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Below is a list of the people who have directed the various Gyakuten Saiban games in chronological order. Each entry starts off with a list of the titles they have worked on and their career up until the point they got to work on the series. This is followed by their input on the series, as gathered from interviews and blog entries. Each entry ends with what happened to them after they left Gyakuten Saiban, but only right after that (this page is not meant to be a detailed and up-to-date write-up of each of these directors' careers).

Takumi Shū 

Titles directed:
  • Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney GBA) (2001)
  • Gyakuten Saiban 2 (Ace Attorney 2 - Justice for All GBA) (2002)
  • Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3 - Trials & Tribulations GBA) (2004)
  • Gyakuten Saiban - Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Ace Attorney DS) (2005) 
  • Layton Kyōju VS Gyakuten Saiban (Professor Layton VS Ace Attorney) (2012)
  • Dai Gyakuten Saiban - Naruhodō Ryūnosuke no Bōken (The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures) (2015)
  • Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2 - Naruhodō Ryūnosuke no Kakugo (The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve) (2017) 

Career before Gyakuten Saiban: Takumi worked as a planner on Gakkō no Kowai Uwasa - Hanako-san ga kita!! ('Scary Rumors at School – Hanako-san is here!!') and Dino Crisis. While he had been director on the original Dino Crisis, things apparently went so bad, he was put on planning again. He directed Dino Crisis 2.

Working on Gyakuten Saiban: The creator of the series. As the original Gyakuten Saiban was developed in a very small team, Takumi had to take several roles in the team, including planning, writing and directing. He has performed these three roles in most of the Gyakuten Saiban games he has been involved with, making him a very hands-on creator as he controls both the direction the game takes as well as the story-related contents. This tendecy to do everything has occasionally also resulted in trouble,for example when they realized only some way in the development schedule of 2015's Dai Gyakuten Saiban that the scenario would be far too long for one game and they had to split it across two games. He also admits that he's also usually performing these three major roles because he's not good at letting things go and delegating work. He directed the corssover title Professor Layton VS Gyakuten Saiban together with Konno Atsushi, who has worked for companies like Capcom, SEGA and finally Level-5.

Career after Gyakuten Saiban: He wrote and directed 2010's Ghost Trick. He is also always involved in the various side-projects of the Gyakuten Saiban franchise, for example working on scripts and original episodes for the Gyakuten Saiban anime.

Endō Mitsuru

Titles directed:
  • Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice) (2007)

Career before Gyakuten Saiban: Endō entered Capcom around 1997. He was a planner on Mega Man X4. He worked on various titles like Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter and Mega Man X: Command Mission as game designer. He was credited as the director on Disney's Hide & Sneak.

Working on Gyakuten Saiban: Gyakuten Saiban 4 was the first title in the series not to be directed by Takumi. Endō is a big fan of mystery fiction himself and had nominated himself with his superiors to become director on this title. For his job interview with Capcom, Endō had made a game proposal about a detective game where the player would examine the whole crime scene in 3D. He had never let the idea go and even Takumi had heard of this idea. During the planning process of Gyakuten Saiban 4, Takumi told him he wanted to use Endō's idea for this game, which ended up as in the 3D investigation parts of this game. As a fellow mystery fan, Takumi, Endō and planner Yamazaki talked much about ideas for this game during the planning process.

Career after Gyakuten Saiban: Endō would continue working as game designer and planner for titles like Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate, Resident Evil 6 and Monster Hunter World.

Yamazaki Takeshi

Titles directed: 
  • Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations) (2009)
  • Gyakuten Kenji 2  ('Turnabout Prosecutor 2') (2011)
  • Gyakuten Saiban 5 (Ace Attorney 5 - Dual Destinies) (2013) [Scenario director]
  • Gyakuten Saiban 6 (Ace Attorney 6 - Spirit of Justice) (2016)

Career before Gyakuten Saiban: N/A.

