Director Takumi and Producer Eshiro Were Also Present: A Report on A Store Signing and Handshake Event for The Nintendo 3DS Game Gyakuten Saiban 4 (2017)

Title: Director Takumi and Producer Eshiro Were Also Present: A Report on A Store Signing and Handshake Event for The Nintendo 3DS Game Gyakuten Saiban 4 / 「巧ディレクターと江城プロデューサーも来店した，ニンテンドー3DS「逆転裁判4」店頭サイン＆握手会をレポート」
Source: 4Gamer

Summary: On September 22, 2017, the Bic Camera Shinjuku West Exit Store held a special signing and handshake event to celebrate the release of the Nintendo 3DS version of Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice). The event started at 18:30 and lasted for an hour. 4Gamer reported on this event two days later, noting that despite the rain, there were many fans to see Takumi Shū, who supervised the original Nintendo DS game released in 2007, and Eshiro Motohide, who was an assistant-producer on the original title. 4Gamer also got do a very short interview with the two men to reminiscence about the development of the original 2007 game.

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The Answer to Unfinished Matters - A Story Of Succession: Eshiro Motohide & Yamazaki Takeshi (2013)

Title: The Answer to Unfinished Matters - A Story Of Succession: Eshiro Motohide & Yamazaki Takeshi / 「やり残したことに答えが出せた、"継承”を描く物語 江城元秀X山崎剛」

Source: Gyakuten Saiban 5 Official Complete Guide + Special Episode Guide 

Summary: The official guide for Gyakuten Saiban 5 (Ace Attorney 5 - Dual Destinies), released in 2013, contains a long interview with producer Eshiro Motohide and scenario director Yamazaki Takeshi, where they talk about a variety of topics concerning the game, ranging from the jump to 3D graphics, how some characters were originally conceived and how they differ from the end product, the ideas behind the change in user interface and adding consumer-friendly options, and also the themes of the game and the thoughts that went behind creating the stories of the main characters. The interview also contains several extra columns, where the developers talk about smaller subjects, like references and other fanservice points found in the game, they talk about the Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations) series they worked on too, and about smaller bits of trivia concerning the game, like the connections between Themis Legal Academy and a certain Gyakuten Kenji character or for example script conventions.

Images are taken from the source. Copyrights belongs to the respective owners.

Gyakuten Kenji Planning Document (Capcom Town Excerpts) (2023)

Title: Gyakuten Kenji Planning Document (Capcom Town Excerpts) / 逆転検事企画書
Source: Capcom Town Museums

Summary: On June 12, 2023, Capcom opened Capcom Town, a website to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the game company. On August 21, a few pages from the original planning proposal for Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth) were posted in the Museum section of Capcom Town. These were the official documents for internal use to explain what the game was going to be about. In the four pages posted, we see what they wanted to bring over from the main series, but also how they tried to differentiate the game from the main series in terms of gameplay. While in other interviews, director Yamazaki has told about a time when they were contemplating making a game featuring Akane (Ema Skye), the pages shown here are from the time when they had firmly decided on using Mitsurugi (Miles Edgeworth) as the playable character in the planned game.

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Celebrating the Release of Gyakuten Saiban 4 - A Discussion with 4 Members of the Team (2007)

Title: Celebrating the Release of Gyakuten Saiban 4 - A Discussion with 4 Members of the Team / 『逆転裁判４』発売記念　チーム４者対談

Source: Gyakuten Saiban Official Fan Book 3

 

Summary: Gyakuten Saiban Official Fan Book 3 was released in 2007 coinciding with the release of Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice), containing several pages on the development of the game. The longest article in the book is an interview with four members of the core development team of Gyakuten Saiban 4: the series supervisor and scenario writer of this game Takumi Shū, director Endō Mitsuru, producer Matsukawa Minae and planner Yamazaki Takeshi. The four discuss how the team structure changed for the development of this game, and the difficulties that arose from this transformation. Other topics discussed are about Takumi's drinking, things they'd argue about during development and changes made to the story. This interview is noteworthy for featuring director Endō Mitsuru, as he seldom appears in promotional material for this game.

