heavens!

Technically, this refers to his name Phoenix, but let’s dig a little deeper. He spends the rest of his life soaring through the heavens... the heavens that Leona went to after her untimely death, perhaps?

Overall, the musical becomes much more interesting when you just see it as a prequel to the second musical. This musical establishes many core concepts of Phoenix’s character: his refusal to believe in the concept of things changing, for one, and also his extreme dependency on Leona who he was never separated from since they were kids and where he based his entire life around her dreams and ideals. All he can think about is her. And in the end, he promises to wait for her in California.

Yet, to paraphrase Miles Edgeworth, all that is waiting for him is her death. Their dream of opening up a Mom & Pop Law Firm will never come true.

Thanks again for bearing with me even though this wasn’t as funny!

#ace attorney #phoenix wright the truth reborn #idk maybe someone wanted to know what the first musical was like without actually watching it?#my essays #my posts #i'm TIRED i'm going to BED goodNIGHT #this is less funny jokes and more actually criticizing the musical #because so much of this is like. wow. you really thought that was a good idea huh #just skip to the feenie sweater part honestly that's the funniest part of this musical

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renegadewangs · 3 years

Text

Van Zieks - the Examination, part 11

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Bring on the game's credits! BRING IT! The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo part 2 is here!

Episode 2-5: The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo, part 2

This is the first time in a while that I actually want to try other options to see what happens. The 'accusation' leads to some witty banter with a frustrated Stronghart, but 'report' is one that gets a reaction from Van Zieks himself. Ryu theorizes that 'since Klint was a well-bred and fastidious man, and knowing the end was near, he might have wanted to tie up some loose ends in all of his outstanding business'. Van Zieks immediately replies that his brother had no outstanding business.

DID I JUST GET PENALIZED BY THE DEFENDANT??? Just for implying his brother might've had some loose ends to tie up? Van Zieks really hates it when people show his brother even the slightest bit of disrespect, huh? Well, it's about to get a whole lot worse. Let's go for the confession option! Van Zieks definitely doesn't take kindly to this one.

“What are you saying? Do you even realise?! A confession...about the true identity of the Professor... That, that would mean...”

He fumbled his speech, there. We've never heard him do that before. And he's gone back to that bobbing, unsteady animation halfway into the above dialogue. Ryu insists it's the only explanation that fits. The man who murdered those members of the aristocracy wasn't Genshin Asogi at all, it was the one believed to be the fifth victim, Klint van Zieks himself.

Welp. We broke him. Stronghart remarks that Pandora's box has opened at last, making it clear he already knew what we just revealed. The gallery is outraged.

We've gone from well-bred to thoroughbred, have we? Susato feels very bad for Van Zieks, but Ryu asks himself whether such a brilliant prosecutor never suspected “what his older brother really was”. To clear up doubt further, he asks whether Klint Van Zieks owned a dog. Barok doesn't intend to dodge the facts of the situation, it seems.

Not what the concept art says, but it's possible Klint owned a different, smaller dog before Balmung. Van Zieks talks about how loyal the dog was and how it wore a jewel-studded collar which was stolen from the house “some years ago now”. This implies it was less than ten years ago, and must've been kept in the house as a keepsake even after Balmung passed away. Ryu and Susato bring up that they've seen such a collar; it was Selden's loot in case 2-2. They note the fancy B emblem on it, and this is the first time we find out that Klint van Zieks was a married man. His widow's maiden name was Baskerville. It's a little odd to me that for someone who thought so highly of his brother, Van Zieks never mentioned his sister in law before now. Conveniently, it never came up for the sake of a twist, I suppose. Either way, the emblem confirms the collar they saw was Balmung's. Ryu notes there was a considerable amount of blood on the collar (nobody washed this thing?) and while it could've come from typical hunting trips, it could just as well have been human blood. With that, the gallery begins to lean towards the truth that Klint van Zieks really was the Professor himself. Stronghart seems to have realized there's no way out of this now and announces that 'they may have the truth'.

Here comes that 'true nature' thing again, just worded a bit differently. Van Zieks doesn't intend to shirk away from it, though. He's open to the insinuation that his brother was, in truth, something truly horrible. Stronghart explains that Klint attempted to fight the growing darkness in London, only to end up being consumed by it. He also admits that after the fourth victim fell, Genshin showed up at his office, putting forth the accusation that Klint was the Professor. He didn't have any evidence and needed a warrant to get some, but Stronghart refused to anger the aristocracy based on the accusation of a visiting student, so he sent Genshin away. As a result, the man headed over to the Van Zieks mansion and Klint perished. Stronghart continues to admit that he was responsible for pinning the Professor's crimes on Genshin, right down to ordering Gregson to fabricate evidence. Sure enough, the late inspector's earlier claims ring true: it seems he did genuinely believe Genshin to be the killer, but was reluctant to falsify anything until Stronghart strong-armed him into it. The jailbreak agreement was also part of Stronghart's plan; he manipulated Genshin into agreeing by proverbially dangling his 14 year old son in front of him. Van Zieks brings up one more point: that Stronghart was the mastermind behind the Reaper organization. Not only does he admit to it, he calls it a “brilliant idea” and even takes credit for how his “minions” worked tirelessly to ensure Van Zieks was never accused of being the Reaper himself. What a smarmy bumhole. He insists it was all for the preservation of law and order across the empire, and the gallery is actually suckered into falling for this ploy. It seems as if he's going to get away with his masterminding without decent consequences. Kazuma now has one more question for Van Zieks, and it's the exact one Ryu asked himself earlier; did he never have any doubts about his brother?

“My brother's sense of justice was extremely strong. Perhaps...too strong, I observed. […] During the time of the Professor killings, my brother did not appear to be himself. But it was only once. Not more. Klint wasn't the culprit. That was my conclusion at the time. And I still believe that now. […] The third victim...was the Lord Chief Justice at the time. It was he who had recognized my brother's potential and trained him as a prosecutor. No matter what the circumstances, it's unthinkable that my brother could have killed his friend and mentor!”

So here, we learn that Klint wasn't an infallible paragon of virtue in his brother's eyes. Simply by saying that his sense of justice was “perhaps too strong”, a flaw is being brought to light. Younger Barok saw that Klint's need to ensure justice was overpowering him, and he also saw that during the time of the killings, something was off about his behavior. Enough to have the younger Van Zieks consider, for a brief time, that perhaps the Professor was him. However, the death of the third victim was like a lifeline to him, a flotation device keep him from going under- or perhaps more like a straw to grasp. It offered a sort of justification to him; a firm belief that Klint would never kill his own mentor and therefore he couldn't possibly be the Professor, and Barok was wrong to ever doubt him. However, it was just a very meager excuse to put his suspicions at ease and blind him to the truth. There are, after all, plenty of reasons why Klint would kill that Lord Chief Justice if indeed he were the Professor.

So Stronghart now tries to wrap everything up with a neat little bow, saying that's all the truth they'll be able to get from this trial and he'll present himself at the Ministry of Justice for whatever sanctions are deemed necessary. Since he's the Lord Chief Justice, I can't imagine the Ministry of Justice will give him more than a slap on the wrist. However, he says just a bit too much in his closing statement and Ryu jumps on that immediately. A third page of Genshin's will was hidden from everyone! Turns out, it was a personal message to Kazuma that they never bothered to send to Japan. Governor Caidin conveniently brought it with him and the contents are read aloud after some pressuring. With this last secret message left behind by Genshin, Ryu manages to find Klint's last will and testament hidden inside the Asogi clan's sword. GASP.

Oblivious to the shenanigans playing out in the Court Record section of the game, Stronghart once again tries to end the trial and even goes so far as to say Klint was basically insane when he took his mentor's life (to which Van Zieks objects fiercely). Ryu interjects, saying he has one more piece of evidence to present. When Stronghart calls the very notion absurd, Van Zieks once again raises an objection, pointing out that “this gentleman has an uncanny habit of producing evidence at the final hour that had escaped everyone else's attention.” Which, y'know, is true. That's how Ace Attorney works. I do want to draw attention to the fact that he said “this gentleman” as opposed to “this Nipponese” or even something like “this barrister”. He considers Ryu a gentleman now! So with that, Ryu has the opportunity to shove Klint's will in everyone's face and things escalate very quickly.

Ooh, his speech faltered again. He is shook! And it gets even better when he gets a closer look at the document.

Stronghart panics and demands Ryu hands the document over to him at once. When that fails, he even tries to forcibly adjourn the trial and get everyone to clear the courtroom. If that isn't suspicious, we don't know what is. It sure is satisfying to watch him squirm. Naturally, he can't actually put an end to the trial now- not with so many people watching, so the document is read aloud. It's revealed that Genshin challenged Klint to a duel, so that he might “depart this world with honor”. Klint goes on to write that he finds himself undeserving of this honor and that “the Japanese are a truly merciful people”. So here, already, we get the final nail in the coffin for Van Zieks's entire motivation for racial prejudice and for hating Genshin in particular. Klint never thought ill of Genshin, not even in his final moments. If anything, he was grateful for being put out of his misery and being allowed to 'depart the world with honor'. Genshin's actions were not betrayal; not ever. They were merciful. (COOL MOTIVE, STILL MURDER.) What we also learn is that while Klint did indeed take the life of the first victim on his own accord, he was then immediately identified as the culprit and blackmailed into the next three killings by someone else. You guessed it, it was Stronghart! Despite his earlier panic, he now has a myriad of justification ready, talking about how sacrifices have to be made for the sake of justice and whatnot. He also explains that he was the one who pressured Jigoku into shooting Genshin in the graveyard when Drebber showed up there. He acts like Jigoku is the only one to blame, but considering Stronghart was basically screaming in Jigoku's ear, I wouldn't be surprised if this poor man pulled the trigger by accident simply because he was startled by the shouting. Stronghart was the one who decided that Genshin needed to die and forced Jigoku to act, so Stronghart is the one ultimately responsible. Naturally, Ryu and Kazuma both attempt to argue Stronghart's justifications into the ground. At one point, Stronghart plays the victim card and asks them to acknowledge his 'struggle', but Kazuma insists that this jerk has done nothing and:

WELL. Okay. Looks like we've finally convinced Kazuma that Van Zieks is a victim in this whole ordeal, as well as someone who 'acts justly'. That's a wonderful way forward. With all this out in the open, though, Stronghart offers a literal round of applause. It's true; he's “done nothing” and “merely been surrounded by fools who've acted very rashly indeed”, which means he can't be charged with any crimes. We can't even prove he threatened anyone into doing his bidding, as he says it might as well have been “bargaining”. Thing is, bargaining with someone to end a third party's life is known as “contract killing” and is, in fact, illegal. I can't find any sources to verify whether it was already illegal in 1900 England, but I can only assume so, or people would've gotten away with murders very easily. I guess the bottom line here is that we can't prove Stronghart really did extort or pay anyone to take a life, since there's no material evidence for that sort of thing, nor anyone who can testify on it. Stronghart claims that the minutes of the trial will be heavily redacted to remove matters not related to Gregson's death, in the interest of preserving law and order, as well as to protect the queen. The gallery has now turned against us as well, chanting Stronghart's name.

Here we have a singular opportunity to deviate into the closest thing to a bad ending this game series has. Anyone who remembers the iconic 'the miracle never happen' ending in AA2, or even the bad endings in AA5 where either Trucy or Athena is implied to be killed by Aura, will be sorely disappointed by this one. First, to compare... In the standard ending, no matter how far along you've gotten in the trial- including proving that Stronghart was the Reaper- Van Zieks will still be found guilty. Stronghart will utter the words that he “would like to think however misguided, [Van Zieks] acted out of a sense of justice nonetheless”, and then pronounces the poor man guilty of crimes we've already proven were never committed by him. Now, in this slightly different ending, if you run out of all your penalty points because you fail to present Harely, the dialogue is tweaked. Stronghart declares that for the sake of justice, “the only correct course of action has been unanimously acknowledged by the clear majority here present. All mention of that which has been discussed in this courtroom today will be struck from the records. Barok van Zieks – Or should I say, Reaper of the Bailey... The heinous crimes committed by your brother, Klint van Zieks, will be lost in obscurity, this time forever. May you also find peace now as you join your sibling in the eternal darkness.”

