Gyakuten Saiban: Sono "Shinjitsu", Igi Ari!

Ace Attorney, alongside Pokemon and JJBA, is one of my absolute favourite media franchises. I have spent countless hours playing the games over and over, producing fanworks, and discussing them at essay-length. So, as much as I appreciate the need to be objective and focused in my review, I feel that it needs to be said:

I hate this anime. I hate it so fucking much.

Sono "Shinjitsu" Igi Ari is an adaptation of the first two games in the series, and right off the bat we've hit a huge stumbling block. Each of these two games would be more fit to a full 24 episode anime ... in their own right than being crammed into one cour each. Unsurprisingly, a lot of content was trimmed in the process of fitting both games, and what content survived the cull is rushed through at breakneck pace.

The dialogue is cut down the most, and being that the source material uses mostly text-based storytelling this is a huge blow. Losing so much dialogue not only robs the series of much of its charm, but also does serious damage to its characterisation. Phoenix in particular is characterised mostly through his constant snarky, quipping inner monologue, which is almost entirely absent here.

We barely get to know most of the characters, making it difficult to be invested in their character arcs - and that's just the ones whose arcs were actually shown in the anime instead of being skimmed over. Many characters are stripped down to the barest of plot relevance, and others are reduced to nothing more than a cameo appearance.

The bread and butter of Ace Attorney is its contradictions, the solving of which drives the murder mystery plots the series revolves around. Even these are changed, however, in the name of this streamlined approach. Twists are replaced with simplified, obvious alternatives that not only remove the satisfaction of seeing the more obtuse mysteries cracked, but also make you question the logic of everyone responsible for presenting these flawed arguments in the first place, making it much harder to take the prosecutors seriously as competent opponents.

The trimmed-down dialogue also cuts key context on evidence used throughout the series. One of the most important principles of good detective fiction is that all clues used to solve the mystery should be clearly shown - that the audience should have all the necessary tools to solve the mystery themselves. While the games did this by sheer necessity of the medium, the anime makes no such effort, making the resolutions often feel cheap and unearned.

This pacing severely damages the presentation of the anime, sacrificing any attempt to preserve the dramatic tension of the games - most contradictions are resolved almost as soon as they come up. And even outside of issues caused by the pacing, the presentation suffers. The quality of the art and animation here is appalling. The errors are constant and glaring. The animation is often comically sloppy. The character designs also stray from the original designs to their detriment, going with an oddly wide-faced look that gives the characters strange facial proportions. Also, they can never quite seem to get Phoenix's hair-spikes right, with them changing shape every time we see them. There is also an excessive overuse of CG animation to cut corners, most obviously in the CG court gallery that has, for whatever reason, been made so much more visible than it was in the source material, as if deliberately trying to highlight how poor the animation is.

The effects used for dramatic emphasis are cheesy, and adapt the tone of the games poorly - the more abstract effects of the source are replaced with literal auras and dramatic gusts of wind.

The voice cast is similarly poor, featuring many miscast or noticably inexperienced actors. The entire cast seems to either underact or overact with little middle ground. The only notable exception is Yuuki Aoi as Maya Fey, who seems intent on stealing every scene she is in.

The anime handles Maya well in general, especially in comparison to its treatment of many other characters. Not only is her character arc left more or less intact, but the animators emphasise her goofy and hyperactive nature far better than a set of 14 sprites ever could.

On the subject of things the anime did well, most of the anime-original content is quite good. Ignoring whatever logic lead A-1 to add anime-original content whilst also cutting game-canon content, the additional focus on Phoenix, Edgeworth, and Larry's shared backstory, and adding the Signal Samurai motif that represents their friendship (as well as giving some background to Edgeworth's secret love of Super Sentai series) enriches the dynamic these characters have.

The cuts made do sometimes work to the series' benefit, too. Turnabout Big Top, which is considered by many to be the worst case in the franchise (which it isn't, by the way - fight me nerds) benefits from reduced screentime on some of its more irritating supporting characters, such as Trilo Quist, or that fucking clown. There does seem to be a rule of inverse quality in this adaptation, though - the worst cases are the ones handled the best, whereas the cases that were the series highlight in the source suffer the most from these alterations.

It's hard to say what the point of this anime is. It was made by A-1's b-team (now CloverWorks, a seperate studio) with little care or attention put into it. At worst, this was a shoddy adaptation by a studio looking to make a quick buck. At best, this was a misguided attempt to adapt a great series by people who have a fundamental lack of understanding of what made these games so good in the first place.

One way or another, this is an awful adaptation that should only be watched by people who are already fans of the series, and are more interested in seeing another interpretation of the story than in seeing a competent adaptation - and even then, they should go in with low expectations.

Please don't let this be your introduction to the franchise.

Story/Plot: 3/10
Characters: 3/10
Animation/Art: 1/10
Sound: 3/10

Overall: 2/10

For Fans Of: Detective Conan, Umineko no Naku Koro Ni

(Side note: Yes, I'm using the English names. Get fucked, weebs.)

To quote Franziska Von Karma, this anime is "A foolishly foolish idea born from the foolish mind of a foolhardy foolish fool". Being a large fan of the games, I was highly enthused to hear of an anime adaptation coming, however upon its release I was only met with a painful and bland imitation of the original games, and even separately so, this anime is still rather one-note and drab.

To the Anime's credit, I was rather pleased to see a good chunk of the anime's script was directly adapted from the games, this atleast lead to a coherent and unique narrative; and the sound ... design was even better, being quite possibly being the best thing in the series, and feels like a very pleasing overhaul of the original game soundtrack.

