Source: Nintendo Dream, September issue, 2016
Beware of spoilers for this episode.
Images are taken from the source article. Copyright belongs to their respective owners.
Turnabout Magic Show
Opening Animation
Yamazaki: The idea behind the opening animation was that we wanted to create a scene with so much impact you wouldn’t immediately realize you were still playing Gyakuten Saiban.
Yamazaki: So we changed Minuki’s (Trucy) costume and even had a dragon appear, all so it became something nice to watch as an animation. It’s just a magic show on stage of course, so you just have to imagine that this is how the audience experiences the show (laugh).
Yamazaki: There were several reasons for choosing magic as the theme. The most important being that I wanted to have a story about Minuki. In Gyakuten Saiban 5 (Ace Attorney 5 - Dual Destinies), we had our hands full with Naruhodō’s (Phoenix Wright) return and Odoroki’s (Apollo Justice) growth, so we didn’t have the room to also focus on Minuki. That’s why we could only give her a mascotte figure-esque role, always waiting for the player’s return at the office. So this time, we wanted to have a whole episode dedicated to her, and portray a side of her not shown in previous games. Obviously, the theme therefore had to be magic. Another reason is that the first episode of the game had to have serious tone, so it was better for the second episode to have a more fun atmosphere.
Interviewer: Minuki in Arumagical Land (Trucy in Gramarye-Land). I guess this title is based on Alice in Wonderland?
Yamazaki: Yeah (Laugh). It’s a magic show themed after the world of Alice in Wonderland, which is why Minuki wears Alice-like clothes in the opening animation. Also, in order to differentiate this episode with the episodes set in the Kingdom of Kurain (Khura'in), I also wanted this story set in Japan to have contemporary elements too. That is why this story isn’t just about stage magic. Television is also a keyword.
Interviewer: One of our two protagonists appears. Odoroki! I believe it’s Odoroki’s second year as an attorney.
Yamazaki: “About” two years. It hasn’t been a full three years yet.
Interviewer: And Kokone (Athena Cykes) also appears for the first time in this second episode.
Yamazaki: You can feel that the duo of Odoroki and Kokone have taken its own form too now. They have a sempai-kōhai (senior-junior) relation, but as the two of them do share some similar traits, the two of them dare go frankly at each other, and that helps both of them grow. It was like this in Gyakuten Saiban 5 too, but I think their relation has different dynamics than Naruhodō and Mayoi (Maya Fey). Now they don’t hold back anymore, which makes their back-and-forth dialogues easier to write.
Inside Minuki’s Room
Interviewer: Minuki’s become quite the well-known magician.
Yamazaki: I imagine she got there just by working her way up diligently. In Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice), she got the rights to perform the magic of the Arumajiki Troupe (Troupe Gramarye). It’s been about a year since, and now she’s here. Her 3D model has been tinkered with too, so she looks even cuter now. This pose for example, you’d only accept it because it’s Minuki doing it (Laugh).
Yamazaki: Starting with Gyakuten Saiban 4, you can feel how these two have become closer too, becoming candid in their conversations. And about the pants, they got a power-up from “cosmo” to “galaxy”! (Laugh). The second episode is the first in the game to have an Investigation part and we have brought back the optional dialogue when you investigate places. It was fun placing all kinds of objects in the background to talk about.
Interviewer: Are all the magic props here used in the show?
Yamazaki: They should be (laugh). That 500 yen coin is used by Menyō (Mr. Reus). The idea is that he’s good at coin magic.
Interviewer: This is also the first time we get a glimpse of the poster for Arumagical Carnival (Magical Menagerie).
Yamazaki: It was probably a custom of the Arumajiki Troupe to use “Arumagical” in their show titles. But man, these are some nostalgic faces to see.
Interviewer: Minuki says at the office she’s off rehearsing, but she doesn’t live in the offices, right?
Yamazaki: No. She’s Naruhodo-kun’s daughter, so she lives with him. So she came back from school, swung by the office and then went off again for rehearsals.
The Case Occurs!!
Yamazaki: This animation is related to the trick behind the murder, so we had to check everything, from storyboard to rough sketches, screenplay, genga to the actual animation, to make sure it was consistent with the scenario. We couldn’t have the animation missing something that should’ve been there.