A Collaboration between Gyakuten Saiban 4 (3DS ver.) and Wanzhuji, Running Now! Takumi (Director) and Eshiro (Producer) Review the Food!! And We Ask About The Future of the Gyakuten Series (2018)

Title: A Collaboration between Gyakuten Saiban 4 (3DS ver.) and Wanzhuji, Running Now! Takumi (Director) and Eshiro (Producer) Review the Food!! And We Ask About The Future of the Gyakuten Series / 「3DS版『逆転裁判4』×万豚記コラボ実施中！　巧D＆江城Pが食レポ!!　『逆転』シリーズの展開も訊く」

Source: Famitsu 

 

Summary: Following the release of the 3DS port of Gyakuten Saiban 4 ("Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice") in December 2017, the Chinese-style restaurant chain Wanzhuji, with restaurants all across Japan, featured a special collaboration with that game, with special sets recommended by Gyakuten Saiban 4 characters Odoroki Hōsuke (Apollo Justice), Garyū Kyōya (Klavier Gavin) and Minuki (Trucy), which also came with special stickers for each time you ordered one of these sets. Editors of Famitsu interviewed the producer Eshiro Motohide and director Takumi Shū in Feburary 2018 as they tried the food, but also asked them about special memories they have of Gyakuten Saiban 4 as well as about the future of the series.

Images are taken from the source article. Copyright belongs to the respective owners.

Gyakuten Kenji 2 Blog Entry 27: Thank you for your hard work! (2011)

Title: Thank you for your hard work! /「お疲れさまでした！」
Source: Gyakuten Kenji 2 official site

Summary: In the one of the last posts published on the official Gyakuten Kenji 2 (Ace Attorney Investigations 2 - Prosecutor's Gambit) developers blog, dated February 24th 2011, assistant producer Shiozawa Natsuki looks back at the development of the game that was released just a few weeks earlier. She reminiscences about the summer, when director and lead writer Yamazaki realized they weren't going to meet the scenario deadlines at this rate, and decided to lock himself up in a meeting room for months with just a computer to make sure he'd finish the scenario in time. And time flies when you're cooped up all day in a small room, and sometimes, even things like birthdays come second to work.

Images are taken from the source article. Copyrights belongs to the respective owners.

Producer Matsukawa and Director Takumi Shū talk about Gyakuten Saiban 4!! (2006)

Title: Producer Matsukawa and Director Takumi Shū talk about Gyakuten Saiban 4!! / 「『逆転裁判4』について松川プロデューサー＆巧舟ディレクターが語る!!」
Source: Famitsu

Summary: On June 23rd, 2006, Famitsu posted an interview on their site with producer Matsukawa and scenario writer Takumi Shū about Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 – Apollo Justice), which was still in development. The interview had originally been posted in June 30, 2006 issue of Famitsu, but the online version includes parts that had been cut from the paper version due to page constraints. At this point in time, the new protagonist Odoroki Hōsuke had been announced together with his assistant Minuki (Trucy), and it had also been revealed the game was set seven years after the finale of the previous game, but little more was known at that point about the game, as this interview was also set before the bigger Tokyo Game Show presentation several months later. A lot of the interview therefore focuses on how this project got started, about Odoroki and Minuki’s roles in the game and about how the story will turn out. Interestingly, the interview title refers to Takumi as the director, even though he isn’t the director of Gyakuten Saiban 4, whereas the introduction of this article (not translated here) refers to him as being responsible for the scenario of the game.  

 

Images are taken from the source article. Copyright belongs to the respective owners.

Gyakuten Saiban, The Meaning of Design (2007)

Title: Gyakuten Saiban, The Meaning of Design / 逆転裁判、デザインそのココロ
Source: Gyakuten Saiban Official Fan Book 3

 

Summary: Gyakuten Saiban Official Fan Book 3 was released in 2007 coinciding with the release of Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice) and therefore contains some pages about the development of that game. One of the segments includes is an interview with Yamazaki Takeshi, who worked as planner on Gyakuten Saiban 4 and the previously released Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Ace Attorney 1 DS). This is a unique interview, because it is a rare interview with Yamazaki in his role as a planner on a game directed by someone else, before he went on to become the director of the Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations) series and later on the director of the mainline games. In this interview, he explains about the work of a planner. In his case, he was deeply involved with the English localization of the Nintendo DS port of the first Gyakuten Saiban, while he had more responsibilities for Gyakuten Saiban 4. He is also asked about working in the Gyakuten Saiban team and about how own future plans.

Gyakuten Saiban 4 Blog Entry 13: Striking Poses (2007)

Title: Striking Poses / 「ポーズを決める」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban 4 official site

Summary: The thirteenth post on the Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 – Apollo Justice) blog (originally posted on April 20, 2007) was posted about a week after the game was released, so director Endō Mitsuru first thanks everyone who bought the game and tells a story about witnessing someone nearby playing the game. He then moves on to explain how to create the animations of the characters, sometimes the development staff had to do the poses themselves in order to explain what they were looking for. They also made photographs of these poses, and in this post, he reveals two of these pictures that served as models for scenes used in the game itself.

