Gyakuten Saiban, The Meaning of Design (2006)

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

Summary: Gyakuten Saiban Official Fan Book  was released in 2006, in the period between the release of Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Ace Attorney 1 DS) and Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice). As a book aimed at fans of the series in this interim period, the book contains an interview with series writer/director Takumi, in which he looks back at the six years in which he has worked on the series until now. He talks about working on the first game and the difficulties they experienced during its development, from him not knowing how to write characters to the composer having to leave the project mid-way. He also talks about how it's almost miraculous how the three games formed one cohesive story, as he was always more concerned about making the next deadline and thus could not actually plan forward.

This is how the characters from the popular game Gyakuten Saiban were born. An interview with illustrator Iwamoto (2009)

Title: This is how the characters from the popular game Gyakuten Saiban were born. An interview with illustrator Iwamoto /「人気ゲーム「逆転裁判」シリーズのキャラクターはこうして生まれた。イラストレーター 岩元氏を直撃インタビュー」
Source: Wacom (article down)

Summaruy: On February 4th, 2009, Wacom, known for its graphics tablets, posted an interview on its official website with Iwamoto Tatsurō, one of the main character designers of the Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) franchise. In this interview, Iwamoto tells about how he first got into drawing, why he became a freelance illustrator after working at game developers, the thinking process behind creating characters like the ones we know from Gyakuten Saiban and of course, how the drawing tablet plays a work in his life as an illustrator.

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

Gyakuten Saiban Blog Entry 11: Every Meeting Is Fleeting Yet Precious (1) (2001)

Title: Every Meeting Is Fleeting Yet Precious (1) / 「一期一会 (1)」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban official site (down)

Summary: In the eleventh blog post for the original Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney 1 GBA) for the Game Boy Advance, Takumi looks back at the official disbandment of the Gyakuten Saiban development team and decides to take a look at all of the members in the team who contributed to the game. Which he can do, because it was a very, very small team. He first starts off with the graphics team, consisting of Suekane Kumiko and Iwamoto Tatsurō. Suekane left Capcom some time after this game, but is still known for having a big influence on the characters in the game, not just visually, but also in terms of their story background. Iwamoto would stay on as a designer for both the Gyakuten Saiban series and the Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations) series. This interview with Suekane is definitely also recommend material to read with this blog entry.

Turnabout Interview 1 - Suekane Kumiko (2005)

Title: Turnabout Interview 1 - Suekane Kumiko / 「逆転インタビュー①　スエカネクミコ」
Source: Turnabout Crossover

Summary: An interview with Suekane Kumiko, character designer for the first Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) on the Game Boy Advance. The interview was included in the booklet Turnabout Crossover (2005), which was included with the Limited Editon of the Nintendo DS release of Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Ace Attorney DS). Suekane, now a freelance artist, talks about how she designed some of the characters, but also how she had a lot of influence on the role of the characters within the story. She also comments on the special comic she drew for Turnabout Crossover as well as simply how she does her work.

Suekane Kumiko
For GBA Gyakuten Saiban 1, Suekane worked on the character designs and other art-related work, and was responsible for commenting on the story. She has left Capcom now and is now ‘drawing comics and illustrations and stuff’ as a freelancer.