And then, just as in the standard ending, Van Zieks is pronounced guilty and the doors slam shut. So effectively, the only real difference here is that Stronghart really rubs it in our faces that Van Zieks is taking the fall as the Reaper in the eyes of the public. He knows Van Zieks isn't the Reaper- everyone present in the courtroom knows it. However, since the entirely gallery is siding with the real mastermind, the minutes of the trial will be confiscated and destroyed so that the truth will be lost forever. Neither Kazuma nor Ryu reacts to this turn of events on-screen, which is a shame. Van Zieks doesn't fight the adjudication either, he simply accepts the verdict in silence- Hang on, where have we heard that before? Genshin? And didn't Van Zieks say that so long as his death served a purpose, he wouldn't mind dying over being called the Reaper? Stronghart certainly seems to feel that Van Zieks ought to be thrown under the omnibus and sent to the gallows for the sake of minimizing crime in London.

But we're not going to let the true antagonist of this game get away with his bullshit! Time to pull Harely's ears! Cue another (S)Holmeus Ex-Machina where it turns out the entire secret trial has been livestreamed to the Queen of England through holograms. By royal decree, Stronghart is stripped of his title and will be prosecuted for his crimes at a later time. FINAL BOSS, DEFEATED.

With Stronghart out of the way, Van Zieks has some closing sentiments to offer.

“Is that my brother left this world without a word to me.”

I can see why that might bug him. Van Zieks always looked up to his brother and shielded him from disrespect even a decade after his death, but Klint in turn didn't seem to want to leave any parting sentiments for him, not even a simple farewell. That's not the case, though! Susato points out there's actually more to Klint's will than was read aloud, so let's hear it now.

“Barok, you have always looked up to me, and now, you follow in my footsteps to become a prosecutor. It is my fervent wish that my unspeakable deeds should not hinder your advancement. I ask not for understanding, for none could understand my depravity. I ask only for forgiveness. Asogi is a fine detective, and a hunter worthy of respect. He has agreed to honour my final two wishes. The first is that this document survives. The second... I cannot commit to paper. I have confessed my sins to my wife. May she find resolution in my death. With my eternal gratitude to my Japanese friend, I rest my quill.”

Imagine how different things would've ended if the will had found its way to Van Zieks shortly after Klint's death. It would've prevented so much grief and so much prejudice, because if Van Zieks had learned that Klint still regarded Genshin with so much respect and gratitude even in this situation, he would never have blamed him for Klint's death nor considered it too great a betrayal. Everything that happened was in line with Klint's wishes. As it stands now, the words in Klint's will basically serve to scold Van Zieks for his attitude and hatred these past ten years.

Yep, there we go. The final straw. He's been truly, utterly embarrassed and made to confront his mistakes. When Stronghart explains how his ambition to become Attorney General is what prompted him to silence people like Watson and Gregson. Van Zieks asks him whether he ever bothered to count the number of brilliant people he had killed. Kind of a questionable remark, since Stronghart mostly had criminals killed. We don't even know for sure whether Watson was a good person or not; he comes across as a cowardly skeeve. I guess Van Zieks is mostly talking about Genshin, but even that is... Uh...

I received an Ask a while back, bringing up the matter that Genshin appears to be exonerated of any wrongdoing when the truth of Klint's death is revealed. That despite duels being outlawed and it being literal murder, Kazuma seems to take this truth as his father's name being cleared. Indeed, going over everything we've learned so far, it feels as if the narrative has set up both Klint and Genshin, and even characters like Jigoku and Gregson, as victims of Stronghart's manipulation. The thing is, though... Both Genshin and Klint took at least one life of their own free will, Jigoku pulled a trigger twice for the sake of his own career (and recruited someone into an assassin plot), Gregson conspired with a notorious assassin to commit over a dozen murders just because his boss told him it was the right thing to do... Feeling bad about murder or resorting to it because 'the other person is even worse and needs to be stopped' doesn't change that it's murder. It doesn't seem as if Kazuma or anyone else outright says their loved ones are absolved of any responsibility/their names are cleared, but it does really come across as if the narrative wants you to forgive them. So uh... Yes. This is something the game should have properly addressed, instead of just going 'oh, these poor people, all used as puppets by the final boss'.

Anyway, (S)Holmes takes the time to remind Van Zieks that he's the defendant in this case, not the prosecutor. Our old friend Santa Judge returns for the adjudication! Turns out, he was in the gallery all along. (Was he chanting Stronghart's name too?) He talks about how the darkness of the past ten years has lifted, in part thanks to a bright young star from the East. Awww, we've completely won over the judge! Van Zieks now also has something to add.

“I had the faintest of intimations. That if British justice, so warped and twisted over its long history, was finally to know change... This might just be the man to do it. But at the time, I wouldn't allow myself to acknowledge the possibility. I couldn't overcome my hatred of the Japanese, after the circumstances of my brother's death. Mr. Naruhodo...”

He takes a flourishing bow here, an acknowledgment that Ryu is worthy of his respect and perhaps even that Ryu is superior to him, then stands up straight again for the final whammy.

Ryu is shocked and Susato is brought to tears. We did it, y'all. We've secured the full, heartfelt apology. I'm not sure there's really anything to add to this, nor anything we could want from it at this point in time. Ryu doesn't say he forgives Van Zieks for his discourtesies, but considering how hard he worked to get this guy cleared of murder, that would feel kind of out of place. The forgiveness happened long before Van Zieks apologized, or so is the implication. (Is that the correct narrative path? Not at all, but I'll get back to that in the conclusion.) So after some more closing words from Ryu, Van Zieks gets his not-guilty verdict and court is adjourned.

In the defendant's lobby, Ryu feels a bit conflicted about how this whole thing went down. Susato tries to cheer him up by saying that everything will seem much better once he sees Van Zieks's smiling face. Indeed, in most other Ace Attorney games, this would be the point where at last, an emotionally distant defendant/witness drops their walls and allows themselves to smile (or cry). Just think of Gina, Lana Skye or even Athena Cykes when she cries tears of joy during AA5's ending. Hilariously enough, Van Zieks is not one of those characters.

This is a really fun subversion of expectations and Ace Attorney tropes. And I still believe his face got frozen like that. Even so, he's got something heartfelt to say.

“For you to have risen to the level of excellence you demonstrated today... Well, it's quite remarkable.”

Sounds like a hatchet job of a compliment at first glance, but the sentiment is there. It is extremely remarkable for a foreign exchange student who's only been in the country for about 9 months- and who only spent like 2 of those as an active lawyer- to rise to such a level that he not only uncovers the truth of the current case, but of a cold case from 10 years prior, which was part of a huge cover-up. Ryu points out that he exposed a most 'unpalatable truth' in court and that he feels as if he robbed Van Zieks of something precious. Van Zieks doesn't seem to agree. He reminisces on Stronghart's words.

“But that... That was just the feeble excuse of a coward. Only those with a steadfast eye for the truth have what it takes to fight the dark forces of crime. You made fine work of establishing that fact in court today.”

So once again, he's complimenting Ryu's courtroom performance. Not only that, but he's acknowledging (in different words) the earlier sentiment that the truth needs to come out, no matter how painful. Perhaps, indirectly, he's calling himself a feeble coward as well. Ryu and Susato are proud of Van Zieks's growth, with Susato saying that surely Kazuma would be smiling if he were here. Naturally, when he shows up at that very second, he isn't smiling at all. Like mentor, like disciple! Kazuma takes a polite bow before Van Zieks and congratulates him on his acquittal. Naturally, after watching Kazuma prosecute so ferociously for two whole episodes, that doesn't feel sincere. Van Zieks asks him whether he doesn't instead want to curse him. Kazuma apologizes for his earlier behavior, which does feel 100% sincere.

“Your father, Genshin... If I had been stronger, then perhaps... I made an unforgivable error of judgment. … I can offer no excuse.”

One more apology to add to the pile! And here we once again reach that question of whether the narrative is acting like Genshin should be absolved of all blame. In a technical sense, Van Zieks wasn't wrong to prosecute Genshin, since he did seriously murder Klint. That alone is already warranting of the death penalty, so the added crimes of the Professor on top of that don't change too much. However, I don't think Van Zieks's lines truly relate to the Professor trial itself. The error of judgment, in my eyes, can also be seen as the blind acceptance that Genshin betrayed him (as well as Klint) when there was actually far more at play. This notion that Genshin was a horrid traitor who abused their trust and hospitality was then allowed to grow into an irrational hatred which festered for a decade. Regardless of whether Genshin killed Klint, the insistence that the man's true nature was that of a monster was wrong, and I think that's what he's apologizing for. To be clear, he's not apologizing for racist sentiments uttered towards Kazuma or anyone else from Japan with these lines. This purely relates to his treatment of Genshin. However, he already apologized for his many discourtesies back in the courtroom and I think the racist outbursts were part of those discourtesies.

Kazuma says he can offer no forgiveness, which is totally fair. Kazuma isn't obligated to forgive this man. He does, however, admit that he has respect for Van Zieks, since he “fought for justice and the truth”.

Awww! Remember how in my very first 'strong thought about Barok' post, I pointed out that Barok almost appears to have been designed to be Kazuma's rival prosecutor instead of Ryu's? Yeah. Here we see it very clearly. The reconciliation conversation between these two feels like a much better resolution than the conversation between Van Zieks and Ryu.

So now Kazuma brings up that Genshin promised to do two things for Klint, but the second wasn't mentioned in the will. Mikotoba shows up to share a very heartbreaking tale about Klint's unnamed widow, the lady Zieks-Baskerville, who was hiding out in Dartmoor and passed away from childbirth very shortly after Genshin was executed. The newborn baby girl survived, though! Van Zieks blurts out that that makes no sense. “Why on Earth wouldn't Klint have entrusted the child to my care in that case?!” And that alone is already kind of tragic, but what really packs a wallop is this:

This means Klint and his wife deliberately kept the pregnancy from him. It's never explained why. Genshin showed up at the manor in the spur of the moment and Klint died that very same night, when his wife must've already been around 8 or 9 months pregnant. (she gives birth about a week or two later, after all.) Klint says that he 'confessed his sins to his wife', but that also must've been very recent, if not that very same night, since Stronghart was threatening to tell Klint's wife and brother of his misdeeds. Stronghart's hold on Klint would've weakened if he'd told her the truth months ago, which in turn implies the both of them decided not to tell Barok while she herself was still oblivious to the Professor truth. Honestly, it all feels like a vague plotconvenience.

What is explained is why the newborn baby wasn't entrusted to Van Zieks. It isn't because Klint had the amazing foresight to know his younger brother would become a salty, loner alcoholic; it's because he and his wife feared the truth of the Professor might come out. Heck, if Genshin had never been arrested for Klint's death, perhaps it would've come out for certain. “The girl would be forever branded as the daughter of the infamous mass murderer.” So the baby girl was distanced from the Van Zieks family as much as possible, with all of London unaware of her existence. This girl is, of course, Iris.

Right on cue, the Harely plushie activates to receive a call from (S)Holmes and Iris. She invites everyone over to 221B for a feast and makes sure to invite “Mr. Reaper” too. He very awkwardly declines the offer.

Humanization? Humanization! He does, however, give Iris his word that he'll present himself at 221B in the near future to express his gratitude. I think a big part of why he declined the offer was because he wouldn't feel at home during the big celebration when a whole group of people is there. He'd much rather visit Iris during a more quiet, private moment and that's sweet too. Plus, I don't think he's in the mood for a celebration, considering all the horrible truths he's learned in a single day.

So now Kazuma prepares to leave and asks Van Zieks to accompany him. The wording of “would you care to-” makes it very clear this isn't a demand, it's a very soft request that Van Zieks is free to decline. Not that he hesitates for even a second. Here's some more parting words.

“I believe... You saved my life.”

He takes a deep, flourishing bow and honestly I've lost track of how many times he's praised/thanked Ryu by now. More than Edgeworth thanked Phoenix, most likely. The prosecutor duo prepares to walk away, but Ryu calls after Van Zieks, asking him to wait. Which he does. Ryu asks him what he intends to do now.

