Kanamemo - Pleasant Enough

As the short post-exam period of rest was about to end, I decided to do something unprecedented: hit random on Crunchyroll until I got a 13 episode show, and marathoned it. This show was Kanamemo, and, as expected from randomly picking a show from the largest library of anime I'm legally allowed to watch, it was a fairly mediocre one.

Kanamemo is a slice of life following Kana, a girl whose grandmother recently passed away, leaving her without a guardian. She finds herself working for the Fuhshin Gazette, a small local newspaper, as a delivery girl in exchange for room and board, along with a surprisingly large number of colorful characters.

The Fuhshin Gazette and its surrroundings' denizens are both the show's greatest weakness and strength. On the one hand, some of these characters are really good, and the large number of them means there's a lot of variety in their interactions. On the other hand, there's entirely too many: five workers at the gazette, not counting Kana, as well as a worker for a rival gazette, and four minor recurring characters. This means that some of the good characters, like the supremely likeable Hinata, end up struggling to have the screentime they deserve.

There's two exceptional mentions on both ends of the spectrum. The only downright bad character in this show is Haruka, the resident comedy lesbian lolicon. We all know how this character is: they've got the one joke, namely that they think the young girls around them are cute, and try to touch them, which makes them feel uncomfortable and hahahaha isn't that funny except it almost never actually is. Not only is Haruka a very unoriginal take on this concept, she's one of the characters to get the most screentime, constantly doing the same goddamn joke over and over again. She also happens to be, counter to tradition, a lot older than the (underage!) girls she pervs out on, so it's actually incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Some of the shit this woman says is genuinely messed up, and it really doesn't work as comic relief. The fact that she's a woman doesn't make it any less messed up. I would dare say that Haruka is the single biggest blot on Kanamemo's quality.

On the other hand, you have Yume and Yuuki. Yume's your typical energetic and cheerful "genki girl" character who runs loops around everyone else, and is individually the most likeable character in the show. Yuuki is also a very standard character: the quiet girl who's kind and gentle. The big thing that makes these two unique is that they're in a established, happy relationship from the first to the last episode of the show. If having two anime characters be in a  pre-established, continued, relationship instead of dragging the start (or end) of the relationship out for ages, be it for comedy or drama, isn't impressive enough, the fact that this is a show with a happy gay couple in it that's not made a big deal is impressive enough. There's unfortunately still not enough of this stuff out there, and I feel like I need to commend Kanamemo for getting it so right.

The fact that these two are incredibly cute together, to the point where I let out a massive "awwww" at almost every romantic interaction they had, is also something I want to commend. Yume and Yuuki are definitely the best thing in Kanamemo by far. Unfortunately, we don't get to see the two interact all that much, focusing on Kana, Saki and shivers Haruka a lot more. It's a shame, as Kanamemo gets better the more it allows those two to interact on screen.

As for the rest of the characters, they range from bland to good. Kana is a typical protagonist for a 13 year old girl. Her unique trait is that her overactive imagination often leads to her overreacting to things. Whilst amusing (and, personally for me, very relatable), it's not really enough to separate her from the pack. The outwardly strict but secretly kind and sensitive chief Saki is likeable, but I'd argue she has too much screentime for what's a character without much substance. I'm also not sure that making her inexplicably an elementary schooler makes any sense or adds anything whatsoever. As mentioned previously Hinata, the tomboyish girl who keeps failing to get into college, is also likeable, but suffers from the problem of barely getting any screentime, being by far the least developed out of all the main characters.

The final character is Mika, the delivery girl for a rival newspaper and Kana's classmate and eventual friend. She's pretty much a straight up tsundere who seems to be here to provide Kana with someone her own age to interact with from time to time. There's signs that she was meant to be a much bigger part of the show, but is kind of underutilized. Despite having a prominent name card in the OP, she plays a very small part in most episodes, only really acting as a main character in one or two episodes.

There's very little else to say about Kanamemo. There's an outstandingly good couple, an outstandingly awful and annoying comic relief character, and a bunch of characters in the middle. Pretty much everything else is standard slice of life comedy fare, though with a somewhat wackier sense of humor than the average show in the genre. If the reader knows slice of life comedies, they know what they're in for, and otherwise I don't think I can really explain it properly. This is one of the least interesting shows I've ever seen, in the sense that there's very little unique about it. Yume and Yuuki push it just out of perfectly average territory, but not by much. Kanamemo is nice enough to watch, and was a good way to kill a day. I can't muster the enthusiasm to recommend it, but it's definitely not bad. I'm sure you can find a better slice of life comedy if that's what you're looking for, but this isn't a bad one.

6/10
Kanamemo is only pushed out of mediocrity by virtue of having one of the most adorable couples ever on screen.

Cowboy Bebop - See You Space Cowboy

This'll be a short review, not because there's little to say, but because everything there is to say is extraordinarily similar.

Cowboy Bebop is absolutely extraordinary. It's stylish enough to cruise by on that alone, a surprisingly elegant mix of film noir, western and science fiction that is the closest thing to visual music one can experience. Every single scene drips with atmosphere and with feeling. It's got a broad range, too, naming its episodes appropriately, going everywhere from the head-bumping energy and power of Heavy Metal Queen to the frantic energy of Mushroom Samba and its downbeat, moody and utterly brilliant finale The Real Folk Blues. The animation is consistently gorgeous and elegant. As cliche as it may sound, every frame could be hung up on a wall and admired, but seeing Cowboy Bebop in motion is something else. On its style alone, Cowboy Bebop manages to more than earn its name as the classic it's considered today.

Yet infuriatingly, effortlessly, almost as though showing off, that's not where Cowboy Bebop stops. It's got some of the most brilliant writing I have ever seen: subtle and nuanced, to the point where you won't realize it's there until the build-up that has been accumulating through the entire series finally pays off. Every character, whilst firmly set within the broad archetype they're in, is unique and, most importantly, three-dimensional. Everyone evolves in this show, so slowly it's practically impossible to notice. A ragtag bunch of weirdos slowly form a team, and become inseparable friends. This is done simply. There's no turning point. There's no big scenes where someone gives a speech about how they're friends and they belong together. They simply slowly become this way through spending time together, and we know they have. It's beautiful, and it's far more naturalistic than basically any other film or television I've ever seen.