Images are taken from the source article. Copyright belongs to the respective owners.

Yomigaeru Gyakuten Character Blog Entry 3: Leaving It Up To Heaven (2005)

Title: Leaving It Up To Heaven / 「神頼み」

 Source: Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten official site

Summary: The official blog of Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Ace Attorney (1) DS) consisted of two seperate columns. The normal columns were written by director/writer Takumi, producer Matsukawa and the occasional guest writer, but the character blogs consisted of dialogues between Naruhodō (Phoenix Wright) and Mayoi (Maya Fey) as they bantered about all kinds of topics related to the upcoming game release. In the third entry of the character blog on August 19, 2005, Naruhodō and Mayoi talk about the new episode which would be added to the DS release and reveal some of the case ideas Takumi had played with before settling on the story of the episode which would eventually become Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Rise from the Ashes)

Gyakuten Saiban 3 Blog Entry 1: Greetings (2004)

Title: Greetings / 「ごあいさつ」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban 3 official site (down)

Summary: In the first column written for the official Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3 - Trials & Tribulations) website, Naruhodō (Phoenix Wright) and Mayoi (Maya Fey) greet the readers and explain that Takumi Shū, the director and writer of the game, has left for his vacation, so they decide to show off the writing diary Takumi kept during the development process of the game. They comment on the little notes scribbled by Takumi in this diary. In this first column, we see how Takumi came up with the plot of the game’s first episode Turnabout Memories.

Turnabout Anecdotes and Memoirs of Two Decades (2021)

Title: Turnabout Anecdotes and Memoirs of Two Decades / 『逆転の逸話と20年の回想』
Source:  Famitsu, November 4 issue, 2021
 

Summary: Famitsu celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) franchise with a special counting over thirty pages, with retrospectives on the whole franchise, from games to spin-off material and also several interviews with key staff members who have worked on the various games in these twenty years. In this article, Famitsu interviews series creator Takumi Shū, addressing points like how it was working on the original game twenty years ago, how the writing process goes, people he worked with and the way the series has grown into a multimedia franchise that is much more than just one single GameBoy Advance game. 

 

A Long Interview With the Developers: The Core Truth of the Gyakuten Saiban series (2007)

Title: A Long Interview With the Developers: The Core Truth of the Gyakuten Saiban series / 開発者ロングインタビュー『逆転裁判』シリーズの真理』

Source: Gyakuten Saiban 4 Official Guidebook

 

Summary: The official guidebook for Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice) includes a very long interview on the development of the game with three core staff members of the team: series supervisor Takumi Shū, art director Nuri Kazuya and producer Matsukawa Minae. Many questions are asked and answered, from topics regarding how the game was promoted to how characters were designed, how the story of the game was written, to Takumi's favorite mystery stories, how gameplay elements changed the way they had to work, and basically all aspects of the whole development cycle. The three are also asked about their favorite characters and stories in the series, as well as about when things didn't as initially planned. 

 

This article contains spoilers for the game.

 

Objection to Takumi Shū from the Developers!! (2007)

Title: Objection to Takumi Shū from the Developers!! /「開発者から巧舟へ異議あり！！」

Source: Gyakuten Saiban 4 Official Guidebook

 

Summary: The official guidebook for Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice) features a short segment where various members of the development team finally got a chance to object to all the work Takumi Shū (as general supervisor of the game) made them do. From programmers to graphics artists, sound engineers and even the director of the game, they all have something to say to their boss who sometimes seemed only to be “bullying” his team with detailed directions regarding their work. Of course, it was all worth it to create the game. The funny segment gives a unique look into the various things the team members had to do under Takumi’s directions.

Twitter: Musical Memories (2021)

Title: Musical Memories

Source: Sugimori Masakazu's Twitter

Summary: On May 22, 2021, Sugimori Masakazu wrote a few tweets regarding his role in the development of the very first Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) game on the GameBoy Advance. As the composer of the soundtrack of the first game in the series, he was responsible for a large part of the atmosphere of the first game. In this short series of tweets, Sugimori talks about how he basically had complete freedom over the soundtrack, but what's even more interesting is the reveal by Sugimori how it was Mori Atsushi, who worked on the sound effects of the game, who made many sound-related series staples possible in the first place.

In the translation below, each paragraph is a seperate tweet. 

