Source: Nintendo Dream Web
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Memories of the Naruhodō Trilogy of These Two Who Worked On The Original Games
Interviewer: This interview is being held on January 23, 2019. Which is actually....
Takumi: It’s exactly 15 years ago that Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3 - Trials and Tribulations) was released on GameBoy Advance. Back then, the statute of limitations was 15 years, so the first Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney GBA) was set 15 years after the release year of 200. And now is exactly the period when things are moving towards the final episode of Gyakuten Saiban 3, so it almost feels like destiny that Gyakuten Saiban 123 (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attoney Trilogy) will be released now (laugh).
Interviewer: The first Gyakuten Saiban was released on October 12, 2001. Do you still remember that day?
Takumi: I went to the game shops to see how the game was going.
Iwamoto: Me too. I swung by three retailers and bought a copy from all three of them.
All: (laugh)
Iwamoto: It was the first game I ever worked on. And when the game magazines reported on the game, they’d also include characters like Umeyo (April May), who I designed, so it was also the first time that my designs were actually printed in a magazine. I was so moved by that. Mr. Takumi was a veteran, so he was all used to that of course (laugh).
Takumi: No, no, no, it was the same for me. Gyakuten Saiban was the first game that was truly my own.
Interviewer; Could you tell us how you decided on the title Gyakuten Saiban (“Turnabout Trial”)?
Takumi: During the planning, I came up with the name Surviban. A portmanteau of “survival” and “saiban” (trial).
Iwamoto: I too was all used to using Surviban.
Takumi: But near the end of the development cycle, our highest boss told us it was about time we decide on the real title of the game. And the way he said it definitely didn’t make it feel like I could just answer we should just go with Surviban. The people around us also told us they didn’t really understand what kind of game we were working on. That had actually been my intent, that a weird word like Surviban that nobody had ever heard of, would eventually become a household name. But in the end, we all gathered in front of the whiteboard. And our boss I just mentioned, he said: “Hey, Takumi, try Gyakuten Saiban.” And that’s how the title was decided.
Iwamoto: I was a fan of Surviban. Can’t remember why I thought it was so good though (laugh).
Takumi: Thanks (laugh). We as the team had worked so long with that name, so at first Gyakuten Saiban might have felt weird. But now we have all really gotten used to that title. There are so many games with the katakana script or English, so this title, with just four kanji characters, stood out. And you instantly know what the game’s about and what is fun about it, so it’s really the one-and-only title for this game. I mean, it’s about a trial that you turn around.
Iwamoto: In courtroom dramas they often say “turnabout” too, right.
Takumi: Yeah. But whenever I come across the word “turnabout” now, be it in drama dialogue or just the newspaper or even news about something completely else, I react to it. Guess it’s a cross I’ll have to bear for the rest of my life (laugh).
All: (laugh)
Takumi: What really made me happy, when I saw people buying Gyakuten Saiban together with the system. When the first game was released, nobody knew about it of course, but by the release of the third game, I sometimes saw people who bought the game together with the system. It means those people thought our game was worth that much to play, so I was really moved as I watched them. As always, I lingered around the game shops on the release day then.
Iwamoto: Back then, Gyakuten Saiban 3 was supposed to be the end, but actually, we all thought that this was going to be it already when we were finishing up the very first Gyakuten Saiban. When we were done with that first game, I was all like: “Well then, Mr. Takumi, I hope we’ll be able to work again one day!”
Interviewer: It was a wonderful time for the fans, as they could play a new game each year for three consecutive years.
Iwamoto: It would be impossible to make games at that pace in these days, I think.
Takumi: But we did really work at an incredible pace back then. But of course there’s a big difference between then and now, as we made it for a simple piece of hardware that is the GameBoy Advance, as opposed to the advanced, high capacity systems we have now. We had a lot of limitations to work with so you can’t compare those days to the immense workload for modern games. For example, back then, we couldn’t do all graphical assets in color as they’d take up too much memory, so we saved on memory by making evidence photographs and flashbacks in black-and-white. Back then, you had to pull tricks like that.
