Ace Attorney Anime

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TheDoctor
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by TheDoctor »

Regarding Payne's personality or lack thereof, for some reason, I found myself thinking that he actually seemed relatively competent in the anime, unlike the games where he's kind of a butt monkey. Granted, he didn't come across as 100% competent, just that it seemed more believable that he could actually be considered The Rookie Killer. Better than the average rookie, but not so good as to face off against someone like Edgeworth, were Edgeworth a defense attorney.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by lazyplague »

He didn't even do the hand thing guys.

Edit:
Spoiler : Character Complaints :
To clarify, I probably take the lack of effort on Payne more seriously than most do, but to me being lazy with Payne is a bit inexcusable. He's a static character with a set personality, it's not like he has any sort of character arc. Just making his body language more smug, along with his dialogue would have gone a long way for me. Hell, more dialogue for Payne might have been the solution, I can barely remember anything he said in the anime. I can definitely get an image from him in game cases he's in. Also Payne has a toupee and that's a sin.

As for Larry, I actually really dislike the direction they went with him here. Larry's bout of over-dramatic screaming "I wanna die!!" at the beginning of 1-1 showed off his character way better than "I didn't do it!!" imo. This is especially highlighted to me because that's how Young!Phoenix acts in 3-1, I'd prefer for the two to have some separation. It just overall seems like a pointless change in the long run.

Mia I'm eh about, but BP's right in that they didn't do that well with her.

Phoenix- He could use some more of his internal thoughts. You really can't have properly Phoenix without the thought process.

And Sahwit is just kinda disappointing in general because they literally took his gag out. Like that was the one kinda fun thing about his character and it was taken out.

That judge pose tho.
Overall I've seen the excuse of "It's 1-1" thrown around, but... I really don't see that as a good excuse, especially if they took liberties. If there's issues with the original case, then you build upon those issues to make a better case.

In general I'm waiting for 1-2 before making my actual opinion. It's just nowhere near optimistic as of right now.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by TheDoctor »

I think Payne's hair was more of a comb over, actually.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by gotMLK7 »

I've recently found a hobby in ranking the openings of an anime season as they come out to decide which are the strongest and which are the weakest as the new shows come out. I try to leave most of my bias behind, but people called me out on how high I placed the Ace Attorney opening "Gyakuten Winner" by Johnny's West, which is currently sitting around Space Patrol Luluco and Joker Game as my favorite of the season. The OP has had generally mixed reception, with some people loving how cheesy and totally "anime" it is and others thinking it's too cliche and doesn't particularly fit Ace Attorney. I can't deny that I'm biased towards the series, but I also do have very good reasons for liking the OP specifically as much as I do, and that's a matter of good direction. The details aren't hard to see when you look through the OP and think about it for a few moments, but it's fairly subtle if you're watching it casually and is actually pretty darn clever for an OP as hokey as this. So let's break down the shots of the OP as I put on my "Mother's Basement" hat and try to explain what's so good about the opening to the Ace Attorney anime.
Spoiler : Analysis on the Ace Attorney anime OP :
Ace Attorney OP

We open the sun rising over the city, a pretty simple visual metaphor for beginnings as Phoenix's career begins. Interestingly, the city is a symbol tied to Phoenix in this OP, constantly being framed behind him, but I couldn't entirely explain why right now without making vague assumptions, so I'll leave you with that. We get establishing shots of the defendant's seat, the desks for the attorneys and evidence, and the judge's gavel as the shadows move through the courthouse, implying their importance in the trials, before a shot of the courtroom as a whole before we zoom in on the symbol of the court as the sun hits in and the title card emerges. These are mostly just establishing shots for where we'll spend much of the show, but they're effective at what they do.

The titlecard fades to black before the scene is torn from the spikes of Phoenix's hair, which is both a hilarious transition and a good means to emphasizing the iconic hairstyle, as we see Phoenix giving a determined smile. We cut to a quick establishing shot of the city, which again serves as a sort of symbol with Phoenix, before seeing him running past it. The running protagonist trope is common, especially with the hero running right to left (with antagonists often moving the opposite direction), and serves as a general symbol of determination and moving forward. Phoenix stumbles as he tries to avoid stepping on a chalk drawing, though, losing his balance and briefly his determination, showing he's still a bumbling rookie. The chalk drawing holds some fun easter eggs as we see him stumble through it, including doodles of Mr. Hat, Clonco, the Steel Samurai, and Trucy Wright, referencing some major characters from the series in a cute way in a "blink and you'll miss it" shot. Phoenix gets through the drawing and looks back at it, likely glad to have not damaged the pictures, and his badge gives a quick glimmer in the light to draw attention to his profession before he turns back to continue moving forward.