... “Prosecutor van Zieks chooses death”??? In a way, he's thinking of pulling a similar move. He intends to publicize the full truth of the Professor, and I can only imagine that includes Stronghart's involvement in what went down 10 years ago. Maybe he'll even share the truth of the Reaper who's haunted the courtroom all these years. He believes that “once that's done, the Van Zieks family will be ostracised completely from London society.” (I don't think he means living family members, but rather, the legacy of the Van Zieks name and the rights associated with it.) So because of that, he intends to leave the capital as soon as he's free of his employment. Considering how easily this man took a five year sabbatical and adding in the fact that the Lord Chief Justice just got arrested, I expect his resignation could be as easy as packing his desk and leaving his office without saying a word. Kazuma, however, calls him a fool and a coward. He basically dares Van Zieks to keep going now that he's finally freed from the pseudonym of the Reaper. Van Zieks neither agrees with the sentiment nor shoots it down, instead saying it's unexpected to hear those words from Kazuma of all people. With that out in the open, they leave for realsies.

Just as Van Zieks doesn't attend the Baker Street party, he isn't there when Ryu's at the docks to return to Japan. I like to think Kazuma did bother to tell Van Zieks that Ryu is leaving the country, because withholding that information seems like a bit of a jerk move, but... Well. Not showing up at the docks to say some final farewells is even more of a jerk move on Van Zieks's part. Though it's possible he felt he wasn't wanted there, and may eventually ask for Ryu's address so he can write a letter (which is far less imposing than invading a heartfelt farewell with a scowling face). It's a shame, though. I would've liked to hear his thoughts on Ryu's departure.

We learn that Kazuma will “stay in Lord van Zieks's tutelage for the time being” to become a full-fledged prosecutor. Which is fine, I guess. It doesn't matter whether he's a defense attorney or a prosecutor; all that matters is the pursuit of the truth. What catches my interest is that even with all that bad blood and refusal to forgive Van Zieks, Kazuma still agrees to keep studying as his disciple. This implies to me that he sincerely doesn't believe Van Zieks to be a bad person anymore, and acknowledges he can learn a lot from this man. Which is not the same thing as being on friendly terms with him, but at the very least he's giving Van Zieks the benefit of the doubt when it comes to improving their... Well, their dynamic, I suppose I should call it.

On to the credits scenes we go! This time, Van Zieks legit does get a scene of his own, but before we address this one, I want to skip ahead real quick to Albert Harebrayne's scene.

“He sent me a very nice letter saying he'd like to show me around now that everything was settled. B-But what have I done? I was so excited, I picked this splendid hotel and now I can't afford the bill! Oh Barok! Come to my rescue again, please! I, I wish I could just vanish into thin air sometimes!”

Several things of note can be taken out of this little scene. First of all, with the Reaper nonsense behind them, Van Zieks seems to have wasted very little time with asking his best buddy to return to London for that sightseeing that was promised. Presumably, he even paid for the trip (again), since Albert still seems to be very low on money. This, coupled with the fact that Van Zieks was reading that letter with quite a bit of dedication in his jail cell, indicates to me that he's longing for the good old days, when he could smile and have friends. He's trying to return to a sense of normalcy and since Albert is still considered his closest friend, it makes sense he'd reach out to him instead of a relative stranger like Kazuma. Baby steps. Now, the fact that Albert says “come to my rescue again” sets the very clear tone that this guy believes Van Zieks has helped him before- during the trial, of course. It's another reinforcement of the notion that Albert is thankful Van Zieks chose the role of prosecutor in order to defend the teleportation theory, even if it meant that he himself would be branded a murderer. Despite his gruff exterior and blunt words, Albert thinks of Van Zieks as a sort of knight in shining armor who will come save him. … With cold hard cash, in this case, but it's the gesture that counts. Van Zieks might allow Albert to stay in his mansion instead, but it depends how high the risk of assassination is at this point in time. People are probably hating on the Van Zieks family now that the truth of the Professor is out.

On to credits scene of Van Zieks himself! We have confirmation by now that he hasn't retired as a prosecutor, since Kazuma already expressed his intent to keep studying under him. So we see Van Zieks in his office, addressing Klint's painting.

“In those days, when I was known as the Reaper, I felt your presence at my side. Once, unable to bear the burden of that grim pseudonym, I even retired from the courtroom. Despite everything, I still wear your prosecutor's badge with pride. But the darkness that beset me is no more. As you, too... Are no more.”

The first two sentences of this bit feel very disjointed and barely related to me, so I had a quick look at some fan translations. First is the sub translation on Youtube: “I could feel you standing by my side through the days in which I was called the Reaper. Yet there were times I could not bear the burden of that name, and left the courtroom far behind me.” The “yet” is very crucial, since it makes the insinuation that feeling his brother's presence was very important to Van Zieks, but the burden became so overwhelming that he retired anyway. Taisa the Gamer's script doesn't have a “yet” in it, nor any equivalent, but the sentence structure still flows well enough not to cast doubt on how he felt about Klint's supposed presence. Contrasting that, the localization's wording with “even” almost makes it seem like feeling Klint's presence was a negative thing- that he was overwhelmed by it and that this was the burden associated with the Reaper name, as opposed to the killings. Which can't possibly be right; he already admitted to us that the idea of his brother's ghost helping him was one of the main reasons he kept on being the Reaper. So long story short, the localization's take on these first two lines is a little off.

The prosecutor's badge thing, however, is spot on. Despite everything- despite the 'true nature' of Klint now exposed, Van Zieks still wears the badge with pride. We know the badge is symbolical, of course. He still believes in Klint's sense of justice and he's still going to openly admit to being Klint's brother- to being a Van Zieks. That's sweet. He goes on to say that the darkness within him is no more. To really grasp what that means, let's go back to the end of case 2-3 for a second. There, Van Zieks says that after his brother's death, he found himself in “a very dark place indeed”. In case 2-4, he mentions that he refuses to trust others to protect himself against betrayal, but has now sunk into a proverbial mire which makes it impossible to breathe. All of that is the same darkness he's referring to now, I'm sure. I don't believe depression can lift this easily; there's no way that darkness is no more. However, I think what he means to say is that it no longer has such a strong hold on him that it manifests in paranoia and irrational hatred. He has a chance now to start fresh and that's what he intends to do. He's striding away from that darkness, towards a brighter future. In order for a person to change for the better, they themselves have to want to change, and it looks like Van Zieks is all for that. Which at last brings us to the conclusion of this essay series! The conclusion, which looks back on the original query posed in Part 1, will once again include a load of screencaps. To keep the post size lighter, I'm going to put it in a separate post. I hope you'll look forward to it!

#dgs #dgs spoilers #tgaa #tgaa spoilers #barok van zieks #ALMOST THERE #HHHHHHHHH

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brandybradyrandyandyndy · 3 years

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Mark Forster's role in the Ace Attorney franchise

Okay, first off:

I'm not a fan of Mark Forster's music, please don't take this post the wrong way

There might be some aa trilogy spoilers

Also, I admit this title is pretty bold for what I'm going to say on this topic, but I watch The Voice of Germany with my sister every week and one of the coaches is Mark Forster who I only know like five songs of in total, but his song "Au Revoir" (which is actually a terrible song btw. It's so catchy, I've had it stuck in my head since I woke up this morning and it ruined my day.) kind of reminded me of the whole "Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death." thing, because the only thing I knew about this song was the refrain:

which would be roughly translated to:

"There is nothing that's holding me back, au revoir / Forget who I was / Forget my name / It will never be the way it was before / I'm off / Au revoir"

But as I looked further into the lyrics I found out there is a "rap part" which tells you about the places the lyrical I will go to when they're away and it contains a passage that adds a beautiful twist to my theory/headcanon (I'm not sure what to call this yet).

"I'm sitting on the Mayan throne in the jungle / [...] / The phoenix is taking off now"

You see where I'm going with this? I know, it's not Phoenix who's leaving and I know the lyrics refer to the Maya Civilization from Mesoamerica, but I thought it was a funny coincidence, that not only does the word "Phoenix" appear in the lyrics of this song, but so does "Maya".

So when I first saw this part of "Au Revoir", I started imagining how Miles Edgeworth would listen to this song and like dramatically sing along to it and start crying or something, but this only posed another question:

How could this scenario happen? How and why would he even come in contact with this song?

My first guess was, Miles probably went to Germany after he left his note, because he grew up there (I think), when he had been adopted by Manfred von Karma as a child, and he heard the song somewhere in the radio because in Germany they blast Mark Forster's music in almost every public space, so there is no escape from it ever. I tried to find out, during which timespan Miles left America, just to make sure if there was a chance that he actually could have heard it on the radio.

In the Ace Attorney wiki this timespan isn't clearly mentioned, but since the last case (Rise from the Ashes) from the first game is set in February 2017 and Edgeworth returns to America in March 2018 I'm guessing, this is exactly the time window in which he's in Germany* (minus some days/weeks of course, because I don't think he'd just leave on the exact same day he had his last trial in America). *to make this easier for me I'm just assuming he spends the entirety of his travels in Germany

But this brings me to my problem, the German Charts of 2017/2018.

As you can see, the only songs by Mark Forster that were in the charts while Miles would be in Germany are the ones above. This means that it is highly unlikely that he knew of "Au Revoir" from the radio, because why would they play this old song if they could also play Mark Forster's more recent songs that are popular right now?

But when exactly was "Au Revoir" popular enough to be in the German Charts?

During my research I looked up these years, too, and it came down to 2014 (the year "Au Revoir" was released) and even a year later in 2015. So there is no way he could have known of this song if his most recent stay in Germany was in 2017, right? (I mean, unless the German people he met then, had literally no taste and forced him to listen to it.)

But I have a pretty simple and logical explanation on how he could have still known of this song, even though he probably wouldn't have heard it in Germany in 2017.

I tried really hard, but I couldn't for my life find real data on Mark Forster's demographic, so just believe me if I tell you that his demographic is mostly preteen and teenage girls. Also, it's worth mentioning that Mark Forster's music is pretty much only known in German speaking countries like Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Now, let's take a closer look at the years, in which Au Revoir was most popular: 2014 and 2015

Who could Miles Edgeworth possibly know, who in 2014/2015 is 1. German, 2. a teenager and 3. a girl? The answer is quite obvious:

His younger sister Franziska von Karma.

Considering that she was either 14 or 15 when "Au Revoir" was released, she fits Mark Forster's demographic perfectly and although I'm not 100% sure if she was in Germany then, I still believe, she must have had at least some connection to Germany in some way, maybe a German friend who she still was in contact with or maybe she had access to German tv, maybe German YouTube channels or social media. And don't get me wrong, I love Franziska von Karma and I wouldn't wish anything bad on her, but at the same time I strongly believe that she'd be the kind of girl who'd have gone through a Mark Forster phase as a teen.

Now remember that I, myself, have a sister. I know what siblings do to annoy each other and I just know from the bottom of my heart that if Franziska really was a fan of Mark Forster's music, she would blast it on any opportunity she'd get. Or she would at least talk about him and his songs with her brother. Believe me. If Franziska really listened to Mark Forster, Miles would have known of him, too. There is literally no other way. (For reference, I know every 1D member's name, birthday and relationship status, although I literally do not care about any of them at all, only because my sister is obsessed with them and talks about them 24/7. Meanwhile the only MCR member I know, is Gerard Way, even though I listen to their music on the daily.)

So here is my conclusion.

Miles Edgeworth definitely listened to "Au Revoir" by Mark Forster on the plane from Japanifornia to Germany and he also definitely cried, after he made sure nobody could see him (especially during the part "Der Phönix macht jetz 'n Abflug"/"The phoenix is taking off now"). Also, he probably listened to the song multiple times during his stay in Germany and you literally can't prove me wrong on this. I mean you could try, but I invested way too much of my time in this to actually care about another person's opinion on my shitty headcanon.

Also, the moment Franziska met Phoenix and Maya, her memories vaulted her right back to her Mark Forster phase and her hatred against Phoenix wasn't solely based on the fact that he was accountable for the conviction of her father Manfred von Karma, her hatred was also ignited by the fact that she probably had "Au Revoir" stuck in her head because of these two for the rest of the day and I just know that this must have completely ruined it for her.

Also, unrelated to anything I've said prior:

Klavier Gavin would definitely collaborate with Mark Forster on at least one song and however severe Franziska's Mark Forster phase might have been, I am convinced Klavier would have outdone her by far. I haven't played AJAA yet, but as much as I've gathered from the fandom, he's like a weeaboo but with Germany, I think? I'm absolutely sure, he wouldn't ever miss a chance like this.

Finally, here is the song this whole post is about:

#ace attorney #aa #miles edgeworth #franziska von karma #manfred von karma #narumitsu #wrightworth #phoenix wright #maya fey #german #german culture #mark forster #klavier gavin

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goodluckdetective · 3 years

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Haunted!Phoenix Fic: Moth’s Wings

Ship: Pre-Narumitsu

Fandom: Ace Attorney

Characters: Phoenix Wright, Miles Edgeworth

A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30669839

Rating: PG-13

Summary:

Based off my “Phoenix Wright is a little haunted” AU.