Interviewer: I was surprised that the escape magic was also shown through a demonstration scene.
Yamazaki: It was done by motion capturing one of our female actors.
Interviewer: And then the dragon turns out to be just a stage prop (Laugh).
Yamazaki: Even though it moved like it was real in the animation, right? (Laugh) The first half of the Investigation Part of this episode has a lot of first-time presentation gimmicks first introduced in this game. Starting with that animated opening scene, and having that demo scene.
Interviewer: And now we’re outside the Theatre Trompe (Penrose Theater).
Yamazaki: I mentioned at one of the pre-release events, but that exterior is actually a trompe l'oeil that only looks 3D.
At the Naruhodō Anything Agency
Interviewer: Back at the office.
Yamazaki: Ever since Gyakuten Saiban 4, you find all kinds of things in the background, like that plate of spaghetti. It’s probably a magic prop, but what kind of magic trick is it used for?
Interviewer: Perhaps it transforms from a Napolitan to a meat sauce spaghetti?
Yamazaki: Huh? (Laugh)
Interviewer: And now we have the news about Naruhodo-kun’s exploits in the Kingdom of Kurain.
Yamazaki: Episode 2 is also the story about how Odoroki works hard and grows during Naruhodō’s absence. I wanted to show how much Odoroki had changed since that first time when he was a Naruhodō fanboy. We needed the player to know that the fact that it was definitely important that Naruhodō himself wasn’t here now, and Odoroki would realize that he was the one who had to hold the fort now.
Interviewer: And now we have the news about Minuki.
Yamazaki: The animation here is of course of importance to the story too, but it was pretty difficult making this. For example, there’s no 3D model of Menyō because he’s the victim, so we couldn’t show him here (Laugh). You have all kinds of circumstances like this during production, so we decided to have the camera close in on Minuki’s face. Oh, with this episode, we also wanted to do something new in this series, where you have an incident occurring which later turns into a murder. The situation wouldn’t feel as pressing on Minuki if this were just an accident, so it had to turn into a murder. And now finally Minuki’s become a defendant too…
Interviewer: I guess all heroines in this series must become a defendant at one point or another.
Yamazaki: Definitely. Well, Mayoi may be overdoing it though (Laugh).
The Decision To Defend Minuki At The Detention Center
Yamazaki: Usually, characters in the Investigation Parts all stand in the same position, but because there’s a glass barrier in the detention center, every character besides the defendant has to be standing in front of that glass. That is why characters outside the glass are shown slightly larger than usual. You can see depth with the 3D models, so we have been doing this since Ace Attorney 5.
Interviewer: Minuki’s personality is portrayed really well in the conversations here.
Yamazaki: I wanted to show a side we hadn’t really seen before yet, the true feelings of Minuki. Why does she hide her feelings and keep them secret? I wanted to show it was because of her professional pride as a magician.
Interviewer: And that brings us to the first instance of Perceive.
Yamazaki: This is an important moment to Perceive. This scene allows the players themselves to learn Minuki’s true feelings.
Interviewer: And the story moves forward too thanks to Perceive.
Yamazaki: Like with the Psyche Locks, it’s important that by perceiving, the player gains something very important, like information or some story development. Minuki has a pretty troubled history, but until now, we never got a real glimpse of how she felt about that.
Interviewer: A sad face.
Yamazaki: This is a new animation that we could only show because Minuki’s finally showing her true self. We wanted to show that she’s not all smiles, that she can be like this too.
Interviewer: And now Odoroki says he will defend her. The music is great too. Makes him look really cool.
Yamazaki: He does look cool now, right? Odoroki had a lot of fidgety scenes in Gyakuten Saiban 4, but in Gyakuten Saiban 5, he had the experience of standing opposite Naruhodō. It’s because of that he has grown and that he is able to say things like that now.
Interviewer: And listening to him, Minuki looks down and then starts to cry.
Yamazaki: The person responsible for the direction here really did their best. Thanks to them, we got a lot of reactions from fans saying their opinions on Minuki had become even better. I was really happy with that.