It's frankly upsetting how great Cowboy Bebop is. It's practically faultless as a show. Yes, there are a couple episodes that don't work that well, and a few character moments that seem out of place. There's bounds to be worse and better bits. The important thing here is that there's nothing that hurts the entire experience. Even its lowest points are better than anything in entire other shows I've watched. Some of the individual pieces may have some flaws, but as the sum of its parts, I wouldn't hesitate to say Cowboy Bebop is flawless.

10/10

Not only my new favourite anime, but my new favourite TV show of all time.

K-On! Appreciation Piece

I don't typically write reviews that are strongly based on the context in which I watch a show. I also don't like ignoring things about a show, whether it be something I like or dislike, when I'm writing a review. However, K-On! has affected me deeply enough, and I can tell that effect is here to stay, that it'd be an injustice not to write something about it, be it to the show itself or to myself in some time, when I'm reminiscing about it. It's currently 0:40 on 10/01/2017, I just finished watching the extra episodes of the second season of K-On!, and am incredibly worried about and tired out from studying for my end of first semester exams for my third and final year of university.

The above is important for two reasons: I want to remember this moment as clearly as possible in future, and I think it's key to understanding how I currently feel about K-On!. Here's a seemingly strange opinion: Right now is the absolute best time for me to have watched K-On!. I say this because the show is not only the exact right tone for my current state of mind, but I also thing I'm uniquely well equipped to identify with the characters.

Before I move on, let me make this clear: This is not a review. I love this show, and I'm going to explain why it had a particularly strong effect on me. Some of this will involve explaining ways in which it's good. That said, basically everything about K-On! is great. It's brilliantly written, features fantastic characters with fantastic voice performances behind them, is really pleasant to look at and has an absolutely rocking soundtrack. I believe it's a great show even without the personal context that lead me to like it so much more. It works and is incredibly clever on so many more levels than what I'm focusing on here. That said, it did hit me particularly hard for personal reasons, so I don't guarantee it'll hit anyone else as hard (though judging from the Internet, it most certainly seems to do so pretty often). I'm not really going to explain what I'm on about, and there are light to medium spoilers for pretty late on in the show. I do believe these spoilers to be inconsequential to one's enjoyment of it though.

Let me clarify what I said two paragraphs ago when I mentioned that I'm in the exact best state of mind to watch K-On!. I had a pretty awful Christmas holiday, and really needed something to cheer me up throughout. K-On!'s relentless energy and feel-good cheer was right up my alley, and it provided a much-needed respite. It helped me get through one of the darkest times in my life, and for that I'll be forever grateful to it. As I mentioned, I'm also incredibly nervous about exams, and something this relaxing is certainly helpful.

However, more important is where I'm at with my life right now. I'm doing the mid-year exams for my last year of university. This thing is about to be properly over. The training wheels are soon going to come off forever. Considering the pretty big stumble I had when they came off at the end of school, the idea of even the unforgiving protection of university being gone is frankly terrifying.

This means two things: Fear at the future, and reminiscing about the same experience three years ago, when school ended and I made the biggest leap I've made in my life thus far. Of course, this also means a lot of nostalgia for my school life. It might be strange for me to say that I'm advantaged when it comes to identifying with the characters: I'm not Japanese, I'm not school-aged anymore, I'm not particularly into "light music", I never went to an all-girls high school by virtue of, well, not being a girl, and I'm not similar enough in personality to any of the characters for them to really act as a good self-insert for me.

What I am is in an age when school seems particularly magical. I was a fantastic student at school, effortlessly getting brilliant grades. Life was nicer back then, and that's all the easier to understand when the threat of being plunged into the real adult world is growing closer and closer.

K-On! is a show about the experience of high school. What's more, it's a show that understands that this is what it's about, and uses its own form to better achieve its own goal. It starts off insecure and stumbly, eventually gets into a stride and grows confident then spends a lot of time having fun before realizing it's almost done and getting emotional. All of this is meticulously planned and pulled off nearly flawlessly. Every single episode is as much about what's happening in universe as what place the episode occupies within the narrative arc of the show: The first episode leaves us uncertain of whether this is something we like and want to get into, just like Yui's uncertain of whether she wants to stay in the light music club. By the end of the first season, we've grown to really love this show, and the characters in it are also enjoying their school life to the fullest. As we approach the end and the realization that we're running out of K-On! dawns on the audience, so do the characters finally start realizing they're running out of school to be happy in. The show ends on a nostalgic and confident note, inviting us to think of the show warmly and cherish our time with it, whilst boldly moving on to explore new horizons.

All of this, along with the completely spot-on depiction of the dynamics within a group of high-school friends (seriously, no one in my group of friends was that similar to any of the characters, but the interactions that end up happening as well as everyone's individual insecurities were basically just taken out of my real life), means K-On! was like a miniature return to high school for me. It reminded me of some of the aspects of it that I'd forgotten, and was a godsend in a time of reminiscence. If I wasn't already in love with all the characters (platonic love, you creep), the show would've ingratiated itself to me simply by being such a powerful nostalgia piece.

The second half of the second season in particular, which is where the show shined the most (It made me cry three times in the course of four episodes. That's a record), is about leaving behind simpler times, a moment in life where I currently am. I've done this once, which is an advantage the girls in K-On! don't have, and the struggle that came with it has made me forget how exciting what I'm doing is. I'm out here, in a different country, living without my parents and relying on myself to organize my life. I'm studying something that most people will never learn, and even through my struggle (and failure) to live up to my own academic standards I've managed to make knowledge most people will never even imagine exists become second nature to me. I've made incredible new friends and had incredible new experiences. I've grown up.