Edgeworth only asks him about the ghosts once, a full month before the Hawthorn trial.

What he doesn’t ask then while haunted him later in more ways than one.

Notes: This is a fill for a friend based on a bet @feministbatman. Also the Spiritualist movement tricks I’m talking about are very real.

Wright told him about the ghosts, after the Engarde trial.

Edgeworth didn’t believe him, not at first. Sure, he saw what Miss Fey could do but he considered it a parlor trick, and nothing more. He was a man of science, of reason. He’d taken thoughts of phantoms and banished them to the realm of childhood fantasies as soon as his father died. There was no communing with the dead.

Then he spent a day in Wright’s office shortly after the case and saw a pen lift up. As he watched, the pen wrote the following on a sheet of paper. He recognized the handwriting from years ago instantly despite the passage of time.

“I haven’t forgiven you for the bimbo comment. And I won’t forgive you for the note you left him either unless you shape up.”

It seemed Mia Fey’s sharp tongue followed her into the afterlife. He should have expected nothing less.Miles Edgeworth was many things, but he knew better than to contest the will of Mia Fey, dead or alive.

So when he returned to Germany, he kept up corresponding with Wright. They shared notes about their own respective lives a few times a week over text and once a month through a call. Edgeworth told him about German law (fascinating), shows he saw on occasion at the theater (hit or miss) and the exploits of his dog (perfect as ever). In return, Wright updated him about his own cases (absolutely ridiculous, like the man himself), the antics of the Fey girls (chaotic) and Gumshoe’s latest crush (hopeless).

Wright rarely brought up the ghosts, only mentioning them when they did something he thought Edgeworth would find interesting. Perhaps he knew enough of Edgeworth’s dislike of the supernatural to leave the matter be. Thus Edgeworth, surprisingly, was the one to bring up the ghosts on a more serious topic.

It was after a date he took in January, one he’d taken solely to get Fransiska off his case about being hung up on “spikey defense attorney’s.” The man she’d set him up with was nice enough: well spoken, nicely dressed, and charming, but the entire time Edgeworth couldn’t focus on anything besides how Wright looked much better in that shade of blue. He’d thanked his date for taking him to the Opera regardless, hoping to salvage a friend out of the incident, and when he next spoke to Wright, he told the man about the production. He left out the fact he’d gone as a date (for no reason, of course) and instead focused on the stagecraft of the show, something he knew Wright would know more about with his background.

Halfway into their conversation about set design, Edgeworth shifted the discussion to one plot point in particular.“It was about a man haunted by his deceased lover,” Edgeworth said, leaning back in his armchair. “They decided not to use a fog machine for the actor playing her, instead deciding to use techniques utilized by the Spiritualist movement. I believe it was meant to underline that the ghost may be a product of his own-Wright?”

Edgeworth cut off mid sentence at the sight of Wright’s face over the video chat. The man had gone terribly pale, a shade Edgeworth had not seen since the Engarde trial when Maya’s life hung in the balance. It radiated terror, a man clinging to hope by his fingernails, and to see it now was chilling.

“Wright? Is something wrong?” Wright shook his head, almost as if he was remembering Edgeworth was still there. That was also a rarity for the man; one of the things that endeared him to so many was his ability to make people feel properly regarded.

“Sorry. I uh-”Wright scowled and Edgeworth almost dropped his laptop as the man struck out with one hand and grabbed something. He pulled it back, a scowl on his face, and between his fingers, Edgeworth saw something pale and white. When it twitched, he was able to recognize the shape as that of insect wings, from that of a butterfly or a moth. He was about to remark that Wright struck him as the type to gently capture bugs to later set free when the wings vanished in a burst of tiny light. Wright opened his hand, palm showing no remains of the insect, and wiped it on his jeans like there was something to be cleaned off.

“Is that-” Edgeworth considered letting the topic drop, as his heart so wanted, but some part of him felt forced to press on from the pallor of Wright’s complexion.

“One of your ghosts, I take it?”Wright shook his hand, wiping it against his jeans again before turning back to look at Edgeworth.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. Been bothering me for a few days, but hopefully it will go away soon.”

Edgeworth frowned. “I take it this spirit is unwelcome.”

Wright’s smile was as tight as the wire he walked in the courtroom. Edgeworth could see his bluffing face on, the one he wore when stretched to a limit. What in God’s name could make Wright look like that now? “You could say that.”

“Wright-” Edgeworth started, then stopped, searching for the words he wanted to use. “Are the spirits you see...ever harmful to you?”

The plot of the Opera came back to him in a rush, the ghost tormenting her lover at all hours from beyond the veil. On that stage, it was merely fantastical, but now speaking to Wright, Edgeworth found himself off put at a possibility he’d never considered before. Wright always spoke of the spirits that visited him as welcome guests or at worst, minor annoyances. But was that truly the spectrum of those he encountered? Wright had made enemies in his career. Some of them gone to the grave.

Edgeworth remembered the lead of the opera lying dead on the stage after a year of the ghost’s torment and felt sick. Von Karma had been dead for over a year now. What if he had spent that time seeking vengeance against another defense attorney who’d ruined his perfect record?

“Nah,” Wright said, smile bright and beaming. “Unless you count annoying me with moths. And if it doesn’t let up I can always call in Maya for a good old exorcism.” Edgeworth’s frown stayed and Wright pressed on, voice gentle. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. I promise, Edgeworth.” He sat up straighter in his chair and tilted his head. “So tricks from the Spiritualist movement, huh-”

Edgeworth let the topic drop, and listened to Wright talk about cheesecloth coming out of noses and feet cracking under tables. He would have to take Wright’s word for it: he knew more about such matters than Edgeworth. And regardless, should Von Karma be tormenting his friend, he would have not done it with moths.

A month later looking over the file of Dahlia Hawthorne, Edgeworth would learn that he shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss Wright’s ghosts, both literal and metaphorical.

#phoenix wright #wrightworth #ace attorney #dahlia hawthorne #miles edgeworth #narumitsu #iz writes

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yesterdoesart · 3 years

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⚖️ Saiban Superheroes AU ⚡️

(Updated Feb. 10, 2021) I'm RIDICULOUSLY excited to bring you all this AU, which both golden.ghostie and naribug (@zelandiangelo) of instagram helped on. Presenting Turnabout Heroes: An Ace Attorney Superhero AU!

Basically, this is an AU where basically everything is the same except some of the characters are superheroes/villains on the sides. I plan on writing a bit about how this affects the cases!

If you want to see more of this (or if you want to make content for this; I'd love to see it) I'm using #saiban superheroes to keep track of everything!

Singular references are below the cut because Tumblr keeps ruining my formatting. You can also find more info on the characters and designs under the cut bc I like symbolism :) There ARE spoilers for the trilogy and minor AAI/AAI2 spoilers though.

Each hero here has three powers: Two that they can do easily anytime, anywhere - a go-to. The third is what I'm calling a Trump Card. Trump Cards are powers that require a lot of energy and only work for short ammounts of time in one go. Think of it as a last resort that can change the course of a fight.

Phoenix Wright → Turnabout Terror

Powers: Super Strength & High Constitution. His super strength is inspired by the number of un-open-able doors Phoenix has barreled his way through. His high constitution is based on the sheer number of times Phoenix should have died, but did not. Trump Card: Negation. Turnabout Terror can briefly cancel out another person’s superpower. His Trump Card is based on how underestimated Phoenix is as a lawyer. Power negation felt like a neat way to characterize the way he’s able to get past his opponents tricks and catch them off their guard. Character Notes: Phoenix gained his powers after he ate the necklace during the trial of State v. Wright (2014). Contrary to the court’s belief, there was enough poison in Dahlia’s necklace remaining to theoretically kill Phoenix. Instead of this, though, the poison caused his powers to develop. Turnabout Terror’s name comes from the fact that he’s very good at saving the day when things seem like they’re at a loss. The design for his costume is based on Signal Blue from the Signal Samurai! I took a bit of inspiration from Power Rangers for his sleeves, as Signal Samurai give me that vibe, and I think that it gave the costume a cool modern twist. The emblems on the top are, of course, based on the Attorney Badge! I felt like adding the scale was too obvious though.

Maya Fey → Mystic

Powers: Perception Alteration & Fighting Skill. Perception alteration is inspired by the Magatama, which changes the way the user sees things - Granted, this is less in a literal sense, but I still found it fitting. Fighting skill is something I added that the Fey family would practice. They’d likely practice jujutsu - This is a Japanese martial art with a long history, and it is based on disarming & pinning, which I feel fits with the Fey family - You’d need to pin a medium without hurting them to conduct spirit severing. Trump Card: Channeling. Mystic is able to channel spirits and borrow their energy to unleash. This is almost directly from canon, but I added the part about harnessing energy. I felt that this fit best as a trump card as Maya usually channels Mia when the going gets rough. Character Notes: Mystic is a mantle that has been passed down generation to generation in the Fey Family, similar to how the title “Master of Kurain” is. Before Maya became Mystic, her sister Mia held the title. Before she became Mystic, Maya used the mantle “Fuji Senshi”, meaning “Wisteria Warrior” - This is a nod to her love of the Steel Samurai and Pink Princess. Speaking of Pink Princess, Mystic’s costume is based on the Pink Princess - I gave the design furisode and a side-part opening, like her. It’s also based on the Kurain and Hazakura training robes. Since the mantle is passed down, I imagine that while Pink Princess-esque is Maya’s special spin, all heroes who take the mantle of Mystic draw from Kurain tradition in their costume.

Miles Edgeworth → Glacieus

Powers: Ice & Impossible Mobility. Ice was the perfect power choice for Edgeworth, who’s noted for his cold stares and chilly demeanor. He can both create ice and freeze surfaces. Impossible mobility was chosen for his ability to roll with the punches in the courtroom - Even after he’s thrown completely off guard, he’s able to quickly recover and keep fighting. Trump Card: Checkmate. Glacieus can create a trap covering a square area. When his enemy falls or steps into it, it temporarily paralyzes them, rendering them unable to make any moves. This is based on his Logic Chess from Ace Attorney Investigations II, as this is his way of cornering people and getting them to give him the information and opportunities he needs. Notes: Miles’ powers were passed down to him by his father. In his family, powers are either passed down to the next generation as a right of passage or upon the death of the previous wielder. This factors in to Miles’ fears that he accidentally killed his father in the DL-6 incident. “Glacieus” is based off the word “Glacier” - An icy name for an icy hero. His design is based off of kamishimo, which is a type of Samurai formal wear. This is both a nod to the Steel Samurai and to his eloquence and formality. While most of the masks I created are blindfold-esque, this was a conscious decision for Glacieus, based on the concept of “Blind Justice”.

Franziska von Karma → Zenit

Powers: Weapon summoning & tracking. Franziska’s already a powerhouse in game with her whip, so it made sense to base her power on this. While she can summon other weapons, such as swords or knives, her whip is still her weapon of choice. Her tracking ability is based on the way she tracks Gumshoe in “Justice for All” - She can track people she’s met in person. Trump Card: Impossible Stamina. Zenit has the ability to push herself past her limit, unleashing extra power in a fight. This felt like an ideal Trump Card for her because Franziska is stubborn to a fault and refuses to give up - She always works extra hard to meet her own (and her family's) high standards. Notes: Zenit is German for “Zenith”, which refers to the time where something is most successful. Franziska strives for perfection, trying to prove her worthiness to her father and to herself, so it makes sense that her mantle would also boast this perfection. Her costume is based on Medieval German knights - Franziska is very much a fighter, so this felt fitting for her. It also fits because she, like Miles, is very tied to her honor, so I like the motif of a noble knight for her.

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101flavoursofweird · 4 years

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Series: Professor Layton (or any of the spin-offs if someone's already ask this one), Ship: Ranhengela, Character: Phoenix Wright, Crossover ship: Professor Layton & Ace Attorney, Top 5: Flora, Katia, Arianna, Aurora & Emmy?

Thank you!

Professor Layton-

Favorite character: Currently, it’s a tie between Flora and Henry! (May have something to do with the fic I’m writing at the moment...)

