Ace Attorney

Episode 15

Ace Attorney, this is where you and I part ways. After 15 weeks together, it's not me, it's you. I was really hopeful in episode five that the production values were changing for the better, but nothing has improved—only my expectations have lowered. I've learned to expect the fantastic soundtrack and memorable characters I love to always be delivered with an enormous helping of questionable storytelling alterations, and “Reunion and Turnabout, Second Trial” is no different. Odd changes from the game's original plot do nothing to help this anime out.

Yay, Franziska! Ever since seeing her in the new opening sequence, I was excited to see everybody's favorite whip-happy prosecutor. Franziska is rendered in the same flat, low-quality art style as everybody else, but she's immediately recognizable through her consistent tics from the game—most visibly when seen sideways, arms raised, coiling her whip. In my earlier reviews of this show, I expressed a wish that the Ace Attorney anime would transcend its original IP and offer new stories and character development that we could glimpse in between the investigations and trials, the way we got in episode 13, when the show shared pieces of Phoenix's early life that we were never privy to in the games. But now it's just enough to see a beloved character like Franziska and sigh with relief that she's still in one piece.

Case in point—the core clues of the Reunion and Turnabout case. For some reason, Maya now wears an elaborate crown with her channeling costume. It's beautiful, and the Ace Attorney anime really wants us to acknowledge it. In the game, the way Phoenix discerned that there were two channeling costumes—one that Maya wore, and one that the murderer wore—was by observing that there's only a bullet hole in the sleeve of the one in the courtroom evidence bag, not in the one from Lotta's photo. That fact still holds true (as there is no bullet hole in the costume in the photo) but for some reason, the anime has Phoenix pointing out that the woman in the photo isn't wearing a channeling crown. Wouldn't that just fall off during a struggle? No, they specifically have Pearl point out that it's weaved really tightly into Maya's hair. Basically, they went through a lot of effort and dialogue changes to make the channeling crown a major part of the case, and for what? It serves exactly the same role as the bullet hole did originally.

Likewise, why has the anime chosen to reveal the murderer's identity? Several times in this episode, we see the bad guys chatting about what they've done. One of them even makes the exact expression that they have in the photo Lotta took! Since the show moves more quickly than the games did, it seems to be giving up any hope of the viewer piecing together the facts on their own. They're making this so obvious that it hits you in the face, and I hate that.

There are still some glimmers of the game's heart. Franziska's delivery of her “go spend the rest of your life under the flooring” line to Wright was pitch-perfect. When Pearl channeled Mia into her small body, the judge's reaction was priceless. And at the end of the episode, when Phoenix makes a breakthrough, the “Cornered” theme gave me new life. It's not enough to save this show though. Ace Attorney has been a valuable lesson in how even anime based on amazing IP can end up crappy. Studios can't leave great stories to flounder, hoping their already-considerable audience base will overlook bad quality. All Ace Attorney had to do was meet its great music, lovable characters, and tense storytelling halfway, but it didn't.

Rating: C-

Ace Attorney is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.