I'm not a fan of the "pausing my own train of thought in the middle of a paragraph to snidely praise my own writing" technique, but writing those four words just legit made me stop and shiver for like 10 seconds straight. Jeez.

I've grown up, and the girls in K-On! are looking forward to doing the same. This doesn't mean it isn't hard, or sad, or that they actually want to do it. Just as they'd give anything to stay forever in high school, drinking tea in the music room and rocking at concerts, I would've given anything at their age to be able to keep hanging out in "Dave's crib", pretending to study when teachers peeked in and trying to prove to each other that we were the biggest nerd in the room. The same way I'd give anything to remain here in university, barely scrapping by in my studies, spending afternoons watching obscure films and playing Overwatch, making immature jokes in the Fountain Canteen and thinking entirely too much about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

K-On! not only reminded me how great high school was, and how great my friends are, but it also reminded me that growing up, for how hard it is and how we'll all inevitably kick and scream and do our best to prevent it from happening, is also kind of exciting and fun in its own right. It's reminded me how much I loved where I've been, reinvigorated my energy where I am, and has made me excited for where I may be going. It's truly magical, and might be the most powerful experience I've had with a piece of media since Katawa Shoujo changed me in 2014.

I don't like ending on a negative note, but I just have to say this: people taking stuff this powerful to be meaningless because of it's artstyle and attitude is a big part of why I think people are stupid, as well as of why I distrust critics. This is twice now that I'm going to have to not talk about pieces of art that are incredibly important to me because it's about cute anime girls. Or maybe I should stop liking art about cute anime girls.

ReLIFE ReVIEW

It's not often that I think something manages to be both incredibly world-weary and incredibly optimistic. After all, world-weary fiction often shows this by being jaded and tired, too savvy to be sucked in to joy that it knows can't last and too used to being hurt to fully embrace anything it finds valuable. This is not a condemnation of everything cynical or dark as being mopey - these works are often full of energy and things to say, and can be heartfelt and touching in their own right. I'm merely trying to point out that with world-weariness there always comes a jadedness that prevents one from being fully optimistic.

ReLIFE is one of the few pieces of fiction - be it literature, film, game or, in this case, TV - that I feel manages to be both incredibly savvy and grown-up whilst never loosing optimism or joy. It follows Arata, a 27 year old man who's a bit of a failure. After quitting his job after working there for only three months, he's become unemployable - he's seen as a liability, someone who's too unreliable to be brought aboard as anything but part-time help. One night, after drinking with his friends (To whom he still holds up the pretense that he has a job), he meets Yoake, an employee of the ReLIFE corporation, who offers him a deal. If he becomes a test subject for a year in their ReLIFE program, he'll have all living expenses payed for said year, and a possibility of full employment with ReLIFE after the experiment is ended, depending on his performance. The catch is that the ReLIFE project involves him being made to look like he's 16 and sent back to school for a year, only for his schoolmates memories of him to be erased after he leaves.

In most anime this would simply be an excuse for Arata to get into high school shenanigans, with the jokes being "But he's old!". This is definitely the direction ReLIFE takes this, as well, but it also does much more with this. Rather than just being a simple high school slice-of-life comedy with Arata secretly being an adult, it plays with Arata's position. Even though he quickly becomes a regular member of the school community, he also acts as a puppeteer behind the scenes, subtly pushing his schoolmates into not making the mistakes he feels like he made during school and after it. He helps the shy antisocial girl make friends, he encourages the eternal second-place student to continue pushing herself even if she can never quite overcome her rival, and so on.

The stories that come out of this are good in and of themselves. Comedy isn't too overabundant but it's amusing, and the touching moments are appropriately spaced out and effective. All of the characters are likable enough for me to care about, and just different enough from the high-school archetype they're based on to feel unique. ReLIFE's real strength comes in Arata himself, though. There's a sense of mature fondness he feels for the kids. He very obviously sees himself in them, and he's helping them out as much out of desire to help his friends as out of regret that he didn't have someone to push him in that direction. Arata obviously sees himself as a failure, as much as he comically denies it, and he's happy to be in a time before failure was permanent. He doesn't want these kids to fuck up in the same way he did.

Despite how bitter this sounds, the show is surprisingly gentle about it. Rather than wallowing in pity over the fact that these simple days when all you have to worry about is the occasional exam and whether your crush reciprocates your feeling or not are over, ReLIFE fondly remembers them. The whole point of the ReLIFE experiment is for Arata to remember this feeling and to use it to push himself out of his rut. After all, his life after ReLIFE promises to be better, with the possibility of a permanent job at ReLIFE. Despite this, there's a feeling of dread for when the experiment ends: The students will forget Arata, though not his lessons. The friends he makes during this experiment aren't permanent, none of his progress will keep. His return to innocence is meant to promptly disappear.

This is really what makes ReLIFE worth a watch. For people like myself, who did fantastically at school and are struggling to keep up in adult life, ReLIFE is both a nostalgic trip to a time where your future seemed bright and full of promise, and a reminder not to give up. Even if you seem to be doing badly, even if your life seems to be heading to a disappointing place after the high expectations you'd set up for yourself earlier, it's not over yet, and you have to keep trying and keep pushing yourself. If you do, you're bound to end up in a good place. It's an important reminder, and one that I desperately needed after having fallen from being extremely promising in school to below mediocre at university. ReLIFE might not be all that outstanding as a show, but it's one that I needed to watch where I'm at in my life right now.

Thanks, ReLIFE.

Rating: 9/10

Ace Attorney Retrospective: Trials and Tribulations

There's a strange thing I've noticed whilst writing these: It seems like the more I like the game, the less I have to discuss. Justice For All is still my least favorite game in the series, but it's very interesting to talk about. Apollo Justice is also one of the weaker entries in the series, and I've already thought of a lot to say about it. The same goes for the recent Spirit of Justice: It's on the weaker end of the series, but it certainly has a lot to discuss. Once again, spoiler warning for the entire series from this point on.