Least Favorite character: The Storyteller. Whenever people criticise Flora’s dad— who did make some horrible choices that left Flora alone and isolated— I glance at the Arthur Cantabella and think... “He did the exact same thing to Espella but worse?” Yes, unlike Flora, Espella was traumatised as a child. Cantabella did everything he could to help her, which is admirable! But it’s the fact that Cantabella took other people, erased their lives, probably giving them trauma, to fix Espella’s trauma. AND IT DIDN’T EVEN HELP ESPELLA UNTIL LAYTON AND PHOENIX CANE TO TOWN. Instead, Espella got branded as the Great Witch and the people of Labyrinthia turned on her. She was left even more alone than Flora was. For as lonely as Flora was, at least the St. Mystere robots cared about her and she had Bruno. Espella had Aunt Patty, her cat, and maybe Rouge who worked at the tavern. And by the end of it, Cantabella survived his illness. Baron Reinhold did not.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Ranhengela, Clark/Brenda, Janice/Melina, Luke/Marina, Flora/Her OC fanclub

Character I find most attractive: Janice

Character I would marry: Marina. She stayed with a cult for 11 years just to find out how to free her husband. That’s Henry-levels of loyalty.

Character I would be best friends with: Claire actually reminds me of one of my best friends in real life

a random thought: Where’s the next chapter of Reset, OP?

An unpopular opinion: I love Descole/Desmond, I’ve written a whole AU fic about him, but please can we get some appreciation for Arianna, Brenda, Janice, Melina or Angela as well? I want them to give Descole an intervention.

my canon OTP: Anton/Sophia

Non-canon OTP: What do you Janice/Melina aren’t canon

most badass character: Brenda

pairing I am not a fan of: Layton/Descole— I didn’t like it even before The Reveal. I just don’t understand the whole Villain/Hero shipping dynamic in general. Why would you want to date someone who tried to kill/maim you on multiple occasions? But that’s just my personal thoughts! (Charlie/Raphael don’t count— those two have a Tom & Jerry dynamic.)

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Katrielle and Flora in LMJ. Why didn’t Level 5 give us an amazing sister relationship between these two? It still would’ve worked even with Flora’s ambiguous age. She’s older than Kat. I would say Flora’s a SPOILER! character, but then she still appears in the rest of the original trilogy, soo... what gives, Level 5?

favourite friendship: Not my favourite, but I think Emmy and Aurora have an under-appreciated friendship. And they have a lot in common! Both of them were used as pawns in someone else’s plan but they ultimately amount to more than just their ‘missions’.

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: Dalston would be such a cool uncle

Ranhengela-

when of if I started shipping it: I can’t remember the exact moment, but it was probably when I was replaying Miracle Mask and I just assumed Randall, Angela and Henry would all live together at the Ledore-Ascot Manor. (I know that’s not the official manor name after MM but that’s the one I use.)

my thoughts: My OT3s to end all OT3s. I’m not a fan of Randall/Angela on their own, at least what we see of them as teenagers, but I’d hope that Randall matures a lot more when he moves in with them in Monte d’Or. He and Angela would probably still argue, but Henry is there to keep them grounded.

What makes me happy about them: A canon polyamorous ship? In my PL game? Okay, so nothing is said in-game that makes them officially canon... But there’s nothing to suggest this isn’t the case. It’s not like they kick Henry out of the manor, or Angela moves out of Monte d’Or with Randall. I like how it’s left ambiguous, so fans can make what they want of it.

What makes me sad about them: We never hear from them again after MM

things done in fanfic that annoys me: Not so much as annoys me, but I feel sad when Dalston doesn’t get so much as a mention. He’s their friend too!

things I look for in fanfic: I’ve still yet to see a fic with a Ranhengela WEDDING/married life. I may have to write it myself

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Ranhen or Hengela are both good. There’s also Emmy/Angela! Or Dalston/Henry, or Dalston/Randall if you like rivals to lovers. Also, Desmond/Henry!

My happily ever after for them: They get married and live happily ever after in Monte d’Or and start a family.

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Henry is the little spoon with Randall and Angela on either side of him

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Gardening or horse riding!

Phoenix Wright-

How I feel about this character: My knowledge on Phoenix Wright is based on PLvsAA and a couple of playthroughs I watched. From what I’ve seen in PLvsAA, I really like Phoenix! ...But not enough to make me by the Ace Attorney games.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Layton/Phoenix! Good ship.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Phoenix and Maya, Phoenix and Luke, Phoenix and Trucy! I do love how he adopts Trucy and that might just tempt me to get the game she’s introduced in.

My unpopular opinion about this character: From an outsider’s perspective, I can’t see what the big deal with Phoenix/Edgeworth is? But again, that could change if I actually played the AA games.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wanted to see more Ace Attorney references/lore in PLvsAA... like Maya’s spirit channelling, but no.

my het ship: I guess I could see Phoenix hooking up with Rouge, the tavern owner in PLvsAA?

my fem/slash ship: Phoenix/Layton

my OTP: Phoenix/Layton

my OT3: I don’t have one

a head cannon fact: Phoenix remains in contact with Layton for many years after PLvsAA

Crossover ship for Professor Layton & Ace Attorney -

As mentioned above Layton/Phoenix but of course there’s also Evespella!

Top 5:

Flora, Aurora, Arianna, Emmy and Katia (But they’re all amazing and deserve more love!)

#Long post #sorry this is so long #answers #Ranhengela #Flora/OC #Clark/Brenda #Layton/Wright #Laywright #Janice/Melina

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badlydrawndrawnings · 4 years

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*re-watches netflix asoue*

*Thinks about Gregor and Ike, and see how they’re missing a H*

*Thinks about how H could be Hector*

*’Oh yeah, Hector is not a VFD member in the Netflix show. Welp that can’t work in the Netflix show’*

*Suddenly realizes age lifts affect more characters, not just Kit*

*Spots some Barry Sonnenfeld cameos I didn’t see before*

*‘Hey wait a minute! [RETRACTED]’*

It’s a creator cameo, but Ike is played by Barry Sonnenfeld. Netflix!Ike is one of the older VFD members, meaning he got a major age lift upward (using Sonnenfeld’s age as a ballpark range), because there’s a chance Book!Ike -as with most members in the SBG- are in the same range, give or take several years. Gregor is dead, but he too got an age lift upward since Gregor is Ike’s older brother. They’re not the only ones (using most of the actors ages as a ballpark range) that are affect by them.

Lemony got an age lift upward, while Kit got an age lift downward (no amount of CGI on Patrick Warburton can make him look younger than Allison Williams -but it works enough for me to say he’s younger than Nathan Fillion- or stretching my disbelief Kit is older than Lemony, unless she found the fountain of youth). TUA has possible evidence Larry is the youngest SBG member if you don’t include Fernald (who age is more or less the same maybe slightly older but not by much), but Netflix!Larry certainly looks older than several members, including Kit and Larry. Ticket Seller Guy looks like the age I assumed Ishmael was in the books, and it stands out and goes to my next observation: Netflix!Ishmael certainly looks younger than I imagined (the beard and hair looks fake as hell that’s probably it) Is it because they made VFD Ishmael’s creation as a school principal? Probably?

Based on Ike’s portrayal and painting, Gregor and Ike are in the same age range as Ishmael. Ergo, those three aren’t part of the same ‘generation’ as Lemony and Co (the hybrid SB/OS Generation). Ike certainly doesn’t seem he went to school with most of them except Josephine (who looks like she got an age lift upward).

Given they’re brothers, Gregor and Ike will have a resemblance between each other. And there’s one VFD member in the Netflix show who got an age lift upward, and he also just happens to bare a resemblance to Ike. He’s the closest thing one will get to what Gregor would look in the Netflix show.

If the theory Gregor and Ike has a sibling who names start with H can work its way in the Netflix Continuity, the only contender for H is Widdershins.

*OBJECTION!* (says the non-crack theorist side of me who was listening to Ace Attorney OSTs on Youtube while writing this second half of the post) Fiona introduces herself as Fiona Widdershins. Fiona still calls her stepfather Captain Widdershins. That means Fiona is taking the Widdershins surname.

Given the numerous cameos of Barry Sonnenfeld (I never spotted the one in the Reptile Room and the Wasabi one in the Grim Grotto), there’s a gene floating around Netflix ASOUE’s world. Let’s call it ‘the Bullshit Gene’, because it’s bullshit how it keeps showing up. The Bullshit Gene is out there because some people with the gene can’t keep it in their pants, or the Bullshit Gene is super strong to be past down numerous generations and their face becomes very f*cking common to where people who don’t have it joke/comment about it whenever possible.

Gregor, Ike, and Widdershins could have seen how it’s almost bullshit they look similar to one another, and joke how their faces are almost everywhere in places they don’t expect. But the three only learn the truth that they’re half brothers in a DNA test that was supposed to be a joke. Gregor and Ike’s father and Widdershins’ mother cheated on their spouses, which lead to Widdershins’ birth (given Widdershins’ painting, he’s close to Gregor’s age or is at Gregor’s age). Mr. Anwhistle Sr and Mrs. Widdershins Sr didn’t tell their children or their spouses of the affair because of the Bullshit Gene. Anyone who makes a comment how the three share a resemblance to one other are brushed off because they just have that very f*cking common face that is everywhere.

So uh, there isn’t a proper ‘H’ Awhistle because H stands for Half-Brother.

*HOLD IT!* (says the non-crack theorist side of me) Would all three keep this hidden? Widdershins, yes. Gregor, maybe (it can go either way there’s little info about him). But Ike? From what we know of Ike, would he not tell Josephine, his own wife? What would be a reason to keep it hidden anyway?

Let’s say Fernald working at Anwhistle Aquatics as an apprentice happens after the three found out they’re half brothers. Gregor, Widdeshins, and Ike for some reason (in a rather idiotic move), thought to keep it to themselves because no one would believe them because the Bullshit Gene is everywhere and everyone knows about it and joke about it. Reasonable, but still idiotic. Ike is sort of hoping for the right moment to strike though to tell Josephine and maybe everyone else. They’re going to start a family after all. It would be wonderful if the two families got together for a real family picnic, not a VFD meeting/picnic.

With this new-found familial connection, Widdershins thought to use the the nepotist approach to get Fernald a job at Anwhistle Aquatics (‘Gregor can you help your step-nephew achieve his dream in Marine Biology and stuff?’ ‘Step-Half Nephew. Fernald actually has the best qualifications, so yeah.’).

That action decided they should do a test run of sorts. Anwhistle Aquatic is the chosen grounds. Fernald and Gregor are working together and they get along. Ike visits and tells Josephine (Josephine mentioning in Season One about she thinks boys would prefer to play with cards; she never met Fernald, but she heard of him through Ike), and Widdershins show up once in awhile to check up on his stepson (Fiona visits once or twice but she barely remembers them by the time she becomes 16). The brothers see it’s working...at first. The Medusoid Mycelium is now created. Ike and Gregor start fighting over it, as with Gregor and Fernald (who is more ‘hey just reconsider’). Widdershins isn’t getting involved, but agrees with Ike and Fernald. Gregor is outnumber but he still wants to go through the program, with or without his apprentice’s (nephew) help.

And then the Anwhistle Aquatic Fire happens. Everyone eventually learns it’s done by Fernald. And Ike is angry Gregor is dead. Gregor could still be alive if Widdershins didn’t try to get his step-son into working at Anwhistle Aquatics. If Gregor and Ike never discover their half brother and his family, Gregor would still be alive. And Ike wants to have a family with Josephine. With Fernald with mind, Ike doesn’t want Widdershins and Fiona to be around Ike’s family in case the same stunt happens again. Widdershins and Ike in a mutual agreement -with a heated argument- parts way and keep their family secret to themselves.

So yeah. Ike would keep a secret from Josephine if his buttons were push. Gregor and his death was the button that did the trick.

*HANG ON!* (says the non-crack theorist side of me) What does that means regarding the bad blood between him and Widdershins? Widdershins is the one who drove Fernald away in the books after all! For...well, no one know for sure. Just theories. Mostly related to Mrs. Widdershins.