Looking for Minuki’s Notebook in the Dressing Room
Yamazaki: Someone in the development team. We have been doing auditions in our team since Gyakuten Saiban 5, looking for handwriting that seems to fit the characters. To make it’s fair, we just choose the handwriting, without knowing to whom it belongs to. Who was Minuki again… I know it was a woman. By the way, behind Minuki’s bag you see a uniform, and the idea Minuki goes to school in that uniform, with that bag. But we couldn’t agree whether Minuki’s uniform is a sailor uniform, or a blazer. But beause there’s an illustration drawn during the time of the first game where Mayoi’s wearing a sailor uniform, we decided Minuki would wear a blazer.
Interviewer: I thought that uniform was just a costume.
Yamazaki: No, it’s her school uniform. That’s why her bag too looks like a school-issued bag. And if you take a good look, you see she has a strap of Mr. Hat hanging from it too.
Interviewer: She has also received flowers from a lot of people.
Yamazaki: It’s not surprising that the flowers from Garyū (Klavier) are stupidly big. When we decided on what to put in the background, the whole team worked to together to think of who would send flowers.
Interviewer: As a fan, I was surprised you got the Arumajikis back again. For example, you could have chosen to keep the magic theme, but not connect the story to the Arumajikis.
Yamazaki: Oh, that is true. But in order to portray Minuki’s feelings and her past, it was important to touch upon the credo that a magician can only smile. So that meant we had to mention the Arumajikis. Of course, if we went too far, we’d spoil the story of Gyakuten Saiban 4, so we had to be careful about what to mention and what not.
Akane In Front of Theatre Trompe
Yamazaki: We had discussions in the team about how we would reunite Odoroki with Akane (Ema Skye). They were never really close, nor did they have a truly bad bond. So we decided to go with the vibe of meeting with an older female family relative after a long time. Did it come across like that?
Interviewer: I was surprised when she said she had broken up with karintō (snackoos). It was foreshadowing, of course.
Yamazaki: Yep (Laugh). We considered that she’d have quit on karintō now she’s become a scientific investigator, but she’d be a completely different character without them from the way she was in Gyakuten Saiban 4, so we needed a reason for her to get back to them.
Interviewer: What was decided on first, scientific investigation, or Akane’s return?
Yamazaki: It was decided simultaneously. Users mentioned in our questionnaires they wanted scientific investigations back, and that also meant having Akane back. Also, we had the little problem of needing a detective too.
Interviewer: Wasn’t Itonoko (Gumshoe) an option too?
Yamazaki: We had considered him, of course. But we simply had it though imagining Itonoko investigating. Would he still be an active police detective walking around at the scene at his age, we asked ourselves. So we had a problem figuring out where Itonoko would be now, in terms of role and function. That’s why we went for Akane.
Interviewer: Akane here drops hints about Nayuta (Nahyuta).
Yamazaki: The concept behind Nayuta is the gap between his gentle appearance, but his harsh attitude. That’s also presented like that in the story. Akane is the detective both in this and the third episode. At first, we had thought about having a Kurainese as a police detective in the Kingdom of Kurain, but that would cut Akane’s appearances in half, giving us fewer opportunities to use here. So we had her appear on both sides. So Akane had to be brought to the Kingdom of Kurain by Nayuta, which gave depth to her relation with Nayuta. That’s when it was decided that Akane was really irritated by him, and that gave a reason for the karintō to return. I imagine Akane wasn’t as happy with that like we were (Laugh).
Interviewer: What kind of design did the Kurain detective have?
Yamazaki: It was only considered really early on, so we only have some rough sketches of an Asian-looking man. It was in the period when Nayuta was designed in the image of the monk Tripitaka, so his partner was somewhat like Sun Wukong (NT: From Journey to the West). Nayuta would recite a spell to shrink the band around the detective’s head.
Crime Scene Investigation and 3D Fingerprinting
Interviewer: After you finish the conversation with Akane, she herself appears in the background.
Yamazaki: Dai Gyakuten Saiban (“The Grand Turnabout Trial”) had characters in the background, so I wanted to do that too. Just by adding small characters you get a really effective feel of depth. This is also the first time you get to investigate the crime scene in 3D, so there are a lot of gimmicks here that give a sense of meaning to the 3D investigation.
Interviewer: I have to say I love the naming sense behind Mr. Menyō AKA Fushigi Naohito (Manov Mistree).
Yamazaki: What you see is what you get (Laugh) (TN: Menyō means ‘mysterious’. Fushigi Naohito is a pun on ‘fushigi na hito’ meaning ‘a mysterious man’) It’s a man performing mysterious magic! They were easy names to come up with.
