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.

[Mari-Detective] Brimming with memory-filled stories the fans had longed to hear! A report of the Gyakuten Saiban 10th Anniversary Special Court, where the new title Gyakuten Saiban 5 was also announced! (2012)

Title: [Mari-Detective] Brimming with memory-filled stories the fans had longed to hear! A report of the Gyakuten Saiban 10th Anniversary Special Court, where the new title Gyakuten Saiban 5 was also announced!  / 「【まり探】『逆転』ファン垂涎の思い出話がてんこ盛り！ 最新作『逆転裁判5』も発表された“逆転裁判10周年特別法廷”レポート」
Source: Dengeki Online 

 

Summary: The special event “Gyakuten Saiban Tenth Anniversary Special Court” to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) franchise was held on Sunday January 29, 2012. Marizō writes about mystery and suspense adventure games in the Marizō Detective Agency corner of Dengeki Online and has interviewed the developers of the Gyakuten Saiban franchise multiple times, so he was present at the event too, reporting from the scene. At the venue, senior staff members Takumi Shū, director of the Gyakuten Saiban series), Yamazaki Takeshi, director of Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations) series, Eshiro Motohide, producer of Gyakuten Kenji series and more guests appeared on stage to talk look back together at the franchise together with the audience. They talked about the development of the original GBA games, but also about cut content for the Gyakuten Kenji games. They also looked at upcoming projects like the crossover game with Professor Layton on the 3DS and the live-action film which was going to premiere in a few weeks. There were also live band performances of familiar songs and the event ended with the reveal Gyakuten Saiban 5 (Ace Attorney 5 – Dual Destinies) was in development. The translated article below is a report on the event written by Marizō for Dengeki Online’s Marizō Detective Agency corner.

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

The Developers of Gyakuten Kenji Answer Questions from our Readers! How Does Prosecutor Mitsurugi Spend His Days Off!? (2009)

Title: The Developers of Gyakuten Kenji Answer Questions from our Readers! How Does Prosecutor Mitsurugi Spend His Day Off!?  /『逆転検事』開発者が読者の質問に回答！ 御剣検事の休日の過ごし方とは!?
Source: Dengeki Online

Summary: A few months after Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations) was released, Dengeki Online arranged for a special Q&A with the developers, where readers could send in questions about the game and its characters, which the developers would answer. The article was posted on August 3rd, 2009 on the Dengeki Online website and had director Yamazaki, producer Eshiro and character designer Iwamoto answer a few questions including ones about how Mitsurugi (Miles Edgeworth) spends his days off, who was inside the Proto Taiho-kun (Proto Badger) suit and who Mei (Franziska von Karma) tends to whip.
 

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

Capcom Sound Sphere 005: Gyakuten Saiban – Takumi Shū Special vol. 2 (2007)

Title: #005: Gyakuten Saiban – Takumi Shū Special vol. 2 / #005:「「逆転裁判」 巧舟スペシャル vol.2」/ 
Source: Capcom Sound Sphere (down)

Capcom Sound Sphere was an official Capcom podcast recorded by the sound teams of Capcom. In episodes 004 until 007, originally broadcast between October and November 2007, Capcom sound engineers and show hosts Sandō Yoshiki and Yamamoto Ryōji welcomed Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) creator Takumi Shū in the studio for a four part special on Gyakuten Saiban, with an emphasis on Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice), which was released earlier that year. In the second episode of this series, which was released on 26 October 2007, Sandō asks about the three men who joined Takumi this time on the planning team of Gyakuten Saiban 4. Up until Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3 – Trials & Tribulabations), Takumi had done the planning of each game all alone, but now the planning team had been expanded with a director and two planners. Takumi tells about his merry band of comrades Endō Mitsuru, director of Gyakuten Saiban 4, and the two planners Yamazaki Takeshi and Yamakawa Keisuke and also about how their unique personalities also influenced the game in more ways than one.

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

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.

Gyakuten Kenji 2 Blog Entry 2: Gyakuten Kenji Returns!

 Title: Gyakuten Kenji Returns! /「逆転検事、ふたたび！」
Source: Gyakuten Kenji 2 official site

Summary: In this blog post published on September 16, 2010 on the Gyakuten Kenji 2 (Ace Attorney Investigations 2 - Prosecutor's Gambit) blog, director Yamazaki talks about the special demo they made for the Capcom booth at the Tokyo Game Show, which was going on at the time this article was posted. He then decides to talk a bit more about the contents of that demo, which is a slightly altered version of the first episode of the upcoming game. Yamazaki explains how he came up with the idea of the story of this first episode and even reveals an alternate idea he had, but which ultimately got discarded.

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.