Trials & Tribulations, on the other hand, is my favorite game in the Ace Attorney series by a considerable margin, and one of my top 10 favorite games ever. This is absolutely brilliant stuff, managing to evoke every feeling from funny to tense to sad in stunningly short periods of time and containing some of my favorite character beats in gaming. The last two cases (which are really one case split in two parts) are absolutely incredible feats of storytelling.

And yet, it's a fairly simple structure. Turnabout Memories, the first case of the game, strikes a powerful emotional chord by letting us play as Mia Fey. At this point it should become evidently clear that this is a game for people who've played the previous two. Turnabout Memories is a case that banks on our attachment to these characters not only for its own narrative, but for its setup of future narrative. Playing as Mia is powerful: She's become such an awe-inspiring figure in the eyes of anyone who's played the previous two games that not only seeing her as a fledgling attorney but also controlling her is incredibly striking.

The use of Turnabout Memories as tutorial is absolute genius. It subtly tells us several very important things. First, that Mia was once as new and bumbling at being an attorney as Phoenix was in The First Turnabout. This will actually become important not just in this game, but in several future installments of the series, but for now it's significant because, in a manner of speaking, this is Nick's coming of age story. Second, it shows us how traumatized Mia is after the events that happened in her first trial. Someone who's got the potential to be so insanely good at this job has regressed so much from her first trial that she's being given the tutorial, and this is all because of some terrible trauma she suffered.

I mentioned previously that this game is a coming of age story of sorts for Phoenix. This is true: This is a story about him becoming an incredibly powerful defense attorney to rival Mia, whilst learning to not rely on her in the process. However, this is also a coming of age story for Maya, where she must become someone worthy of being the Master of Kurain. For both our characters the objective to reach is symbolized by Mia, be it her spiritual power or her ability as an attorney. This'll be a theme that's hammered home later in the game, so having Turnabout Memories happen early on to let us see that it's achievable, that this is something Mia herself had to do and is an important step in humanizing Mia.

Turnabout Memories also lets us see Nick at a point before he became the Nick we know. This allows us to see how far Nick has already come, but it also sets up Dahlia Hawthorne as the villain brilliantly. Here we have a woman who's managed to turn Nick into a character comparable to Larry Butz, a pathetic weakling. We know Nick, we know he's better and smarter than this, and, even if we're not conscious of it, this ingrains the idea that Dahlia is very adept at manipulating people and incredibly dangerous into our mind.

From there, we have The Stolen Turnabout. The main problem in talking about Trials & Tribulations comes in the two cases after Memories. They're not insignificant to the overall plot, but Turnabout Memories, Turnabout Beginnings and Bridge to the Turnabout really make up one story, with The Stolen Turnabout and Recipe for Turnabout being little more than distractions. Still, they're both vital: We need to see Nick just doing lawyer stuff for a bit, and we need time to see both his and Maya's flaws. The Stolen Turnabout is also nice in that it serves in giving the world a bit more variety (This is the first case in the entire series which has a trial for something other than a murder), and as an opportunity to spend some time reminiscing on the times we've spent around the Fey clan. As a side note, we also get to check in with Adrian Andrews from the final case of Justice For All and see that she's fine and leading a much healthier life after Farewell, My Turnabout, which wraps up one of the very few loose threads from that case and makes its point resonate even stronger.

Recipe for Turnabout is, in my opinion, the weakest case in the game, but it also has some important moments. Maya doesn't hesitate to call on Mia when she's needed, and Nick takes this as perfectly natural, highlighting just how much they both still depend on her. We also get some important Gumshoe character beats, seeing how much he cares for Maggey Byrde. We've seen him this way before, but it's always been because some character we know very well was in trouble: Edgeworth in the original and Maya in Justice For All. We barely know Maggey, and this not only gives us the impression Gumshoe is a human being with other interactions, but it also shows just how large his capacity to care is.

After those two good but inconsequential cases are over, we arrive at Turnabout Beginnings, possibly the most emotionally devastating case in the series. We take control over our idol Mia again, the person that both Nick and Maya have been citing as having the virtues they aspire to one day have, and we get absolutely devastated. This case is probably the most moody case in the series. We have that heart-wrenching, music-box like song as the motif and Terry Fawles, one of the absolute most tragic characters in the series, as the defendant. This is a man who's clearly not all there, seeming to have some kind of mental condition. The one thing he's adamant about is his love for Dahlia, going so far as to commit suicide to fulfill the promise he made to her - that they'd both always be able to trust each other. Meanwhile, Dahlia is there, putting on her pretty girl act and manipulating this terribly vulnerable and innocent man into suicide without any sign of hesitation. From the beginning, we know we can't get her: she's still got to turn up in Turnabout Memories, so she can't be put behind bars now. Everything she does is a lie that only we can see through and we can't expose, and she's incredibly malevolent, heartless, and bound to walk away from this unscathed.

This is an incredibly frustrating and personal case. Everything here is engineered with two purposes in mind. First, make you hate Dahlia Hawthorne with all your heart, and understand just how incredibly dangerous she is. Second, make sure you feel weak and impotent. This is incredibly important for Bridge to the Turnabout, it'll sow confusion, apprehension and curiosity in the player when Dahlia's twin Iris shows up. Add to this the fact that Godot is inexplicably just there in this case, and we don't know why, and you have Turnabout Beginnings acting as an incredibly powerful jumping off point to the next case.