Interviewer: How do you think of names?
Yamazaki: I think really hard about them (Laugh). For example, I’d be riding the Shinkansen to Osaka for work and use the two-and-a-half hours to do research on my phone, write down memos and compare all my ideas. And sometimes, I’d still not come up with one single name. You’d be surprised how much time it takes just to decide on a name. Oh, now you mentioned Mr. Menyō, he’s quite handsome. That’s because Fuse, the art director, wanted to draw a handsome man (Laugh). You don’t often get a chance to draw a normal, handsome man for this series, so he figured he’d just go with the victim.
Interviewer: But why did you kill him with his face down then!?
Yamazaki: Hahaha! But you see him in other scenes too! By the way, the colors of his costume were chosen so they wouldn’t overlap with the members of the Arumajiki Troupe.
Interviewer: And now we have Akane’s great new mechanics, the 3D fingerprinting.
Yamazaki: I came up pretty easy with the idea of power-up the fingerprinting mechanic, but it took some time tinkering with it so it’d be easy to use. This time, you can blow the powder away from the screen with a button command, but we had to give it a lot of thought before we decided to include that. Scientific investigation in these games are basically just like a kids game, pretending like you’re a detective, so I wanted to players to really use the microphone.
Interviewer: The fingerprints that appear when you start up the comparison process, are they the fingerprints from staff members?
Yamazaki: Yes. I don’t remember whom the prints belong to, but I think mine are there too. Oh, by the way, the reason Taiho-kun (The Blue Badger) appears for a second when you start the system is because the girl who designed it, is a fan of Taihi-kun. You can really feel the love the staff has for this series in gestures like that.
Yamashino P and Nayuta Appear
Interviewer: There he is, Yamashino P. (Roger Retinz). Both Akane and the producer use smartphones.
Yamazaki: We have given the characters different phones to fit their personalities. We’d imagine for example what kind of phone Kokone would have, as she also has Monita (Widget). Odoroki’s red phone was also only decided after going through several ideas.
Interviewer: Naruhodo-kun’s phone on the other hand is a pretty dated one. Makes you wonder whether you could get one like that nowadays.
Yamazaki: It’s a pretty sturdy thing, it’s almost a wonder it still works now. Naruhodō is pretty bad with machines, so I imagine he wouldn’t be able to do a thing if he switched over to the latest model (Laugh).
Interviewer: You can perceive during the conversation with Mimi (Bonny de Famme). How do you decide on when exactly to insert a Perceive segment?
Yamazaki: We look at the balance of the whole story. For example you have this Perceive segment, and then in far in the second half of the episode, we had another one planned. But if Episode 2 only had one instance of the Perceive mechanic as a tutorial, there’d be a lot of time between the two segments, and the players might forget about it. So we decided that there would be a second time around halfway the story and wrote that into the scenario.
Interviewer: We move on to the trial to save Minuki. Here we have the animated scene that introduces Nayuta.
Yamazaki: The concept behind this animation was to give him a mystical vibe. We had decided early on to have an animated movie for his first appearance too and we had several ideas for when to use it. In Gyakuten Saiban 5, we had an animated segment just before Yugami (Simon Blackquill) appeared, but we thought it wouldn’t be fun if we did the same again, so we decided on the last part of the Investigation part. We also considered having him appear when Akane was talking about Nayuta, but it was deemed too early, so we ended up with the way we did it.
The Trial Starts! Nayuta and Akane
Yamazaki: The first part also functions as Nayuta’s introduction, so we had to rewrite the dialogue here many times. It took quite some time until we settled on “Putrid Head”. He was even worse at first.
Interviewer: How was he at his worst?
Yamazaki: He called people “Pigs” (Laugh). Well, only criminals and defense attorneys. We went really far with him at first. Of course, many people said pigs was going too far (Laugh). This time, the prosecutor has both a sharp tongue, but also alluded to Buddhistic terms, and we worked from there to arrive at his dialogue.
Interviewers: The prosecutor has to lose because it’s a game, but how do you still make sure the prosecutor appears like a fearsome opponent despite that?