We cut now to Maya's Magatama, swiftly emphasizing her spiritual side, and show off her character for the first time as she prays in Kurain. She looks back to the camera as if something is approaching, before dark clouds swirl in towards her and engulf her in darkness. It's pretty clear that Maya is in trouble, and the shot is immediately followed up by a blue Magatama falling to the floor and shattering. The blue Magatama belongs to Mia, and this is a rather clear symbol for her death. The cut is a rather clever one, as the connection from Maya being in trouble directly to her sister's Magatama shattering implies a correlation, since Maya was Mia's sister and was arrested for her murder. We then transition through Phoenix's hair again as he looks into a now gloomy, dark, rainy sky, in stark contrast to the sunny day he previously ran through. He seems to have stopped running for the time being after Mia's death, but as he takes a moment to regain his composure, he turns back forwards and runs with renewed determination. This whole sequence is my favorite in the OP, as it rather subtly established Turnabout Sisters in its entirety. Maya is in trouble due to Mia's death, and it puts Phoenix at a loss briefly before he keeps on going forward. Worth noting is that previews suggest Phoenix is drenched in rain with loose hair upon speaking to Maya in the detention center, bringing a direct parallel to the events of the anime.

We now cut to Edgeworth's footprint hitting the sand on a barren beach, potentially being a reference to Gourd Lake but also potentially being just a dramatic and empty backdrop for Miles that contrasts the more friendly and urban city associated with Phoenix. Edgeworth's foot is moving from left to right, aka the opposite from Phoenix, before being framed as moving away from the camera, and I don't think I need to explain what Edgeworth going away means. We get our first look at Edgeworth's face, however, when he turns back to see Phoenix Wright, stealing his attention. Phoenix's heavy breathing clues us in that he probably just stopped running and has now both literally and figuratively caught up with his rival. Fitting, since Turnabout Sisters, represented by the previous shots, is where Phoenix finally encounters Edgeworth in court for the first time. They give each other a glare as a bright, golden chain of justice ties them together. Yes this is pretty cheesy and yes it's more than a little shippy but it makes a pretty decent if blatant metaphor for how the two are tied to one another with the law. The scales of justice rise up from the ocean and lifts them each in one scale, and we gets the two shouting and tugging at the chain as the camera sweeps around in the heat of their battle. The scales themselves go back and forth between their weights, showing how the court goes back and forth between the two as their argument gets more and more heated and they constantly tug at one another before the scales finally equal out, showing they've found the balance and the answer.

Their color-coded auras quickly clash before cutting to the shining attorney's badge, a symbol of justice, as their debate comes to an end, implying Phoenix has won. The size of the badge in the frame and the gold glimmer make it reminiscent of the sun. Fitting, since the next two shots are of sunflower fields sprouting from the ground. The sunflower obsession in the OP and ED have raised eyebrows, and I can't claim to know the full extent of what sunflowers are symbolic for. However, the attorney's badge (which is a REAL THING in Japan, ftr) is actually designed after a sunflower as a symbol of justice, so the correlation is fairly simple. The fields pop up both over the beach that represents Edgeworth and the city that represents Phoenix, likely implying both have reached the point of true justice. We're now back to Phoenix running to the left, now in front of a field of sunflowers by the city, and in a moment, his friends, notably Maya, Larry, and Gumshoe, come running to catch up, and we get a shot of all four running with Phoenix as we find he's not alone in this adventure (and yes the framerate does make this a bit derpy, mostly because Maya's run is just super frantic, but that's a production thing and not a direction thing). Phoenix finally stops, however, as Mia Fey walks past the group in the opposite direction, implying that she's no longer with them and her journey's over. The next shots are mostly in expression, as Phoenix turns his mentor in shock, and she returns a reassuring smile to him. Phoenix smiles back and gives a nod before the shot pulls out and transitions to him aruging and pointing in court. Miles Edgeworth does the same from his own bench, and the two's auras clash as their battle overtakes the court and the OP finally ends with Phoenix appearing over the image of the city once more to give his iconic point to the camera.