*‘Hey wait a minute! I just realize there’s lack of an importance of Mrs. Widdershins and her death in the Netflix Show’*

Okay, so in the books, Widdershins for whatever reason (guilt? let’s say guilt), is on the denial train when it comes to Fernald. More often than not, Widdershins wants to remember Fernald as the teenage boy who is pleasant and charming. He never brings up the fights or anything bad regarding his stepson. In fact, the denial train is so strong, I think the reason why Widdershins made his weird comment of marriage to Violet is because he convinced himself Fernald is still a teenage boy, and not the adult he is by present time. And it’s clear as day Fernald really, really, hates his stepfather. A lot. At lot to where Fernald would start a fight with his stepfather in a parking lot Denny’s (and Fernald will win said fight). Apply the idea/theory Mrs. Widdershins was working with Gregor and she died in the Anwhistle Aquatic Fire, Fernald has every right to pick said fight: Widdershins was responsible for Fernald’s mom death in Fernald’s eyes.

In the Netflix show, Fernald hate his stepfather, but it’s not on the levels as his book counterpart. After his freak out over Madame Lulu!Olivia, Fernald thinks about calling Fiona, but gets the realization his stepfather could answer instead, and even comments/ask himself if Widdershins would still be mad at him [Fernald], most likely over the Anwhistle Aquatic Fire. Fernald’s tone in the scene means he is scare of meeting Widdershins again. Fernald gladly tells Sunny a happy memory of sorts with Widdershins, about how the two went ice fishing before immediately back tracking because Fernald realize (in horror) he has remnant affection (let’s call it that) left in his heart. And the biggest ‘slip-up’ of this remnant affection: Fernald calls Widdershins ‘step-pops’. He and Fiona call Widdershins their stepfather, but Fiona never says ‘step-pops’. It’s possible ‘step-pops’ was Fernald’s prefer terminology before the bad blood set. There’s hate, but it’s not worth picking a fight in a parking lot at Denny’s.

In the Netflix show...instead of keeping Fernald alive as a young teenager who is pleasant and charming, Widdershins wants Fernald very f*cking dead. He told Fiona her brother died in a manatee accident. He told Fiona this not long after Fernald set Anwhistle Aquatics on fire and presumably after getting kick out of VFD, and around this time the big fight happens where Fernald tells Widdershins he [Fernald] never wanted to see his [Widdershins] face again. It’s a f*ck up lie because when Book!Widdershins said the same thing to Book!Fiona about her mom, Fiona’s mom is dead. Book!Widdershins also never even told Fiona that Fernald is dead, he’s just alive and missing. And I should bring up the happy family photo. In the books, it’s more or less open correction it was crumple but it still show all four of the family members. Netflix’s happy family photo took a note from Mama Imelda in Coco who folded away her husband’s guitar on the ofrenda photo (after ripping off her husband’s face). Widdershins folded away Fernald, leaving only Fiona and Widdershins (and Fernald’s hand).

In both books and show, Widdershins drove away Fernald. In the books, it’s possible (but not 100% certain) Fernald blames Widdershins for causing Fernald’s mom death in the Anwhistle Aquatic Fire. In the Netflix show, under this theory Netflix!H is Widdershins, Widdershins drove away Fernald because Widdershins blames Fernald for causing Widdershins’ half brother death in the Anwhistle Aquatic Fire. However, Fernald decision’s to leave is also because Fernald doesn’t understand the full extent of his actions. Fernald knows his Stepfather is mad over the fire and Gregor’s death, but Fernald didn’t think his Stepfather would be super mad over the fire and Gregor’s death.

Of course, Fernald probably (probably) wouldn’t have set the fire had the three brothers you know, told everyone they’re related. It’s possible (possible) Widdershins did realize that terrible mistake in a cooling off period. If he also hated Fernald enough to never want to see his stepson’s face again, Widdershins could have torn off Fernald’s face of the photo.

#asoue #a series of unfortunate events #netflix asoue #asoue season 3 #asoue netflix #theory #this is a text post #tv show continuity

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piratejenna · 4 years

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Apollo Justice: Episode 2

First off, just a heads up that this is the type of game I tend to binge through, so these updates are gonna probably come pretty fast since I’m sitting around my house with nothing to do. They will be tagged “Mac play ace attorney” if you want to keep up or if you want to blacklist. Also, spoilers

Ok, so I have completed the first round in the courts and am wrapping up the investigation (mostly updating now cause I have a theory I want to share before we get too many more answers)

- I love that Apollo keeps saying he’s fine or everything’s fine to like, anyone who even looks at him. Like I said, I am vibing so hard with this kid!

- also was right about the german guy being the opposing lawyer, so that’s fun. Like, I love Miles, he’s delightful, but this guy seems the most chill. Like, his rockstar thing is annoying, but Miles is always hiding evidence from you and updating autopsy reports, the lady from the second game (can’t remember her name) hits you with her whip, and the coffee guy is super condescending and throws coffee at you. So, at the moment, I’m cool with this guy

- I love Apollo’s distressed face. He’s so precious. And like, I don’t think Mr. Rockstar should get all the credit for the case, cause Apollo is dealing with the worst client, who is openly confessing to the crime without ever talking with us.

- Apollo’s comment about how voice training doesn’t matter if you have nothing to say was so deep and I wish I’d grabbed the exact line. That was heavy and I loved it!

- Also, this is the worst witness ever

and this is Ace Attorney, so that’s saying something. (this is that kid from the John Mulaney bit at the sleepover who keeps saying you did things “yesterday”)

- Anyway, court was pretty exciting. Far less of a wild ride than the first case, much more standard Ace Attorney to me, though I expect that actual final day in court will get wild.

- Actually, the thing where Trucy pretended to be held hostage to give us a 20 minute recess, and then Apollo, in court, informed the Judge that he had “taken care of it” was wild. Like, Apollo pretty much told the Judge he beat up a guy. So that’s lovely. (although I very much love how distressed Apollo was about Trucy. He was so worried! It was really sweet. I’m glad they seem to be getting along.)

- I am freaking out about the bits we keep dropping about Nick’s disbarment (which I am aware of in a vague sense) and that Apollo is somehow related to it, I think?

- Investigation is back, which I’ve got to say is my least favorite part of these. I’ve hit several points where I’m just bouncing around to each area examining everything til I hit something of note. They certainly have some fun bits, I do like not being spoon-fed everything, but there’s several points where I get the sense it’s waiting for me to go somewhere or do something specific that I don’t have a good reason to do, I just have to sort of stumble into it.

- Trucy continues to be adorable as she assumes the mob runs their post-gang-turf-fight dr visits through insurance

- A lot of developments in the case though, so here is where I’d like to posit my current theory:

Obviously the client is innocent, which means he is either lying about the murder to cover for someone, or he blacked out/legit doesn’t know what happened.

Based on the shoe-prints we found, someone else was in the park behind the noodle stand, and I’m pretty sure it was Alita.

The fact that the witness say Wocky looked shocked and ran away after the gunshot doesn’t make sense if he’s the killer. He had a weapon and was on his way to the clinic to kill the guy. Even though I believe his mom that he wouldn’t actually shoot someone, if he was there with the intent to kill the guy and was pointing a gun at him, I don’t think he’d be shocked and run away if he did in fact shoot him.

However! If the witness yelled, causing the victim to look to his right, that would expose his right temple to someone standing near/around the cart. If at that point, that person shot and killed the victim, it would make total sense for Wocky, who was not holding a gun and who six months prior was shot in the heart, to look freaked out and take off running.

I’m assuming Alita is connected to the clinic somehow, though I’m not sure why she would kill the doctor, especially in a position that Wocky gets blamed, though it seems likely she didn’t anticipate him being there. Also, no idea why the doc stole the noodle cart, why he was in the park, why he has the stolen noodle bowls in his clinic, or why he did the hit and run earlier.

So, this is shaping up to be an interesting case! And of course, Apollo’s life is still on the line for proving the client innocent. Hurray!

#ace attorney #apollo justice #aa:aj #phoenix wright #mac plays ace attorney #i'm pretty interested to see where this is going #nick continues to be cryptic about what happened and be weird about the current case #Apollo has so many frustrating people to deal with in this case #and I love him so much for putting up with them #this kid is wonderful!

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yunaffie · 5 years

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Shu Takumi interview

Several years ago, Official Nintendo Magazine UK (now no longer existent) had an interview with Shu Takumi and it was even on their website. Now their website is no longer around, but I did manage to find the interview on the Wayback Machine and I figured I’d repost it to make it easier to find, as well as give people who haven’t seen it yet the opportunity to do so.

On the day that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies is released, Takumi talks to us about his best-loved series

Shu Takumi's most famous creation, Phoenix Wright, is famed for his 'turnabouts'. These whiplash-inducing twists of logic see him step into the unknown in order to seek his client's innocence; he's essentially a chancer, blagging his way to victory. Talk to Takumi, however, and you sense that he leaves nothing to fate. His stories are intricately plotted, his jokes laser-targeted and his heroes full-bodied personalities.

In a medium in which storytelling starts and ends with 'man hates thing, man shoots thing', Takumi is a rare exception to the rule. With his latest yarn, Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney, on the horizon, Associate Editor Matthew Castle was lucky enough to cross-examine one of gaming's definitive voices.

Matthew Castle: Before we start, just for any readers who might not know who you are, could you tell us about your role at Capcom?

Shu Takumi: I'm a director, which means that I propose ideas for new titles, design the games, write the scenarios and direct the projects. In addition, I mutter complaints and, when the intense pressure of an impossible schedule finally gets to me, escape into a fantasy world of my own creation [laughs].

MC: Before developing Ace Attorney you worked on Dino Crisis. How does one go from dinosaur survival horror to virtual courtrooms?

ST: Dino Crisis was the brainchild of my then boss, Resident Evil creator, Shinji Mikami. Working on his projects taught me not only how to make games, but also how to think about them. After Dino Crisis 2 wrapped, Mr Mikami gave me six months in which to create any kind of game I wanted.

I was still pretty wet behind the ears, but as I'd originally joined Capcom with a desire to create mystery and adventure games, this was a huge chance for me to make my mark as a creator. In the end it took a team of seven 10 months to produce the first GBA Ace Attorney title. Having the freedom to create exactly the kind of game I wanted was amazing and it was a real pleasure to work on that project.

MC: Can you remember when the idea of Ace Attorney first came to you? How did your bosses respond to the idea of a lawyer-based adventure game when you first described it to them?

ST: It was in 2000 when Mr Mikami said I could make my own game and my original idea was a fairly typical adventure with a detective as the main character. Most mystery adventures have the player choose from a number of different dialogue options for their character in order to progress the story, but I wanted a new gameplay style that enabled players to deduce for themselves what was happening, rather than just selecting canned responses. I developed this into the concept of facing off against the suspect in a crime and exposing the contradictions in their statements.

I was sure my new idea would be a fun and original take on the genre, so I started to revise the main character, since a detective would be too traditional for such an original concept. I asked myself, "What kind of professional would face off against a suspect and expose their contradictory statements?" The answer, of course, was a lawyer and so the Ace Attorney concept was born.

Incidentally, I wrote the game design document at home during my summer holiday straight after Dino Crisis 2 finished. One day, I got a call from Mr Mikami. Despite having supposedly given me free rein to design whatever I wanted, he warned me off doing a game about courtroom trials!

MC: Ace Attorney paints the police and legal profession in a silly light. Have you ever had feedback from lawyers or policemen about your portrayal of them?

ST: A few years ago I had the opportunity to speak with some police detectives and they told me that their real-life investigations are nowhere near as absurd as those that were depicted in Ace Attorney. I thought to myself, "Well, I had sort-of guessed that already..."

I've never had feedback from any lawyers, but I imagine it would be the same. They'd tell me they don't scream out "Objection!" as vigorously as our characters and I'd think to myself, "Well, I had sort-of guessed that already..."

MC: Every Ace Attorney game is full of great characters, so when you wrote each sequel how did you decide which people to bring back?

ST: The first time a previously featured character returned in a later case was Larry Butz. Phoenix defended him on a murder charge in the very first case of the first game and he showed up later in the same game as a supporting character in the fourth case.

He wasn't originally planned to be a recurring character, however. The schedule for designing and drawing a new character for that case was so tight that there was a serious risk we wouldn't make it in time, so we decided to reuse an existing character simply to save time on asset creation. Thus, Larry made his encore appearance, which ended up being a well-received element of the first game's storyline, so from the second game onwards, we started bringing old characters back intentionally.

How we choose who to bring back is simple: it's usually either characters who are popular with fans, or those I am fond of [laughs].

MC: For all the madness, there's something traditional about the mysteries at the heart of Ace Attorney. Did you draw on any classic crime writers for inspiration?