Interviewer: When did you have to do that?
Takumi: From the first game on. We had to do use everything we could come up so we wouldn’t take up too much memory with the data.
Iwamoto: You and the programmers really had trouble with that, eh (laugh).
Takumi: Back then we also had limitations to how many kanji characters we could use. People often say that the usage of the katanaka script in this series is really characteristic, but that writing style was actually also partially influenced by these limitations.
Interviewer: Oh, so you saved on memory by decreasing the number of kanji characters you used, right?
Takumi: But because I have experienced that period myself, I don’t think that having limitations has to be a minus when it comes to creating something. Better ideas or expressions can be born exactly because you’re forced to work something out. It’s in situations like these when a creator has to show his worth.
Iwamoto: The development of Gyakuten Saiban was really crazy from the start (laugh). We made a 3D model of the courtroom so we could shake the defense and prosecutor’s benches with the camera… I was actually the one who modelled that courtroom!
Interviewer: Really!
Iwamoto: With the three-month training in 3D modelling I got after I got into Capcom, I created that courtroom, and made a movie of that camera movement. It took up so much memory… Everyone got mad at me (laugh).
Takumi: We focused a lot on giving depth to when that camera moved. For example, there are two flags behind the witness bench, pointed towards the camera, but we actually designed that so the whole scene would look more dynamic when the camera moved across the screen.
Iwamoto: So from Gyakuten Saiban 2 (Ace Attorney 2 - Justice for All) onwards, we changed it so it would be only one illustration, which is scrolled across at high speed.
Takumi: To be honest, I was shocked at how good it looked (laugh).
All: (laugh).
Takumi: So the version where we used a 3D movie can only be found in the original GameBoy Advance version of the first Gyakuten Saiban.
Iwamoto: By the way, at first I wasn’t even supposed to be working on Gyakuten Saiban 2. So I didn’t go to the circus with you all.
Takumi: Eh? Oh, that’s right!
Interviewer: Episode 3 of Gyakuten Saiban 2 is about a circus, but I gather you actually went to the circus?
Takumi: Yes. Before we started development, we went with the whole team to the circus so we could spend some time together first.
Iwamoto: At that time, I was still working on Granbo for the GameBoy Advance. I was supposed to work on a different title after that, but the producer then told me to go to the Gyakuten Saiban 2 team.
Takumi: I didn’t know about that.
Iwamoto: So I joined the development of Gyakuten Saiban 2 later. I was so jealous you all got to go to the circus *laugh).
Takumi: You were there when we went to the courthouse, right?
Iwamoto: For the first game, right? Yes, I was there too.
Takumi: The courthouse is near Capcom, so before the development started, we went there together so we could spend some together first (laugh). Iwamoto here was making sketches from the gallery.
Iwamoto: I remember I told you had gone seen a trial during college and that it was okay to make sketches.
Takumi: With Gyakuten Saiban 3, we all went on an overnight training experience on Mt. Koya in Wakayama, before we started on the final episode. We were all trembling as we ate our vegetarian food and doing those Zen meditations. Meanwhile, our producers were in a hot spring nearby enjoying a luxurious meal (laugh).
Iwamoto: They even called us from there! (laugh)
Takumi: But it was a fun experience. Don’t know whether it turned out useful though.
All: (laugh).
Takumi: Veteran developers know how to set-up and hold themselves to a schedule, but we didn’t have such common sense back then…
Iwamoto: Yeah. I still don’t know how we managed to make it through those days (laugh).
Takumi: How did we do it?
Iwamoto: To put it very broadly, I think there was just the order that the graphics had be finished around a certain period, and whether it would be actually doable or not was left to my sempai’s own judgment. But that sempai had a graphics leader training during the development of Gyakuten Saiban, so he thought it would be necessary to put a new guy in the team too, and that is how I came to the team.