Yamazaki: The most important trick to that lies in the structure of the plot. You need scenes where the prosecution turns things around too. Counter-arguments not even the players had thought of, or by having him propose a perfectly logical argument. I’d even argue that may be the most difficult about writing these scenarios. For the prosecution is destined to lose at the end, meaning they were wrong all the time. But you must make it appear that the their arguments hold water and have convincing power at the exact moment they were proposed. Nayuta has several of these satisfying turnabout scenes both in this episode and subsequent episodes.
Interviewer: Nayuta and Akane form a good duo together.
Yamazaki: Perhaps it’s because Akane and Garyū were always bickering, but I can’t really imagine Akane looking up to prosecutors without any reservations. Akane is a fan of Mitsurugi (Miles Edgeworth) and wouldn’t so easily accept other prosecutors (Laugh). Also, Akane doesn’t believe Minuki is the kiler, so that makes her cold toward Nayuta. Nayuta on the other hand seems to think highly of Akane, even taking her to the Kingdom of Kurain. It sure ain’t easy on her traveling up and down, but Akane probably appreciates her talents are recognized.
Gimmicks like the Heart Scope in the Trial
Yamazaki: During the planning phase we had already decided that we’d differentiate between the trials in the Kingdom of Kurain and those in Japan through the Spirit Channeling Visions (Divination Séances) in the Kingdom of Kurain and the Heart Scope (Mood Matrix) in Japan. So the story was written with the notion that the Heart Scope would be used. Actually, early on, we considered having a powered-up Heart Scope. Monita would’ve been upgraded to Hyper Monita and they’d be able to detect 8 emotions! and things like that. But it’d be too cumbersome, and it was a mechanic that worked perfectly without extra ideas like that, so we kept it as it was.
Interviewer: I was surprised by Minuki’s testimony about her magic trick.
Yamazaki: That was one of the challenges we set for ourselves. In the first episode, we had testimony being sung, and in the second episode we have a special testimony in the form of a magic performance. The motions here were also done through motion capture. We have special testimonies and witnesses appear in each episode, so I hope the players will enjoy these surprises.
Interviewer: The attitude of the people in the gallery changes after this magic trick.
Yamazaki: I wanted to the atmosphere in the courtroom to change completely thanks to Minuki’s trick. To show how strong Minuki was, how she could overcome anything with her smile and magic. When planning this scenario af first, it only said that she’d do a trick during her testimony, changing the mood. But it became really impressive when we decided to pull the camera back and changed her whole testimony into a magic performance. It really shows of how everyone in the team got together to pull this off.
Interviewer: And that’s it for his time.
Yamazaki: Ah, nothing substantial has been spoiled, but this is it? We’re around the half-way point of the second episode. More turnabouts follow, so please play it for yourself!
Finally, Looking Back At Episode 2
Interviewer: What is the position of Episode 2 in relation to the whole game?
Yamazaki: In the end, Episode 2 has to be fun, no matter what. Episode 1 has the important roles of serving as a tutorial as well as grabbing the attention of the player. It’s the first episode, so everyone will play through that. But in order to have players to play the whole game until the end, Episode 2 serves an important role, as it has to get a hold on the players, making them want to continue. The rival prosecutor also makes their first appearance then, so it’s crucial part of any Gyakuten Saiban game. Also, this time, we decided to make Episode 2 a two-part story. The reason for that is that Episode 1 is quite short, and if we made Episode 2 a four-part story right away, the difference would be too big and feel far too long. So the idea was to have each subsequent chapter become larger and it was quite difficult to accomplish this during the writing process. Episode 2 only has two parts, so you had to have major turnabouts within the span of one Trial Part. And the preparation for that had to also to be done within one single Investigation Part. I think that despite its relatively short length, Episode 2 is quite stuffed.
Interviewer: And people like it for that.
Yamazaki: Thank you. My fear was that people would think that a two-part episode would feel too short and unsatisfying. But I think it ended up as a good compact story, so I’m happy people like it.
More Questions About The New Prosecutor Nayuta
About the butterflies
Yamazaki: The Kurain Butterflies? They’re designed so their ends meet. The idea is that they carry the spirits of the deceased within that circle.
About the motion of clapping his hands together
Ymazaki: All the prosecutors up until now have all slammed the desk in various manners. It’s a way to attract the attention of everyone in the courtroom. This time we tried to come up with new sound effects to use, and Fuse came up with this idea.
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