That's a lot of words for something that really isn't all that complicated, and the OP isn't really high art or at the crazy detailed level of a typical JoJo OP or anything. These symbols aren't too complex or anything and they don't take too long to figure out, and this kind of stuff, while it sounds like I may be making half of it up, has been prevalent in anime OPs for years. However, the whole thing flows together incredibly well and essentially shows off Phoenix's journey from being a bumbling rookie to being an independent and confident lawyer with friends by his side. It basically sums up Turnabout Sisters - Maya's in trouble cuz Mia dies and Phoenix is sad but he goes to fight Edgeworth anyway - in a really clever way and has some neat details like the chalk drawings and some simple but effective symbols like the Magatama and the sunflower fields to get across a certain idea. It's easy to write off as "it's just running anime characters and weird chain stuff with not great animation and a boy band song" but give credit where credit is due, because the directing really is pretty neat. Maybe not revolutionary, but pretty neat. Better than a million still shots of characters standing by their names or mindless action shots so fast and generic you barely even process them at least. If you're in the OP just for the song or whatever, that's fine, but I think it's nice that OPs like this can put at least a little attention to the details.

If you liked this I might try to do it again (maybe tackle that ED since I seem to be alone in adoring that thing, or some other anime this season like why I like Kuma Miko's OP or why I hate Asterisk War 2's OP), though really you should try out Geoff Thew's channel "Mother's Basement" for his video series "What's in an OP?" where he goes into even DEEPER analysis on how OPs work, including JoJo, Spice and Wolf, Your Lie in April, Nichijou, School-Live, and much more. I basically stole his thing here and he's way better at it than I am, with more directorial and symbolic knowledge under his belt and a keener eye for details. He's great and deserves attention so check him out.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by lazyplague »

TheDoctor wrote:I think Payne's hair was more of a comb over, actually.
Still a sin.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by gotMLK7 »

Episode 2, Turnabout Sisters - 1st Trial is out and I watched it and I liked it! BTW worth noting "Trial" is used in episode titles to denote parts of a case; this episode is the first investigation alone, with the exception of the trial starting at the very end, and the next episode is called "2nd Trial" even though it's the first trial. Yeah. ANYWAY, THOUGHTS! And since things start to deviate from the process starting now, this may be worth treating as actual spoilers.
Spoiler : Turnabout Sisters - 1st Trial :
I reeeeeeally liked this episode. It's still clear they're having to cram a lot of stuff into a short space of time and that's gonna be unavoidable, so a lot of the actual investigation and events from the game are kinda sped through. However, they're opening up for deviations from the games now.

How Phoenix comes across evidence and such is notably different, the biggest example being that of the stuff in April May's room, which comes VERY NEAR to a "walking in on attractive woman out of the shower" scene but avoids it very amusingly. We don't see April May aside from her leg trying to call in Phoenix, who she thinks is the bellboy, into the shower. It isn't her in-game introduction but it sets up her characterization pretty well. The wiretap and such is a bit of an afterthought and is put in pretty dang quickly, but it gets the job done fine enough. Grossberg isn't really in this a ton, which...isn't too shocking, really. Him not spouting about fresh lemons this episode is disappointing, I suppose. But I mean...it's Grossberg, I'm not incredibly torn up over a lack of focus on Grossberg. They're a lot more ominous with Redd White and keep him in shadows most of the episode, save a shot of his billboard. He's being built up way better than I feel he was in the game, so props there. Also his teeth glimmer whenever he smiles. Bellboy appeared for like five seconds but was recognizably the bellboy and attention was brought to him via April so that's all fine. Charlie the Plant actually legit got a mention in the episode and apparently he's Charlie even in Japanese (I beat the alt track with English names). And in an interesting cameo we have Manfred von Karma appearing in a montage about Miles WAY before his in-game appearance which is fun! He looks assholier than ever so that's exciting. And Mia's dead.

But big thing in this episode is Miles, Gumshoe, and Maya first appearing. Gumshoe is barely in it but he's barely in the first part of Sisters. He arrests Maya super quickly like in the games, he says pal a lot, and his conversation with Phoenix felt very characteristic of him and was pretty amusing. Miles isn't too heavily featured but he's being well built-up, showing him winning against a rando attorney to establish him and having him act very pretentiously Edgeworth. His seiyuu has an interesting tone to his voice, deeper and more pretentious than anticipated but not unfitting. Excited to see him in full action. Also he skidded his car up to the courthouse like a badass.