Takumi: The first Gyakuten Saiban was actually part of a project to help train the younger generation. Capcom’s newly employed would be put together in a team, and they’d have to make a game in a short period. We were just lucky to be chosen for that.
Iwamoto: It was actually the first time Capcom had started developing for the GameBoy Advance, and we didn’t really know how long it would take. How long had you been with Capcom at that time?
Takumi: It was my… sixth year then. I had worked on the two Dino Crisis games then, and I was allowed to make Gyakuten Saiban as a reward for my hard work there.
Iwamoto: You like dinosaurs?
Takumi: I’m sorry to say this, but I knew nothing about them (laugh). At first I couldn’t even tell the difference between a Tyrannosaur and a Velociraptor.
Iwamoto: You’d be in your twenties back then?
Takumi: I finished the scenario for the first Gyakuten Saiban a few days after my thirtieth birthday. I was hoping to finish it in my twenties, but I just didn’t manage to do that.
Development Stories About The Characters
Iwamoto: I love coming up with loop animations like those infinite cards Max Galactica conjures up in Gyakuten Saiban 2, or those infinite glasses.
Takumi: Infinite glasses? Oh, where they break and then come back. I like that victimin the second game, Dr. Kirisaki Tetsurō (Turner Grey).
Iwamoto: He’s pure art (laugh). His glasses would slide down each time and he’d push them back up again.
Takumi: When you have him pushing his glasses back up at the start of a conversation, and he keeps fidgeting with his glasses, man, he’s so irritating (laugh).
Iwamoto: It’s also at the start of his idle animation. He was so fun (laugh). And then there’s the old man of the clinic.
Takumi: The director of the Hotta Clinic (Hotti Clinic). Well, self-proclaimed, so not really the director. Who is he anyway?
All: (laugh).
Takumi: Gyakuten Saiban is a game where you have to read the text to advance, so the one thing I feared worst was that people would get sleepy from all that reading. You can find evidence as you investigate the crime scene, but you can also investigate the “wrong” places, where you don’t obtain anything. If the text at those times is boring, the player will soon become fed up with investigating. So I think that it’s important for adventure games to have interesting messages even if when you’re doing something “wrong.”
Iwamoto: There are also people who try to find all the dialogues, even the wrong ones. I saw all of them of course, during the bug checking (laugh). The text itself isn’t important as they only appear when you made a wrong choice, but you wrote so much, it must have been a lot of work.
Takumi: A true dilemma that was. People would say I should let other people write those parts, but one shouldn’t look down upon them, they’re actually really an important element to the game.
Interviewer: That is how the tradition of the ladder and stepladder was born, right (laugh).
Iwamoto: You must be a genius to come up with such a conversation (laugh).
Takumi: It was fun writing text like that (laugh).
Interviewer: Unique rival prosecutors are an unmissable part of the Gyakuten Saiban series. Could you tell us about Karuma Mei (Franziska von Karma), at the moment our sole female prosecutor?
Takumi: There’s that memorable scene at the end of Gyakuten Saiban 2, where she cries, right? That scene wasn’t actually in the original scenario. At the start of the development, when we came up with the necessary animations for all the characters, I had asked for one where she cried thinking I might need it. I figured she’d eventually cry, but then we were at the end of the game and she still hadn’t. But the animation was good, and I knew Iwamoto here was going to cry if I left it unused, so I quickly added that scene at the end.
Iwamoto: So I didn’t draw that crying face based on the scenario. I was told Mei’s age and circumstances in advance, so I figured she wasn’t one to simply cry. I had done a bit of research on crying faces when I was drawing Harumi (Pearl)’s crying face. So that is why Mei cries a bit childish (laugh).
Interviewer: Really!
Iwamoto: And it worked really well with the scenario in the end, and it looks great. It’s almost a miracle (laugh).
The Special Courts That Leave An Impression In A Different Manner Than The Games
Interviewer: I’d like to ask about the Special Courts which the fans are all familiar with now. Mr. Iwamoto, have you see them too?