ST: You could say that there is a mixture of the spilled blood of victims, the guilty tears of killers and the sweat of hard-working detectives flowing through my veins... To put it less graphically, from the time I came across the Sherlock Holmes series as a child, all the way through to my university days, I've been obsessed with reading classic murder mysteries. It's safe to say that Ace Attorney would not exist were it not for Perry Mason.

When writing the cases for the games I've found inspiration in the works of GK Chesterton, Ellery Queen and Anthony Berkeley, to name but a few. And I can't leave out that modern classic of the genre, Columbo.

MC: How hard is it to devise a juicy twist and to hide it from view? In storytelling you often want to obscure the details, but videogame design often requires clarity. Did you find it hard to rectify those two things?

ST: They say that it's harder to create a puzzle than to solve one and that's certainly proved to be the case in my experience. For the first game, with my lack of experience I found it less like a challenging task than a hobby with which I became obsessed.

You need to control the information presented in the game so that there is a single right answer for the player to deduce, but also weave in plenty of initial inconsistencies for them to uncover and our trademark 'turnabout' twists to confound their expectations. This is where reading all those mystery novels in my youth has really paid off.

MC: Having worked on four Ace Attorney games, how did it feel to step away and work on Ghost Trick? Were you nervous to leave that safety bubble?

ST: I first started working on the Ghost Trick concept in 2004, after the completion of the original GBA version of Ace Attorney 3. The third game was supposed to be the last one, but plans changed and I ended up working on the first DS Ace Attorney, which, as you know, was the first Ace Attorney title to be localised and released in the west. My next project after that was Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, so by the time I got around to finishing Ghost Trick it was 2010, six years after I first thought up the concept.

I certainly felt a lot of pressure when making Ghost Trick, as it was a brand new IP and I had just left the Ace Attorney series, but I was grateful for the chance to take on a new challenge.

MC: Ghost Trick featured some incredibly gruesome murder concepts - death by giant roast chicken is my favourite. From where did you draw inspiration for such a huge variety of deaths? Did any not make the cut?

ST: I feel that the most violent way of murdering someone is by directly shooting, stabbing or strangling them, so for Ghost Trick I wanted to have more indirect ways of killing someone, with a darkly comical, more symbolic feeling to them.

Combining this approach with the fact that the Nintendo DS screens are not the largest, or most high-resolution displays out there, it became important to make sure that whatever death we were presenting to the player was visually easy to comprehend. So being crushed to death by some giant object was a perfect fit for our requirements, whether it was under a big rock or a huge roast chicken.

As far as cut ideas, there was going to be a stage where the victim had been crushed by a huge safe that fell from the ceiling, but time restrictions meant the whole stage was cut. I do love having giant objects fall on people, don't I? That's probably the influence of Tom and Jerry on the young Shu Takumi showing through.

MC: More importantly, how did your team react as you presented these death ideas to them. Was anyone worried for your sanity?

ST: Yes, and not only that, but I also made it my goal to cause the team to worry for my sanity whenever I presented an idea, because if they were, it meant it was a good one. I would hear a little voice in my head saying, "You win!" at times like that. The more "You win!" moments one can have in life, the better.

MC: There were nods in Ghost Trick to Ace Attorney - Missile the dog, for example; a character who looked like Wright - do you see the two games as existing in the same universe?

ST: Those are really just coincidences: the guy who looks like Phoenix actually only has the same colour suit on and the dog is not the same breed as Missile, which, coincidentally, is the name of my pet Pomeranian.

Ghost Trick takes place in what is obviously a much more fantastical world than Ace Attorney. You may have noticed that the level backgrounds in Ghost Trick never have any kind of writing in them. This was an intentional design choice to prevent the game's setting from being identifiable as taking place in any particular country or era from the real world.

MC: Could you imagine an Ace Attorney/Ghost Trick crossover? Any deaths that we couldn't prevent by way of possession could then go to trial in a courtroom...

ST: ...or Phoenix Wright could be killed and Sissel could prosecute his killer in court! Whatever form it might take, a crossover between these games is something I would love to see happen.

MC: When you return to Ace Attorney after a period of absence - whether it was to write Apollo Justice or Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney - how easy do you find it to slip back into that world and that writing voice?

ST: Writing for Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney was the first time in several years that I wrote in the voice of Phoenix and Maya, but those characters are so dear to me that I carry them around everywhere in my heart, so it was very easy to pick it up again. It was like a reunion with old friends and was a very pleasurable and nostalgic experience for me.

MC: When you came to write the scenario for Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney, how hard was it to make those two universes gel? Layton's world traditionally dispels the paranormal, while Wright tends to embrace it.

ST: I worked together with Level 5 to develop the world in which the crossover takes place. It took quite a lot of time for both sides to find a setting into which we were happy to place our biggest characters. The starting point for me was when I wondered to myself if one could still use logic to solve a case in a world in which crimes could be committed using magic. I really liked this idea, so it was hard, but fun, work to design the court sections of the game around it.

MC: Putting all diplomacy aside, who would win in a battle of the wits between Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright?

ST: If you ask me, I don't think Phoenix would be able to hold a candle to Layton in a real battle of wits. However, we all know that the hand of fate somehow always manages to bring a 'turnabout' in Nick's fortunes, no matter how sticky the situation, which means, well, sorry, Professor, but you're out of luck!

MC: With Ace Attorney 5 and Ace Attorney Investigations how does it feel to see your characters in the hands of other Capcom employees? We imagine it must be like a parent sending their child to school for the first day.

ST:

That's an apt comparison. I do have mixed feelings about it sometimes. For instance, I was really surprised to see that after we focused on the new character of Apollo in the fourth game, the Dual Destinies team decided to bring Phoenix back. Ultimately, though, having creators other than myself take the helm of the series is a valid choice, as it brings new directions and new story possibilities.

The team on the new game have looked at what the essence of Ace Attorney is, and as long as they can give the fans another great game to enjoy, I'll be happy. After all, the fact that the series is still going over a decade after I made the first game is something I couldn't possibly have imagined in the first place.

MC: Have you seen the Ace Attorney film? If so, what did you think of it? Was it funny to see characters you sketched out all those years ago in the flesh?

ST: I saw it, and I even got to make a little cameo when the film company invited some Capcom staff to visit the set. You can see me briefly in the spectators' gallery in the final court scene.

It was really something to see the story I wrote for the first game brought to life on the big screen by real-life actors.

And those costumes! They were such perfect recreations. The director, Takashi Miike, is an expert at making existing works from other media into entertaining live action films and he did a great job with Ace Attorney. I highly recommend that everyone reading this check it out, if they can.

MC: This interview is part of our 100th edition and we're looking back over some of our magazine highlights. Looking back over your own career, what is your personal highlight to date?

ST: As a creator, the greatest compliment to me is when someone tells me that they played one of my games and enjoyed it. In the course of the press tour for Ghost Trick in 2010, many players from around the world expressed their love of Ace Attorney to me and it's moments like those that make me glad I became a game creator. Also, I'm deeply honoured to have been asked to take part in this special issue and having myself, my team and our work considered a highlight of your magazine's history. I'd like to thank you on behalf of everyone at Capcom. This opportunity is in itself a highlight for us.

MC: Many of our readers are keen to know, what's next for Shu Takumi?

ST: Game projects are a complex balance of so many factors: what I want to make, what players might make of my concept, what Capcom as a company wants from the game, and also broader trends in the gaming industry. My next project is in the preparation stages and I still don't know myself what form it might take by the time it's finished.

Whatever happens, though, I'll be pouring my heart and soul into it and working towards that eternal goal of hearing positive reactions from the players at the end of all the hard work.

#ghost trick #ace attorney #shu takumi

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entamewitchlulu · 5 years

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Homura’s Flash Reviews [Winter 2019]

What’s up nerds I finished watching all of the anime I was following through winter 2019 and I am READY to TALK ABOUT THEM

The Price of Smiles

On a faraway planet, two nations are engaged in a long running war. Princess Yuki of the Kingdom of Soleil, however, has been kept in the dark about the ongoing conflict, until her best friend is killed during a skirmish. Meanwhile, in the Empire of Grandiga, a foot soldier named Stella tries her best to stay smiling through the horrors of war. Presenting the war through their eyes on both sides of the conflict, both girls will affect the flow of the planet’s future and the outcome of the war.

Whew okay, this one was absolutely a hit or miss show. It started off really strong, with some actually decently designed and built characters, some good dynamics shown off between characters within just a few moments, and some not too shabby animation. Plus, the OP is a jam. Unfortunately, by around episode 5, the animation had taken a steep dive, and the theme of the show seemed to have turned into WAR IS BAD WAR IS BAD WAR IS BAD as slammed into you repeatedly with a baseball bat, by killing off one or two named characters per episode, and making you absolutely feel like hope was completely dashed. IMO, the ending was a relief and a joy, though I can absolutely imagine many people feeling sort of cheated, because

[SPOILERS] after all of that pain, death, and sadness, it sort of just...wraps up with a neat little bow.And dammit, I feel like I EARNED that happy ending, as stupid and unrealistic it might have been. I feel like it was worth watching just for a few of those shots in the last episode. [END SPOILERS]

Unrealistic, to be sure, and definitely emotionally exhausting, this isn’t one that I would actively recommend, but perhaps it’s easier to swallow when you’re not waiting weeks between episodes. Honestly I would rather have had these characters in a totally different series.

overall: 5/10

The Promised Neverland

Emma, Ray, and Norman, three incredibly smart eleven-year-olds, live together with the rest of their family at the Gracefield House, an idyllic refuge for orphans where there is always enough to eat, they get to spend all day in play, their ever-caring mama is always there for them, and every orphan is adopted by the age of twelve. But when they learn a horrifying secret about the House, the children must begin a battle of minds to outwit their caretakers and escape into the unknown world beyond the House.

God wow okay so that was a fucking RIDE. I had not read the manga or heard anything about this one until everyone started going apeshit over the upcoming anime, so I had NO SPOILERS. And HOLY S H I T. This was incredible. The animation and music direction are spot on, the designs are so nice and clean and still capture the essence of the manga’s art. And the twists!! holy shit the TWISTS. I don’t want to spoil a damn thing so people can watch this and experience it on their own! I’d be so shook after an episode that i would LITERALLY be shaking! The cast is so endearing and amazing, and I can’t talk about the plot twists enough. Excellent excellent excellent!

Though, unfortunately, there is one thing that does drag this show down quiteee a bit...and that’s the racist caricature of Sister Krone. She is almost lifted straight out of an old racist cartoon about Black people and it’s absolutely discomforting. Definitely do recommend that if that’s something that will discomfort you, that you either skip this show, or at least you have the knowledge that it’s coming.

overall: 9/10

Mysteria Friends

Two princesses, Anne and Grea, become friends at a magic academy, each episode following their daily lives from shopping outings to performing in a school play as the leads. Based on the Granblue Fantasy mobage.

Ohhhh my gosh okay this one was SO CUTE....not really anything happened in any episode, it was very much a magical slice of life show, but GOD IT WAS SO CUTE!! Anne and Grea are very much in lesbians with each other, and while it’s definitely queerbaiting as they never actually do anything with it to confirm their relationship, I didn’t care that much because they were just so adorable. And with each episode only being 15 minutes, it was an easy and relaxing show to watch at the end of watching those last two shows.

overall: 8/10

Mob Psycho 100 II

Following the first season, this time our powerful psychic Mob meets new friends and new enemies, all while learning how to accept and allow himself to feel the emotions he’s kept under wraps for so long.

Just as good as the first!! This is definitely one of the best shows to tackle the concept of pacifism that I’ve ever seen, doing it in a way that’s sensitive without being naive. Once again, Reigen steals the show by being the world’s first reasonable adult in a shonen anime, and the rest of the new cast of characters are also each fun and lovable in their own way, even the villains! Animation is on point to wild effect, and the atmosphere of this show honestly blows me away every time.

overall: 9/10

Ace Attorney s2

Continuing the courtroom shenanigans of Phoenix Wright, Maya Fey, and friends, this seaon focuses on a series of cases, most of which all lead back to the same unfinished case once prosecuted by Mia Fey.

Well that was fun! It was pretty much the same as season one in terms of writing/plot/etc. Fun, comical, a little sad at times, and full of fun characters who can point hard enough to cause wind gusts that knock other people over. Is this a courtroom or is this Dragon Ball Z??

overall: 8/10

#the price of smiles #the promised neverland #mysteria friends #mob psycho 100 ii #homura reviews

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team--mike · 5 years

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Analysis/Prediction for Danganronpa: Deadication

Hey guys! I know I barely post on tumblr at all but I just thought... I have something to talk about... That's incredibly long... And about Danganronpa...