Bridge to the Turnabout is my favorite case in the entire Ace Attorney series. It concentrates an entire trilogy's worth of build-up into the most incredible series of events I could imagine. This is a case that's incredibly tense, incredibly funny, incredibly sad, incredibly heartwarming and incredibly satisfying. The first day, when you're playing as Edgeworth, is a really pleasant surprise, and wraps up the commentary on the legal system the first two games were based on, allowing us to see where Edgeworth is at in terms of headspace and showing the incredible trust him and Nick have managed to build. Iris is a fantastic plot contrivance, serving as someone who provides a whole lot of emotional conflict just from being there. You can't trust her, she looks just like Dahlia and Dahlia is clever and manipulative enough to pull this off, yet she's such a warm, pleasant person and seems so genuine you can't help but trust her. Because of how fresh Beginnings is in your mind, it puts you right into Nick's shoes, and in an incredibly confusing position. When you do finally trust her, Dahlia secretly takes her place and backstabs you in an incredibly painful manner.

The end of the game has you facing off against Maya, who's giving incredibly solid testimony to protect Godot. She's proving her enormous strength, courage and conviction here, and she's doing it without any help: She doesn't need Mia for this anymore, she's grown out of it. You're forced to face off against it, and you overcome that as well, also without Mia's help. Both Nick and Maya have grown, and overcome some of their biggest flaws. Nick's lawyer abilities are now equal to Mia's, which is what Godot comes to realize when he sees Mia's spirit standing by Nick. Nick is finally a worthy successor to Mia.

Godot, however, serves as an example of how not to achieve this state. Throughout the game, he holds a grudge against Nick for daring to try and usurp Mia's place. Godot blames Nick for what's happened to him, and refuses to move on. He starts prosecuting cases just to fight against Nick, with no regard for the truth or the legal system. Godot is acting as selfishly as Edgeworth and Franziska when they were the main prosecutor, despite demonstrating he knew better in Turnabout Beginnings. This looses us the lessons of the first game. He also acts outside the law to achieve his goals, refusing to tell the police about the events he knows will transpire, loosing us the lessons of the second game. Finally, he refuses to chase Mia, our paragon of virtue, meaning he doesn't move forward as we have been doing in Trials & Tribulations. For all his swagger, confidence and charm, Godot represents the ultimate failure to take the lessons of the past to heart, and his realization of this is his first step forward.

So Trials & Tribulations really is just a coming of age story. Maya has finally grown up, and Nick has finally become the Ace Attorney the titles have always claimed he was. It's a simple step to take at the conclusion to the trilogy, but an incredibly satisfying one, and one that's told supremely well.

I apologize if this piece is scattershot and badly organized: Trials & Tribulations proved a tough nut to crack. Still, this game is fantastic, and it sets up Nick's legend nicely for Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. I'll take a bit of a break here, since I didn't actually re-play Apollo Justice in preparation for Spirit of Justice (though it turns out I really should have, those two games are pretty closely connected), and I need to re-play it before writing my thing on it. I've only played it once, and I remember it being a weaker entry in the series, but far from as bad as many people make it out to be (as I've said, better than Justice For All!), so it'll be interesting to see what I think about it this time.

Ace Attorney Retrospective: Justice For All

Let's get cracking on with the second game in the Ace Attorney series - the dark middle chapter of the trilogy that is Justice For All. Spoilers for every aspect of the game, and possibly other games in the series, will be given freely from this point on. Proceed at your own risk.

I'll be honest here. I don't much like Justice For All as far as Ace Attorney goes. It's got by far the worst individual cases of the game - the first three cases are all pretty weak, and the third case Turnabout Big Top in particular is infamous in the fandom and often considered the weakest case in the entire series. It also features some of my least favorite puzzles in the entire series, and a collection of characters that vary between irritating and forgettable. Its final case Farewell, My Turnabout is often considered one of the best cases in the trilogy - if not the best - but I tend to disagree. Whilst it's very strong, it's my least favorite last case in the trilogy (Not counting Rise from the Ashes as a last case): I simply don't think it's as compelling as the look you get into Edgeworth's mind in Turnabout Goodbyes or the magnificent character piece that is Bridge to the Turnabout.

All that said, Justice For All is still an amazing game. Being the weakest Ace Attorney game is akin to being the least hot star or the least gratuitously violent Tarantino film - it's really not saying much. Justice For All is also one of the most important games in the series. I keep coming back to this idea of it being the dark middle chapter of the trilogy, but in a way it also serves as the end of a two-part story with the original. Justice For All is the last time that the games really feel like they're actually about the Japanese legal system to me - even considering all the talk of disbarment and "the dark age of the law" that future games will indulge in. However, it also begins a transition that we'll see completed in Trials & Tribulations where the series actually becomes about the characters rather than about the justice system.

Justice For All begins with The Lost Turnabout. I'm not a massive fan of this case - it held the dubious honor of being my least favorite first case in the series until Dual Destinies came along with its absolutely terrible first case - due to its contrived excuse for amnesia which is in turn a contrived excuse for a tutorial, as well as some of the absolutely ridiculous gaff that goes on in the cases' mystery (Hurr durr yellow baseball glove is like bananas). That said, it does provide important set-up for next set of cases. You see, what's important here is that the culprit, Wellington, is obviously evil. He kills the victim completely for his own selfish gain and is completely unsympathetic to the audience.

This is the first step in a downward descent through the game, where the people we're getting caught are less and less obviously evil. In the second case we have Mimi Miney, who simply wants to take revenge on the man who ruined her life and indirectly killed her sister and Morgan Fey, whose motive simply seems to be that she is a scorned and betrayed sister to Maya's mother Misty and a doting mother to Pearl. The third case, Turnabout Big Top gets a lot of criticism that goes along the lines of "everyone is an annoying jerk except for the murderer!", which definitely makes playing through the case a pain but serves to give us Acro, a killer who is obviously a good man who's done what he's done only because of the incredible pain that his brother's situation has put him in, and is full of regret and shame for his actions.

All of this serves to leaves us pretty cold to the legal system we're being presented with. It's working as intended, with the true culprit coming to light and being punished and the innocent defendant being set free, but none of this feels good. Once you get over the rush of being able to prove that the guilty party is guilty you find out their motives. They're human too, and their stories are just as tragic as that of the victim, and you're sympathetic to them and feel bad that they have to be punished for their crimes. The law is being served, but it doesn't feel like justice is being done. This makes the title Justice For All my favorite in the series: There's a very cruel irony to it.