Iwamoto: Not all of them, but yes. I think Mr.Takumi’s a real genius when it comes to writing these meaningless conversations (laugh).
Takumi: Meaningless? (laugh)
Iwamoto: You might misunderstand me when I say meaningless, but I think his best talents lie there.
Takumi: Perhaps my own personality is showing? (laugh). The first Special Court was presented in 2005, at the Tokyo Game Show, and it was made as part of the marketing campaign for Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Ace Attorney DS). I made jokes about the manual of the GameBoy Advance SP.
Interviewer: Where Mitsurugi (Miles Edgeworth) says he keeps his GameBoy Advance SP in his backpocket and everyone says that’s illegal (laugh).
Takumi: We actually sent Nintendo the scenario and got permission to use it (laugh). You’d be surprised how much thinking these Special Courts require, and each time it’s a challenge working on them, but it’s a lot of fun too.
Iwamoto: When I saw the Special Court, I thought it was interesting. I think he himself had never used this talent for writing before he got to work on Gyakuten Saiban, so he never realized himself he had a knack for this.
Takumi: Thanks. I had written parts of the scenario for Dino Crisis, but that wasn’t really funny.
Iwamoto: It really all came out of you with Gyakuten Saiban, I think. Anyway, I had a good laugh, but then there was a period where I didn’t work on Gyakuten Saiban, and I felt sad then, actually. I hadn’t really realized myself what kind of work Gyakuten Saiban really was when I was working on it myself.
Takumi: That happens.
Iwamoto: Capcom is big, so when I first joined, I figured we’d have geniuses walking around everywhere. Mr. Takumi was amazing, but I thought, there are probably a lot of people like him here…. But there weren’t (laugh).
Takumi: Capcom is like a treasure box full of unique personalities (laugh).
Iwamoto: I only realized this after I left Capcom, but you don’t come across people like Mr. Takumi a lot.
Takumi: The Special Courts are fun, but you can’t do things you’ve done already and the expectations of everyone becomes higher and higher each time, so they’re really hard to make. Personally, I think the one we had Tokyo Game Show 2018, Special Court 2018, was quite the masterpiece. It’s on the DVD included with the e-Capcom limited edition, so it’d be great if everyone would see it.
Iwamoto: The masterpiece of all the Special Courts!?
Takumi: I believe completely in that Special Court, as much as I believe in the drama CD The Turnabout Trial SHOW also produced for the limited edition (laugh).
Interviewer: I was surprised you made lyrics for Godot’s theme in the Special Court 2018.
Takumi: Last year, we had the Gyakuten Saiban Orchestra Concert 2018 in April, where we also had a specialcorner with Kondou Takayuki, voice actor of Naruhodō in the games, and Takemoto Eiji, voice actor of Mitsurugi. Mr. Takemoto joked about wanting to have lyrics on Godot’s theme so we could all sing along. So I figured, you asked for it, so I wrote that in the scenario for the Special Court 2018.
All: (laugh)
Takumi: I had no idea what for lyrics I should write at first, but I ended up with that.
Interviewer: It was amazing how it tied up to the story.
Takumi: Gyakuten Saiban is mystery fiction, so that is an element I will never let go, and that is where I have to do my work as a creative writer. But to be honest, I have no idea whether that was the “solution” to a mystery story, or just the “punchline” to a sketch. But I think that the fans who always watch the Special Courts, expect exactly that.
The Original Episodes Of The TV Anime Gyakuten Saiban Season 2 That Supplement The Main Story
Interviewer: Gyakuten Saiban – Sono Shinjitsu Igiari! Season 2 is now on air, and we have seen three original stories now. Could you tell us about them?