Secret Footage – Final Episode: Become Stained In The Colors of Surprise (Odoroki)! (2007)

Title: Secret Footage – Final Episode: Become Stained In The Colors of Surprise (Odoroki)!/ 『極秘動画　最終話　オドロキ色に染めろ』
Source: Source: Gyakuten Saiban 4 official website (not available anymore due to site renewal)

Summary: The official Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice) website started posting “Secret Footage” late March 2007 in anticipation of the game’s release. These videos were dated October 2005 and were recordings of the earliest meetings of the development team. The third and final video is set a few months after the initial announcement. The design of the main character Odoroki Hōsuke is almost finished, but there are still some points that haven’t been decided on. Endō Mitsuru (Director), Nuri Kazuya (Designer) and Yamazaki Takeshi (Planning) are holding a meeting to decide on the basic colors of Odoroki’s clothes while Takumi Shū (Supervision) is in Tokyo for work. Nuri has prepared several color variations for them to pick from and it doesn’t take long for the three to decide on a color, but not everyone seems to be happy with their decision.

This article is a full transcript of the video. The video is not available here.

Gyakuten Saiban 4 SE: Sandō (2007)

Title: Gyakuten Saiban 4 SE: Sandō / 『逆転裁判4 SE: サンドウ』

Source: CAP’STONE (link not available anymore)

Summary: In 2007, Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice) sound effect designer Sandō Yoshiki wrote a short piece for CAP’STONE, the official site for Capcom’s sound team about creating the sound effects for the game. He writes about updating the sound effects for the game in a way to keep the familiar feeling, but also about recording new sound effects, even if they are a bit weird, like the ‘sound of someone who falls on the floor while holding an acoustic guitar.’

Gyakuten Saiban 4 BGM: Horiyama (2007)

Title: Gyakuten Saiban 4 BGM: Horiyama / 『逆転裁判4 BGM: ホリヤマ』
Source: CAP’STONE (link not available anymore)

Summary: In a short 2007 piece on CAP’STONE, the official site for Capcom’s sound team, Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice) composer Horiyama Toshihoko revealed the unlikely story of how he created the theme song for the prosecutor Garyū Kyōya (Klavier Gavin). The piece Love Love Guilty (Guilty Love) is quite unlike any of the music tracks heard in earlier games in this series, but Horiyama reveals there’s also a very odd story behind the creation of the song.

From Surviban to Gyakuten Saiban (2017)

Title: From Surviban to Gyakuten Saiban / 「『サバイバン』から『逆転裁判』へ」
Source: 15th Anniversary Gyakuten Saiban Series Encyclopedia 2001-2016

Summary: 15th Anniversary Gyakuten Saiban Series Encyclopedia 2001-2016 includes a small section about Surviban, the prototype game which would eventually become the first Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney GBA) game released in 2001. While still the same courtroom mystery adventure game at heart, Surviban also has a few distinctive differences from the final product, including the game title, the cast of main characters and the stories themselves. The article quotes from the original game proposal for internal Capcom use, and includes the character descriptions for the original five cast members. Both protagonist Naruhodō Ryūichi (Phoenix Wright) and rival Mitsurugi Reiji (Miles Edgeworth) retained their original names, but the assistant, mentor and police detective have different names from their Gyakuten Saiban counterparts and all five characters feature completely different backstories. Includes are also three proposal pages where the use of the camera in the game is explained and what the concept behind the witnesses is.

Looking Back At Episode 3 The Rite of Turnabout with Gyakuten Saiban 6 Director Yamazaki (2016)

Title: Looking Back At Episode 3 The Rite of Turnabout with Gyakuten Saiban 6 Director Yamazaki (2016) /「『逆転裁判６』山﨑ディレクターと振り返る第３話「逆転の儀式」
Source: Nintendo Dream, October issue, 2016

Summary: The October 2016 issue of Nintendo Dream featured an article starrring Yamazaki Takeshi, director of 2016’s Gyakuten Saiban 6 (Ace Attorney 6 - Spirit of Justice). Together with the people of Nintendo Dream, Yamazaki played through part of the third episode of the game, The Rite of Turnabout. He talks about early versions of the game, the reintroduction of Mayoi (Maya Fey) in the series, the difficulties that come with writing the third episode in a Gyakuten Saiban game in general and how Gyakuten Saiban 6 serves as the culmination for the whole series, paving the way for future titles.

Beware of spoilers for this episode.

Images are taken from the source article. Copyright belongs to their respective owners.