And then there's Maya. She's already basically my favorite part of the show, I'd say. The anime is focusing more on the emotional aspect of Mia being killed and the impact on Maya and Phoenix that has, with scenes of Phoenix just looking like crap and with Maya being a lot more consistently saddened by the whole endeavor, a problem I had with the game. Some stuff is glossed over, her spirit medium powers in particular, but I liked the decision to introduce her this way. Though we saw hints of her more amusing side in the phone call with Mia and once she accepts Phoenix as her lawyer (which is probably my favorite scene from the episode) so I don't doubt she'll be her funny self eventually. But this side of Maya is one I like to see. And this side of Phoenix, too! We get him characterized more this episode. We see his derpy side, his "done with this crap" side, and his more rare emotional side (again, glad to have him more affected by Mia's passing than in the games, since he seemed rather quick to investigate in that). He feels very much like Phoenix Wright and oh my god he carries that backpack everywhere.

Animation still isn't much to look at and probably will be consistently this quality, sadly, but it's not that hard to get used to past occasional noticeably derpy ones (Phoenix's pose at the end of the episode isn't great). Issues we'll just have to sort of accept are low quality art and cramming of story elements just because of the nature of the industry. Wish they weren't there, but I'll live with them.

Little things I liked include Miles' office being lifted straight from its appearance from Ashes and afterward, complete with the King of Prosecutors trophy and Steel Samurai action figure, Miles staring at the picture of Mia implying he probably remembers her from their case (or just to imply he's prosecuting her case but it could be either really), aforementioned Manfred cameo, flashback to tiny Phoenix and him connecting Maya's situation to his own (also I kinda want that little girl to be an important character not gonna lie), and I really loved Phoenix and Maya's jinx moment and them bowing into the plexiglass because that felt pretty perfect.

So this episode as a whole felt like a really interesting alternate take on the beginning of Turnabout Sisters and I liked a lot of what they did. Some things will be awkward to make things work, but the series wants to be true to the games and still provide something somewhat new, and I really appreciate that. I'm not quite as giddy over this episode right now as I was the first because I spent all of the first being shocked it existed but I think I liked this one as a whole better. I feel at this point I know what'll happen but I won't know how it'll happen, and I'm really liking it. The anime wants to focus on things the game didn't while still telling its story, which I dig, and in general I'm just really happy with how it's coming along. Still nowhere near perfect and the episode probably won't change too many minds, but I'm personally loving it a ton still.

also why do I get the feeling both phoenix-maya and phoenix-miles shippers will have a ton of fodder in this series
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by Gombarry »

Spoiler : 1st Trial :
I'm tired so I'm just going to say my dislikes and likes about this ep and be done with it.

Likes:
- I liked the portrayal of Redd White so far. He's exactly as he should be.
- Focus on the Maya/Phoenix relationship. Although this could turn into a dislike later on if they overfocus this instead of story.

Dislikes:
- Animation quality is shoddy and will remain that way
- They favor Flashbacks and unnecessary add-in scenes instead of the story, causing us to barely acknowledge that the investigation even happened.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by Gizmological »

Is it me, or has Gumshoe lost a bit of weight?
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by Bad Player »

gotMLK7 wrote:
Spoiler : Turnabout Sisters - 1st Trial :
also why do I get the feeling both phoenix-maya and phoenix-miles shippers will have a ton of fodder in this series
they will, but flashback-girl is gonna swoop in during the anime-original arc and ruin everything
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by lazyplague »

I kinda had a feeling I wouldn't like it, but hoo boy I basically just lost all hope. I'm just gonna buy and replay the trilogy. You win this time, capcom you capitalist monsters.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by Sleuth »

phoenix x flashback girl otp




actually this really reminds me of a PW doujin or something I read a while back with a similar premise. Young Edgeworth gets an umbrella from some kid he doesn't recognize and it turns out to be phoenix with wet hair.

i can't wait for that scene to happen.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by lazyplague »

THE GIRL TEARS OFF HER DRESS TO REVEAL EDGEWORTH.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by energizerspark »

Bad Player wrote:
gotMLK7 wrote:
Spoiler : Turnabout Sisters - 1st Trial :
also why do I get the feeling both phoenix-maya and phoenix-miles shippers will have a ton of fodder in this series
they will, but flashback-girl is gonna swoop in during the anime-original arc and ruin everything
plot twist: flashback girl is the psychic prosecutor lady from AA6
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by gotMLK7 »

Interesting detail, the little umbrella girl is ACTUALLY in the game. In the flashback image of the classroom trial, you can see the same girl at the front of the class (her dress has a different color scheme but it's very much the same girl). Most of the class in the screenshot is actually in the anime. Interesting little detail, that one.
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Re: Ace Attorney Anime

Post by energizerspark »

The attention to detail is one of my favourite things about the show
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