So where else to go than tumblr?

I recently started following a fangan ( @dangandeadication ) called Danganronpa: Deadication. If I had to pick a reason why I liked it so much, it would have to be the character design and art. Their Discord community is pretty great and involved as well. I'm a busy boy so I can't be as active there as I'd like...

You can check out part one of the prologue here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5krOHv_ls4

Anyways - what is this post about?

It's about my predictions for this Killing Game. I'm not one to simply pick randomly who lives and who dies, there's a method to my madness. I have this fancy shmancy way of making predictions for Danganronpa, and it's called the Elevator Prediction! We simply take a look at the picture of the students in the elevator before the first trial, and we cross off people based on their position. Any sane artist wouldn't group all the survivors next to each other, now... Would they?...

Wait... Deadication doesn't have one of these yet...

Oh, well. I'll just use my detective instincts to place these characters based on their talent, personality, and official Danganronpa games.

A few disclaimers before we begin:

There will be spoilers for DR1, SDR2, and DRV3

I'm explaining my thought pattern here along with each character and why I predicted what I did. I apologize if I sound overly critical - that's not my intention. I had fun thinking of these predictions and I'm looking forward to seeing how they pan out!

There's one more thing that I'd like to explain as well, and it will help contextualize some of my choices.

One of my favorite writers, Brandon Sanderson, writes some great books involving magic. I bring this up because a few ultimates here (Lucky Student, Psychic, Illusionist, Alchemist) are explicitly "magical". The extent of their abilities is unknown for the most part. Being a writer, Brandon Sanderson created rules about writing magic stories, and being a writer myself, I really took this one to heart. (reference: https://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/)

"An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic."

What does this mean? Basically - if the magic isn't explained - it feels like magic can solve any problem at any point without warning. There's no mystery to it at all - it just happens. Explaining magic systems is a really great way to actually add to a mystery - it gives the reader rules to follow when the theories start forming in their head. Now go replace the word MAGIC with ULTIMATE... And this creates a framework for working with ultimates in mysteries. It’s so much harder for readers to solve mysteries if it isn’t what can and cannot be done in the universe.

An example of this is Tsumugi's Cospox in DRV3. Her ability was cosplay, and with it, she could basically disguise herself as any character. It was inevitable that a murder would happen with her disguised as someone else, and there was no telling when, or how... Except that they immediately explained the extent of her powers in Chapter 1 after the first killing. This took that possibility off the table - and made all the future cases that much easier by focusing our minds on what was actually relevant instead of some gotcha that wasn't explained.

Again - this is only a guideline - it's not a hard-and-fast rule that everyone has to follow - so my predictions could be off because of this. It's all guesswork anyways, and I'm sure at least half my predictions, if not all of them, will be wrong. But that's the point, isn't it? XD

Without further ado, let's get started!

Yuuma - lucky student Ok... He's lucky so he can't die right? We don't know how lucky he is, but if we base it off the first two games, then yes, he'd basically be unkillable. There are a couple ultimates here that could get around that... But that would be weird because those ultimates are magical and it seems that Danganronpa Luck is too big a barrier... Keep in mind we've had a survivor Lucky Student and a victim Lucky Student, so what's left? Verdict - CH1 blackened

Shu - bounty hunter Here's another babyface that basically screams "Don't fuck with me!". Considering the case of Fuyuhiko I'm not pinning him as someone who has a change of heart, and considering his profession I think he's not going to be a blackened. I think that would be too obvious. So what does that leave us with? A victim. Also I'm offing him in chapter 1 because if he's not killed early then he will be a suspect in every subsequent case. Which might be a good thing, but I wouldn't want to deal with that :P But who could possibly kill someone trained to kill... Hmmm... Verdict - CH1 victim, failed attempt to kill Yuuma

Toru - filmmaker Everyone's always comparing him to the Actor and saying that there's some important story element here since their ultimates are so similar. I can't help but think the same. I don't think this dude is the Mastermind, since that would be too obvious in my eyes, however I feel he's involved in some way. If Deadication pulls the same thing that DRV3 did with Rantaro, then they can have some backstory for this guy while also having him dead, all while throwing the suspicion off him as being involved in this game due to him dying early. Verdict - CH2 Victim

Otoha - basketball Literally Akane and Tenko. One of them died and the other survived. Maybe she's a blackened? I don't have much else to say here honestly. I guess she's cute. Verdict - CH2 blackened

Kyusho - detective Alright this is such a clear reference to Kyoko that there might be something actually relevant here - maybe this is an AU where Aoi and Kyoko mashed their names together and adopted him? Maybe the real Danganronpa is going to be mentioned in this game? I doubt both these points but they're good to bring up. So we haven't seen an evil detective yet from the other games so I'm getting that vibe from him. Especially one that doesn't explicitly commit murder... Verdict - CH2 accomplice, CH3 victim

Ayuna - psychic Ok so Psychic means either two things (1) she's a complete airhead OR (2) she's a complete airhead but also Hagakure. Considering my stance on magic powers as explained earlier, I think her powers are going to be meaningless. Maybe she sees a vision that ends up getting her killed? Verdict - CH3 Victim

Sakumi - alchemist Alchemy means either two things (1) she's another complete airhead OR (2) there will be some poison case in this game. I'm honestly feeling the latter. Alchemy is another vague ultimate that has to be explained - and I can only see this being relevant to poisoning. There hasn't been a poison double murder yet and I'm assuming that Deadication will be keeping the same format of double murder since it's classic. But I could be 100% wrong since I'm a sucker for strict guidelines. PS: She's also cute. Verdict - CH3 blackened

Reika - ??? Hmmm I wonder what it could beeee... With this illusionist/alchemist/psychic/occultist quadrafecta I'm thinking she's along a similar vibe, maybe witch or something. We haven't had a ??? blackened yet... thinking-face-intensifies... I'm thinking their ability will be revealed as the cornerstone to this case. Verdict - CH4 blackened

Minoru - barista Ace Attorney - Godot's theme plays in the background Wait what slot didn't I assign... Oh yeah that's right Verdict - CH4 victim

Iori - gardener I have no idea. He has a Kokichi Ouma face sprite but he's also very knowledgeable about plants. He's probably gonna be a Gonta type - a Hope Boy. Verdict - Survivor

Megumi - attorney Franziska Von Karma was best girl in Ace Attorney, and now Megumi is giving me that same vibe. Now here's someone who can talk her way in a trial... As I'm pinning Kyusho as chaotic, maybe Megumi will be the voice of reason throughout the game... Although I really am suspicious of everyone. There's always a survivor with a head on their shoulders (Kirigiri, Shuichi, Hajime) Verdict - Survivor

Haru - occultist I totally feel that Haru is going to play a big part in this, and have some sort of change-of-heart that makes them a better overall person. They're also cute as well so I can't just kill them off. If at any point in the story Naohiko dies, I fully expect Haru to take his place. They're the most main-character-like out of everyone else. They'd probably take the Byakuya or Fuyuhiko slot in the survivor list. Verdict - Survivor

Keiji - surgeon Come on now you wouldn't make such a large meme NOT a survivor... I feel he's going to be very much like the survivors Kazuichi or Hagakure or Himiko - thinks he's tough shit but he really can't do a darn thing. Verdict - Survivor

Luna - arctic explorer Um I don't have much to say about her except I like her and she's super cute and I want her to survive. She's the waifu survivor like Aoi and Sonia and Maki. She's also smart as well so her surviving would actually make sense. Verdict - Survivor

Ok guys! That's it! We're done with all the predictions for Dead-

WAIT! WHAT IS IT? I'M FORGETTING ABOUT TWO CHARACTERS?

Oh yeah you're right. Whoops.

Hitomi - illusionist Ah yes, the detective's sidekick, just like Kaito and Chiaki and Sayaka. She's overly optimistic, which makes me think she's evil, but there are two reasons why I don't think she is (1) I can't possibly envision any angry or distressed Hitomi sprites AND (2) With an ultimate like Illusionist, it would be too obvious that she's a killer. Based on the principles of magic as I explained earlier, her illusion abilities should come with some set of rules. And these rules weren't explained to us in the prologue - so I'm sort of throwing her ultimate to the curb for now and ignoring its effect on the story. Which is probably wrong, but ah, what the heck. I have a bigger prediction for Hitomi based on her relationship with Naohiko as opposed to her ultimate. Verdict - CH5 victim.

Naohiko - actor The man of the hour himself, the green haired protagonist. Before we begin - let's go over what happens to the protagonists in the first three games: Makoto - survives. Hajime - survives but his past self is the mastermind Kaede - is a blackened and dies in chapter 1 Considering Kaede's case - I'm doubting that there is a protagonist switch at all in this game. I'm pretty sure that they switched during Chapter 1 because of the Hope Fragments and the character development and attachment. As much as I loved Kaede, there wasn't a real reason to have her die in a later chapter. It just wasn't a good game design choice. Now Deadication isn't a game so this might be different but I'm tossing this aside for now. There's also the possibility of Naohiko dying, but I don't think he'd be the one to die in chapter 1. The main character actually has a relevant ultimate this time - actor. One that can be used as a blackened... and a mastermind... dun dun DUN... Technically this is different from SDR2 since Izuru is his own original character and not Hajime Hinata. What I'm going to propose is slightly similar to Hajime's case but it's different in the fact that Izuru had absolutely no effect on the Killing Game other than starting it. One more thing before I explain what I think will happen to Naohiko - let's take a look at the other masterminds' goals: Junko - Inflict Despair on everyone watching Izuru - Preserve Junko and the Remnants of Despair Tsumugi - Entertain everyone watching Now there's one thing that I think is clearly missing here... And that's a personal motive, one that isn't based on world domination or entertainment. Especially because this is a fangan that doesn't explicitly have to be tied to the main series - and it's getting increasingly difficult to do so anyways. So let's recap - A personal motive that isn't based on the Hope-Despair conflict, yet also requires Despair to work properly. This one really wracked my brain but here's my theory: Naohiko is a schizophrenic just like Toko is. However, he does not know that he has this other, "evil" side to him. There are a few reasons for this: (1) If he noticed it, he would clearly get it treated. Which spelled doom for this evil persona. (2) He's the ultimate actor. Actors retake scenes often enough and they have so many fans that it's typical if he forgets something. This evil side - let's call it Hikonao because I'm boring - has been waiting for its chance to overtake the real Naohiko - and this killing game is just that. Bring Naohiko to Despair, and then his real side and his evil side will be one and the same. So Hikonao sends a letter to Toru stating something about working with Naohiko - only if he brings 14 other ultimates to this secluded area. The letter is signed H - which implicitly brings suspicion on other characters like Haru and Hitomi. Hikonao can be doing things at nighttime or during the day that Naohiko wouldn't remember - and that could clue the reader in to what is happening... (and it also could get us to suspect Hitomi's illusions instead...) Hikonao's plan is to bring the largest possible Despair onto Naohiko - and that would climax in killing his own beloved, Hitomi. In the chapter 5 trial, Naohiko realizes that he is the one that killed Hitomi - and we have to explicitly argue that he didn't kill her, knowing this - something that hasn't been done before in a game, even with Kaede. And then, just like in game 1, Naohiko isn't actually executed due to some ambiguous reason. And then they find the letter from H, find some more stuff, and the mastermind trial. This also brings up an important point - just like the Gonta case in DRV3. If someone else's consciousness kills someone, are you guilty? I have a feeling that Naohiko will end up expelling Hikonao and everything will end happily ever after... Verdict - CH5 blackened and mastermind. Oh and he's also a survivor too

Now I know that you guys think this is a crazy crackpot theory but it's based on writing principles! Even if I'm entirely wrong, I have become a better mystery writer because of it! The more you think about these things, the more you dive deep into how these games are put together and the best way to order and position the story and killings so that things make sense together.

To those of you who have read the entire thing, thank you so so much! I appreciate it, especially since I rambled at times. I'm really looking forward to this project and I know everyone will do a great job with Deadication!

That's it for now. Team Mike, signing off!

#danganronpa #fangan #fanganronpa #deadication #naohiko #hitomi #theory #prediction #dr1 spoilers #sdr2 spoilers #drv3 spoilers

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