Takumi: I have been part of the script meetings from the very start of the project, when we talk about the series structure. At the first meeting, the director Mr.Watanabe and story editor Tomioka Atsuhiko said they’d like to try to add in more original episodes. We all thought that was a good idea, so we made three original stories, for a total of five episodes. It was really fun working on them. We first came up with three key terms: “Mitsurugi as a junior high student, some years after DL-6”, “A special trial outside the usual courtroom” and “Naruhodō and Harumi’s first trip,” which were then worked out to full stories. This season is mainly based on Gyakuten Saiban 3, so all these new stories were created to fill in the gaps of the larger story of that game. For me too, this was an opportunity to deepen that story. And I think they all turned out well. The last original episode, Hear the Sea Waves of Turnabout, was broadcast right now, but I have a soft spot for all of them.
Iwamoto: I guess the anime will be nearing its climax by the time this interview is published!
Interviewer: And you can still watch all the episodes that have already been broadcast through streaming services.
Takumi: Ratings are really important for anime, so I’d like for everyone to watch the show in real time. “Who are you to talk”, you might think, but I have also worked a lot with the anime staff on this, so I really feel like they’re all my comrades (laugh). But that’s not just with the anime, but for example also with the plays.
Iwamoto: We all see Gyakuten Saiban as our child (laugh).
The Gyakuten Saiban World Spreading Out In The Real World
Takumi: The first adaptation of Gyakuten Saiban was from the Takarazuka Revue, I think. The first one was performed in February of 2009, that’s exactly ten years ago.
Iwamoto: That was after Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice) was released on Nintendo DS, right? Man, that was amazing, even looking back now.
Takumi: Then we had the live-action film in 2012. And the year after, until now, we had all those theater plays.
Iwamoto: You had a cameo in the film, right? (laugh).
Takumi: I appear for a second in the gallery (laugh). But fortunately, Gyakuten Saiban has seen all kinds of projects in various forms and I myself had occasion to be involved with these projects too. And what I truly think is that each and every one of these projects, is a precious occasion. The timing, the staff, the schedule, everything: all these circumstances come together like a miracle making these things possible. It’s really a miracle.
Iwamoto: The Takarazuka play was really amazing. It had me going: Uwoooow!
Takumi: I went the first day and actually cried. But I didn’t manage to catch the last day in Tokyo, because Capcom’s in Osaka.
Iwamoto: I live in Tokyo, so I saw it (laugh). Afterwards, there was like a cultural exchange between fans of Gyakuten Saiban and fans of Takarazuka.
Takumi: Fans of Takarazuka started playing the games because of the play, and the other way around happened too. I too felt the impact of seeing how the world of Gyakuten was expanding.
Iwamoto: I was so jealous. After we wrapped up Gyakuten Saiban 3, we said: “So long, hope to see in a next project,” right? But then I quit my job with Capcom (laugh). Of course, that was not the only reason.
Takumi: What reasons did you have then? (laugh)
Iwamoto: I was proud that people loved that game we all worked on, but I felt like, like I wanted to still be there, you know?
Takumi: But you did get to work on the Gyakuten series afterwards too, right?
Iwamoto: I got involved with Gyakuten Saiban 4 for a bit at the very of the project. And then I got to work on Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations). When we finished Gyakuten Saiban 3, never could I have imagined we’d end up here.
Takumi: Yes, not even in our dreams.
Iwamoto: I’m filled with feelings of “Man, this is great” and “how blessed I am.”
Takumi: Everyone wanted to see more of them, which is why Naruhodo-kun and his friends are still alive and well no. I am so happy it didn’t all end with the first Gyakuten Saiban.
Iwamoto: You said it.
Nintendo Dream’s Customary Question At Last! What Delicious Food Have You Eaten Recently?
Takumi: Two days ago, the play Turnabout Gold Medal ended, and we had a dinner with everyone from the staff and cast. I don’t remember what I had, but it was great!
Iwamoto: The inari-zushi I got backstage as a treat (laugh).
Thank you for this very long and thorough interview translation, Ash! It was really fascinating!
ReplyDeleteLove your work, keep it up, I always check for updates.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the translation!! It was super fun to read and really insightful!
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