This of course leaves us at Farewell, My Turnabout, which takes this to eleven: Not only do we defend someone who is guilty, we spend a long time trying to pin the blame on a woman who's done nothing wrong and is incredibly vulnerable. What's worse is after the halfway point we know this is exactly what we're doing, and yet we're not in a position to stop because Maya is being held hostage. After the first trial day, the trial becomes surprisingly and frustratingly easy: You keep getting ahead, yet you know you should be behind and want to be behind. Nick is obviously torn and hates himself for every point in favor of Engarde he makes. Engarde is as purely evil as Wellington is, yet the court system is about to declare him not guilty and put poor Adrian Andrews behind bars instead.

However, the day is ultimately won, and we get a happy ending. This is because the games have a pure, heartfelt belief that when everyone is working together, justice will be reached. I'd argue that the only trial in the original Phoenix Wright trilogy that's run under what the game considers optimal conditions is the trial in Farewell, My Turnabout. You have Nick and Edgeworth working together, an attorney and prosecutor that trust each other and aren't in this for selfish ends, but simply because they want justice done. Nick trusts that if his client is guilty Edgeworth's attack will be powerful enough to break his strongest defense, and Edgeworth trusts that if the defendant is not guilty Nick's defense will be resilient enough to deflect his most damning claims. We also have Detective Gumshoe working not against the prosecution or defense, but trying equally as hard to help them both out: He's not only fervent in his search for Maya but he allows both Edgeworth and Nick equal access to crime scenes. We also, as always, have the Judge, who throughout the entire series has been one of the most admirable characters, desiring no doubt to be left before he gives his final verdict (unless you loose and he suddenly finds the defendant guilty out of nowhere even if you're at a spot where you've basically 99% proved that the defendant is innocent but that's not cannon blah blah blah).

Ultimately, despite how unfortunate the circumstances of Cases 2 and 3 were, the culprits in those cases did do unforgivable things: Morgan and Mimi murdered a man and planned to blame it on an innocent girl, and Acro tried to kill a 16 year old girl whose biggest fault was being spoiled by her father, accidentally killing the incredibly kind man that the Ringmaster is said to be instead. Whilst one can sympathize with them (and I do, I really do, especially with Acro), they deserve to be punished. Similarly, despite how far ahead Matt Engarde was during most of Farewell, My Turnabout Nick and Edgeworth did manage to stall the trial long enough to where Gumshoe's courage, dedication and undying goodness of heart managed to provide what they needed to get Maya out of danger. Both Nick and the audience are forced to evaluate whether what he's doing is good and just, and we're led to the conclusion that it is; He's saving innocent lives and making sure punishment only falls on those who deserve it. Whilst the original had us find out how the system is supposed to work and what makes it fail, Justice For All allows us to see why the system needs to work.

There's one element that's glaringly missing from my discussion above, and that's the games' prosecutor, Franziska von Karma. This is for two closely connected reasons: Franziska is amazingly unimportant and I actually kind of actively dislike Franziska. Literally all of her character development comes in a minute long section after the credits, and her two gimmicks during trials (The whip and "foolish fool") are incredibly annoying. She's serviceable as someone to butt heads against until Edgeworth comes back for the last trial and that's about it.

Edgeworth, however, is amazing. Whilst I hate the cheap "Edgeworth is dead" tease that the first three cases indulge in, I love his appearance in the fourth case. Just like in Turnabout Sisters, he seems like he's head and shoulders above Nick in terms of confidence and ability, but there's no longer the arrogance and selfishness that he used to carry with him. Instead, there's a quiet confidence and a humble sort of pride. We soon learn that the only reason Edgeworth is currently above Nick is because he's figured out and internalized the next step of the lesson Nick taught him in Turnabout Goodbyes. Nick understood that lawyers and prosecutors need to fight for justice and not for their own selfish wants. Edgeworth now understands that this means they need to trust each other and fight that much harder for it. This is clearly the same Edgeworth from before, but he's grown, and he's patiently waiting for Nick to catch up.

This is one of the steps that this game takes towards the series becoming more character-focused. Not only do Nick and Edgeworth grow and have to deal with their relationship, we also have Maya needing to grow: the concept of the Master of Kurain is introduced, and that Maya will have to step up her game in order to get there. Gumshoe's relationship with Nick also evolves: It becomes obvious the two have started to become friends and that Gumshoe cares deeply for Maya as well. He's a lot more helpful through the entire game, but this reaches a peak at Farewell, My Turnabout that will be maintained throughout Trials & Tribulations. Franziska also gestures in the same direction as Edgeworth does: It's obvious she was meant to start in as dark a place as Edgeworth, but for different reasons, and then grow out of it, but her development is so botched she just kind of stays there until the credits end. This type of character development was absent outside Edgeworth in the first game, and is a prelude to Trials & Tribulations' much more character-driven story.

As I have already said, Justice For All is my least favorite Ace Attorney game. However, it's also one of the most crunchy when looked at on this level, and a really interesting turning point for the series. We explore Nick's relationship with his profession, and, in that sense at least, end up in the same place we started in, but much more confident and assured in our purpose. We start paying more attention to characters rather than concepts, and we put a close to the darkest game in the Ace Attorney series. It turns out, even the worst Ace Attorney game is really damn good! For a while, we'll bid farewell to this "era of the law" of Ace Attorney and say hello to the character focused era that Trials & Tribulations ushers in. That'll be a good one. See you then!

Ace Attorney Retrospective - Prelude and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

The Ace Attorney series is one that I'm extremely fond off. I'd probably go as far as calling it my favorite series of video games. It's truly excellent, and it hits a number of notes that I'm particularly fond off without sacrificing much for people who don't have the exact niche of tastes that I do. It not only feels like a series made specifically for me - it's a series that has the strengths of something made specifically for me, plus a massive amount of other strengths that I appreciate.