Working on Gyakuten Saiban: Directly after his employment at Capcom, Yamazaki was put on the Gyakuten Saiban team to work on Gyakuten Saiban - Yomigaeru Gyakuten. He had been a big fan of the series for a long time, and even had to write a review/report on Gyakuten Saiban 3 as one of his earliest assignments before he was officially put on any development teams. Yamazaki worked as planner on both Gyakuten Saiban - Yomigaeru Gyakuten and Gyakuten Saiban 4. He was involved with the planning of the localization of Gyakuten Saiban - Yomigaeru Gyakuten, the first game in the series to be released overseas as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. He also worked on designing how the second screen of the DS would be used, as well as the scientific investigation segments. For Gyakuten Saiban 4, he was responsible for more tasks, like writing some of the "Investigate" dialogues and working on in-game presentation. He was approached by series producer Eshiro to create a spin-off title of the Gyakuten Saiban series, which became the Gyakuten Kenji games. Like Takumi, Yamazaki does planning, writing and direction for his games, but contrary to Takumi, Yamazaki does not all of the writing for the games he directs himself, but leads a team of 2-4 others writers who also contribute. Gyakuten Saiban 5 was the first main series title Yamazaki directed, which was quite a pressure on him as it was a series he himself loved. He is credited as the scenario director in this game, as he wanted to be able to focus on the most important part of the game, the story. Seto Yasuhiro served as the game director of this game. The workload of the director was once again split for Gyakuten Saiban 6, where Yamazaki was credited as director, while art director Fuse also served as co-director. This was also necessary as Yamazaki moved away from Osaka to Tokyo during the development, with Fuse taking over the daily tasks overseeing the development team in Osaka.

Career after Gyakuten Saiban: Yamazaki Takeshi left Capcom in 2020. He's part of the doujin circle Hareyama Games, where he creates board and card games with Gyakuten Saiban series illustrator Iwamoto Tatsurō as one of his colleagues.

Seto Yasuhiro

Titles directed:
  • Gyakuten Saiban 5 (Ace Attorney 5 - Dual Destinies) (2013) [Scenario director]

Career before Gyakuten Saiban: Seto worked on technical support for Konami's PES: Pro Evolution Soccer 2011-2014. For Capcom, he worked on several Street Fighter III titles and Clock Tower 3 as planner and as a writer on Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. He also directed the latter game, as well as Resident Evil: Survivor 2 - Code: Veronica and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles.

Working on Gyakuten Saiban: Seto became the game director of Gyakuten Saiban 5 in a role accompanying Yamazaki's role as the scenario director. As per Seto's own explanation, Yamazaki was the one who supervised the scenario, while Seto was responsible for supervising the development team as a whole. It was his job deciding on the overall direction of the game, as everyone on the team had ideas they wanted to bring on the table, which he had to mold into one product. He cites for example the many clashes scenario director Yamazaki and his team of writers had with producer Eshiro: both sides want to create something good, but a good product as seen by the producer is not always what the writers think is good creatively. Seto had to find the common ground between everyone involved with this game and decide on a clear direction for everyone.

Career after Gyakuten Saiban: Seto worked on the game design of the remakes of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 and as script writer for Resident Evil Revelations 2.

Fuse Takurō

Titles directed:
  • Gyakuten Saiban 6 (Ace Attorney 6 - Spirit of Justice) (2016) 

Career before Gyakuten Saiban: After graduating, Fuse got a job at a small game company in Tokyo. He later became a freelance artist, after which he joined Capcom. The first game he worked on at Capcom was Ghost Trick, though his exact task is unspecified

Working on Gyakuten Saiban: Someone of the Gyakuten Saiban 4 team had recommended Fuse as a new employee who was great at illustrations to the team of Gyakuten Kenji 2, where he was put in charge of the still event cut scenes, the openings and endings. He then became the main character/art designer for Gyakuten Saiban 5, a role he reprised for Gyakuten Saiban 6. He was also made the co-director for Gyakuten Saiban 6, overseeing the development of the game together with main director Yamazaki. His tasks included the supervision of tasks not related to the story, as well as serving as a director on site, as Yamazaki had to move away from Capcom (in Osaka) to Tokyo during the development of the game.

Career after Gyakuten Saiban: Fuse is still a Capcom employee and has worked on original Gyakuten Saiban art for the Gyakuten Saiban Art Gallery exhibition held in April 2017.

Kodama Shinsuke

Titles directed: Gyakuten Saiban 123 Naruhodō Selection (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy) (2019)

Career before Gyakuten Saiban: Kodama worked as on planning and game design on titles like Mega Man Battle Network 6, Mega Man Star Force and Star Force 2 and Lost Planet 2.

Working on Gyakuten Saiban: The first time Kodama was credited in a Gyakuten Saiban-related title was for Professor Layton VS Gyakuten Saiban, where he was credited for game design. He would be credited for Lead Planning and Lead Managing for both of the Dai Gyakuten Saiban titles. The 2019 multi-platform release of Gyakuten Saiban 123 Naruhodō Selection would be the first time Kodama would helm the directing role in this franchise, even if he is mostly overseeing the porting process.

Career after Gyakuten Saiban: N/A.

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