I've recently played through the entire series again - with the exception of Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright - in preparation for the sixth and newest entry, released a couple days ago, named Spirit of Justice. Me playing through the Ace Attorney series is nothing new. I've been playing and re-playing all these games for years, and have essentially memorized the original and most of the second game by now. However, this particular play-through of the series really made me appreciate the long-term arcs that the series presents, and as such has made me enjoy the games a considerable amount more.

I have thoughts about Spirit of Justice, but I can't even begin to approximate how I'd actually write a review of that game. I tried writing a review when I first played Dual Destinies something like 6 months ago, and it resulted in a spectacular and incoherent failure. As such, I'll simply go through the series so far in a series of posts, highlighting previous failures and successes, and simply put Spirit of Justice in context when compared to the previous games in the final post. This should tell fans of the series exactly what they need to know, and those that haven't played all of the previous games have no business playing Spirit of Justice. the games often tend to build on previous entries, and Spirit of Justice relies heavily on themes from Dual Destinies.

Spirit of Justice is the most beginner-unfriendly game in the series since Trials & Tribulations came out in 2004. For those looking to get into the series, I heartily recommend the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which can be purchased on the 3DS e-shop along with the next two games in the series as the Ace Attorney Trilogy for 15 pounds - a fantastic deal considering how long (and good) all of these games are. Whilst the original can't be beat as a jumping-in point, other good starting points include Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, which is one of the weaker games in the series but is very beginner-friendly (Though you'll unfortunately need to hunt down a physical copy) and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, which is fantastic but not quite as the beginner-friendly as the previous two. I should also warn beginners that I'm giving myself free reign for spoilers from this point in this piece on. Got it? Good. I'm also going to ignore a lot of the stuff that makes the series good on a short term-basis: The individual puzzles you go through on trials, and the wacky, endearing, and extremely entertaining characters. I'm just assuming you know that those are brilliant. If not, take my word for it: they're brilliant.

Let's begin at the beginning then, with the original 2001 release Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Considering how big and convoluted the franchise grew to become, it's amazing how simple and humble this game really is. The First Turnabout, the first case in the series, makes a striking first impression and tells you exactly what you need to know: You're a defense attorney, and you'll bluff your way through trials, all whilst making deductions more similar to a detective than a lawyer, to prove your clients innocent. Straight off, The First Turnabout has something that'll be a staple of the series: Eventually, a witness will show up who obviously did it. At this point, you and the prosecution essentially switch places: You're trying to prove that it was the witness who did it and the prosecution tries to prove they couldn't have so that they can hopefully bounce back into attacking your client.

This seems to be an odd decision: Why not just make you a prosecutor? You do spend a lot of your time on the defensive, but the most satisfying and iconic moments of the series often come from that "I got you now!" feeling, when you finally manage to prove that a particularly slippery individual did it. I'd argue that this is actually kind of the point of the first three games (what is often called "the trilogy"), and it's a residual flaw in the rest. Phoenix Wright was first thought up as a parody of Japan's legal system, where prosecutors reign supreme and even the best and most experienced defense lawyers only have a couple wins under their belt. This shows very obviously in the first game with Miles Edgeworth.

Let's be honest here: Despite its title, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is very much not Phoenix's (I'll call him Nick from now on for obvious reasons) story. It's Miles Edgeworth's story. We first meet him as a terrifying and ruthless prosecutor in Turnabout Sisters. After just one case, you've had your tutor taken from you, and suddenly you're up against this guy who's never lost a case. He messes with your evidence (which you assume to be him falsifying evidence, even though it later becomes obvious this is not what he was doing), is incredibly tough after the pushover that was Winston Payne in the first case, and doesn't hesitate to give Redd White, the man who obviously did it, a way out in order to make his case. He continues this way through much of the third case, Turnabout Samurai, until in the end he unexpectedly helps you find the true killer, at which point your perception of him is severely thrown off-balance. Finally, Turnabout Goodbyes is his redemption: You learn Edgeworth and Nick's shared backstory, learn of the traumatic events in Edgeworth's past that led him to becoming a prosecutor and get to clash swords with his mentor Manfred von Karma, who is still the most terrifying prosecutor to date. Manfred von Karma has an advantage in this regard that no other prosecutor has: He is a straight-up villain. His constant blocking of you during trials doesn't need to come across as fair because it simply isn't.

Edgeworth and von Karma are very similar, with a vital difference: They're both ruthless prosecutors and they both despise criminals. Until you met Edgeworth, they both had perfect win records, and they both conduct themselves similarly in trials, with Edgeworth's body language even mimicking von Karma's to some extent (his animations in Trials and Tribulations' fourth case being almost exact copies of von Karma's is one of my favorite details in these games). The vital difference is their motivation: Edgeworth hates criminals, whilst von Karma loves perfection. Edgeworth's ideals are... well, idealistic, and so he can be redeemed, whilst von Karma is selfish and is portrayed as a villain. When it becomes clear to Edgeworth that his ways are so similar to someone as utterly evil as von Karma, he looses all faith in his role as a prosecutor and leaves for most of a game...

Or he would if Rise from the Ashes didn't exist. Rise from the Ashes is a tough one for me. It's a decent case, and I fairly enjoy playing it. That said, it's placed wrong. It belongs at the end of Justice for All. Whilst I don't know how well it would work there - I think the culprit is entirely too black-and-white to fit in that game, and there's obvious timeline inconsistencies - this case being at the end of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a detriment to the first game. It simply has Edgeworth being there, somewhat conflicted but mostly fine, and still acting as prosecutory as ever. Edgeworth and Nick trust each other in court - which is nice coming in from Turnabout Goodbyes, but completely ruins the impact of the end of Justice for All and Trials & Tribulations later in the series. Of course, Rise from the Ashes is a case added later on for the re-release on the DS, and as such it's comprehensible to not introduce a new prosecutor, but I really hate what it does for Edgeworth's arc and as such I choose to think of it as only half-cannon (It'd be a shame to let the Skye sisters' story line go to the non-cannon wasteland).

I don't know how much of the series was planned in advance - I don't believe anything was planned ahead when Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was being made, despite having no conclusive evidence - but it's amazing how well this game works as both its own story and as set-up for Justice for All and Trials & Tribulations. Edgeworth shows us how the court system is definitively not meant to work, and shows us whose fault it is that it's working this way: People like Manfred von Karma and Robert Hammond, who aren't in this for the purpose of justice, but for their own personal gain, whether it be monetary or simply stroking their own ego. Justice for All will expand on this by considering how whether the justice system is a force for good even when working properly, and Trials & Tribulations will build on what Justice for All leaves us with.

There's a few character arcs that I have to check in on at this point, largely because they'll be immensely important later on. First and perhaps most importantly is our titular not-quite-really-protagonist. Unbeknownst even to the player, Nick's mission, from the very start, is to drag Edgeworth back to his senses. As such, Nick doesn't get much development this game: Mia dies early on, which one would think would catalyze significant change in Nick, but it only really serves to make the stakes in Turnabout Sisters higher. All the other cases have him be too busy being a lawyer to get much development. That is something that will very much be left for the other two games, particularly Justice for All.

Another big character is Maya. It never actually fails to surprise me how little she's in this game. She's not in The First Turnabout, she's not in Turnabout Sisters that much and she doesn't appear at all in Rise from the Ashes. She's only really fully around for Turnabout Samurai and Turnabout Goodbyes, which admittedly make up more than half the run time of the original four cases, but it's amazing that she's less than prominent in over half the game. Whilst she's an absolute delight, there's very little character development here. She's your bosses' sister who you have to defend for a case, and then she's your energetic sidekick. I love Maya in this game (and in every other game in the series), but she's not really particularly important to the long-term arcs until late in Trials and Tribulations. This is not to say she's not important to the series: She's obviously one of the most vital characters, second only to Nick (In the trilogy anyway): she's the emotional one in your duo, provides entertainment during investigation sequences, and her building friendship with Nick is really touching. I absolutely love Maya Fey, to the point where I genuinely tear up at some Maya moments, and she certainly makes my top 3 Ace Attorney characters, but she's not a major player in the level of storytelling that I'm planning to talk about in this series.

Finally, Gumshoe. He's been distrustful of you and intentionally unhelpful (despite being a good-natured and friendly guy) until Turnabout Goodbyes when he starts to help you because you're helping Edgeworth, whom he trusts. Then in Rise to the Ashes he's ridiculously helpful, but again, that case really should be at the end of Justice for All.

That's all I have to say about this game, so a bit of housekeeping to end off. I really enjoyed writing this, but it's possible I lose interest after posting it and don't go on with the series. Hopefully that won't happen: Justice for All has some juicy meat to tear into, despite being my least favorite game in the series to date. I also look forwards to Trials & Tribulations and beyond, where the overarching plot becomes less about criticizing law and more about the actual characters. In case I don't get to it, here's my quick opinion on Spirit of Justice, even though I haven't quite finished it yet: I just finished case 4 so the cornerstone that traditionally joins it all together in the form of the last case is still missing for me. I do mean quick: This is disorganized, not very coherent, and I'm not trying particularly hard to make it well written since I don't consider it part of the piece I'm writing. Unless you're really interested what this random stranger on the Internet thinks of SoJ, stop reading now.

So far, it's an extremely ambitious attempt at making the series larger in scope in a way that isn't quite successful, but that I admire. The new prosecutor might be my least favorite in the series (Yes, including Franziska). I think splitting it into two nations is brave but misguided, since it leaves both story-lines feeling underdeveloped. Rayfa and Divination Seances are great, though Rayfa needs case 5 to satisfyingly close up her arc. I really like how hostile the Khura'in court is, and how much harder the puzzles are in the trials there: It feels a lot more like an uphill climb in an unfamiliar court system that way.

Case 1 is the best case 1 in the series because of this, making a striking impression and thrusting you into an incredibly tense and unfamiliar situation right off the bat. Case 2 is good, though "Apollo and Nahyuta have a connection in their past" is lazy and feels like a re-tread of the original's "Edgeworth and Nick have a connection in their past", plus I instantly knew who the murderer was just from looking at them. Case 2 also feels a bit like old Case 3's in that it's weirdly disconnected from the main plot, but that's a fault of the two-country set up, and it's way better than any old Case 3 anyway. Case 3 is great, really tense the entire way through and with fantastic set up for what I assume will be Case 5, as well as a really clever mystery and twist, though the new characters for the case were meh. Case 4 is really strange: It's a one day trial without investigation but it can't possibly be as important as T&T's Case 4 unless Case 5 goes in a very weird direction. I love your assistant in this case, I think it's almost the best that character's been, though it's a bit infuriating that Athena seems to have completely forgotten how to lawyer and is painted as more of a noob than when she was working Case 3 in DD. It feels like it's there just to have 5 cases including a case where you play as Athena, and I'm almost tempted to believe this was meant to be Case 1 at some point, or maybe a short, cheap DLC case. Still, I actually really enjoyed it, with it being a solid mystery with colorful characters and a satisfying solution. The soundtrack in this game is great, though I don't like the objection theme remixes, they just sound worse than in DD, plus I'd love to return to the trilogy convention of new themes every game.

Spirit of Justice is a great game, though so far it's probably my second or third least favorite (I can't decide whether it's better than Apollo Justice or not). That's mostly due to how flip-floppy it feels with the two settings, though it's very possible that the last case brings it all together. After all, I felt only slightly more enthusiastic about Dual Destinies four cases in, but case 5 skyrocketed that one to my second or third favorite (I can't decide whether I like the original more or not). That said, even being Justice for All, my least favorite Ace Attorney game, is being a better game than most games, so Spirit of Justice really is fantastic.