However this is where my compliments to the series end. Moving onto the art design, everything seems somewhat... wrong... A friend of mine says that A-1 has "SAO-ified" all of the character designs, which I'm unsure of how true that is, but everything looks stilted and off regardless. It would probably also be prudent to mention Phoenix's stilted running animation in the intro for a majority of the episodes before it was fixed in the latter half.

On top of this, the delivery and general scene direction is probably the worst thing this anime has to offer, and moved this anime from "Boring" to "Awful" in my eyes, as everything is done without heart or feeling. This is a hard point to describe without spoilers but I''ll try my upmost; in the original games where there were scenes of high-tension and desperate action, with races against time and scurrying to find the right answer, there were instead.. not... Characters that were supposed to look and sound devastated at something, instead sounded just slightly annoyed, moreso like the local takeout got their order wrong, and not the levels of upset that were supposed to be shown. One scene in particular where a character was supposed to rush in just in time, with the loud and epic soundtrack making the viewer pumped, was instead replaced by a fairly quiet scene, and the character just walking in, without so-much a hint of tension.

Furthermore, I dislike how character relationships are handled. Characters whose relationships were supposed to feel slightly off and people were maybe untrustworthy, were over-clarified so there was no longer the tension of "Should we trust them?" or "Is this person trying to deceive us?"

This anime disappointed me. In my original list of things that upset me, I was also displeased that they had only adapted 2 of the original trilogy of games, however with the announcement of the second season of the anime just a few days before the writing of this review, I am hopeful that A-1 will infact have fixed the blatant errors in the anime and not ruin mine, and many others, favourite game in the franchise.

OBJECTION! I received new evidence regarding this anime. The prosecution has been approached with the following review.

Story:
These court cases are taken from the Ace Attorney games, but as I never played them, I have no idea how much they left out or added. Whatever, the laws of the court in this anime are pretty weird. Apparently every suspect is guilty untill proven innocent, and even when proven innocent, as long as you can't present the actual culprit, the verdict is still guilty. This is of course absolutely ridiculous and makes it nearly impossible to take this anime seriously. The rest is standard "main character showed ... me the true meaning of (subject of anime)" stuff.
3/10

Art:
Phoenix Wrigth doesn't look good. The characters often look very disfigured and there isn't much love to details either. They tried to mimic the movements from the game for the anime, which just looks awkward. The backgrounds are also rather static, which isn't much of a problem, but more visible in a subpar animated show like this.
2/10

Sound:
All the openings and endings are okay, though far from being great. I have no idea how one of them made it into the top 10 of the charts. Voice acting is okay too, there isn't much one can do with a one-dimensional character, so I can't critizise them for their work.
5/10

Characters:
You know why Detective Conan is so successful? Because not only does it have interesting cases, but also interesting characters, with motives, emotions and personalities. In Phoenix Wright there are only good and bad people. The motives often seem very disproportionate, which would not be all that bad if we had something to back up their actions. Even the main characters are rather lame. Naruhodo is a goody little two-shoes, Maya only cares about food and samurai and the prosecutors just want to win by all means.
2/10

Enjoyment:
Most cases were pretty boring and rather obvious to figure out who did it. Maybe this thing works as a game (and that seems to be the case, as many people love them), but as an anime, that is just not enough. The only case which I would consider good was the final one. Phoenix Wright is not insultingly bad (like Mayoiga for example), but there is nothing this show has to offer either.
3/10

Overall:
3.0/10

Game design and animated series are two very completely different things. It may seem like a really absurd statement, but since Ace Attorney is an adaptation of a game, you need a good understanding of its game design, as to understand what would work on screen, since video games are executed in ways fitting to their gameplay. Sometimes, to make a game more engaging, you have to remove some realistic elements. Knowing this, I have decided to play the game myself, to understand why Ace Attorney is presented the way it is, some time during the time I was watching the anime. So I'd like ... to explain how the hook, the trials, work in the game, and why on screen the trials are really ridiculous.

You see, in the game, you are handling the trials. What you say, what arguments you refute and how you refute them. The more you refute the arguments of the opposing party, the more flustered they become and eventually, they burst out and that is used as a sign that you are winning. Their reactions are over the top but that is done with the purpose of showing you that you are clearly on the right track. In the games, you are also tasked with gathering evidence, in order for you learn more about the case and piece everything together as to have an idea of what to do in court and have an idea of what the case will be, but also to have more involvement in the investigation process, rather than await evidence and use what the cops find to your advantage, like a normal lawyer would. You will also discuss with the witnesses about the case and learn more about the story that way. The game will make you handle cases that you personally figure out with the evidence you have gathered, by paying attention to the information that mismatches your evidence. In this game, you figure it out. As a result of such the game needs a balancing scale, where it teaches you the basics.

You see, both Ace Attorney's start with a fairly ridiculous trial, where you know for certain who the culprit is, because the game states it from the very start. Your defendant is also a childhood friend which is explained as getting fairly often into trouble that usualy isn't caused by him. Now as an introduction to the game, it isn't a particularly stellar introduction, considering you're gonna defend someone to whom you have social ties with, (that has a high frequency by the way for I assume dramatic effect) but it's a better than an UI prompt that says "This is your goal in the game. Go from x to y. That is the defendant. Your friend. That is the actual culprit. The culprit." The game actually gives you context and lets you learn by going along the way, in a manner that I'd say is competent.

In a series, however, you don't want to start off easy, but rather to impress the viewer since first glance. So since the same trial is presented here in the same manner, you will leave with a pisspoor first impression. You already know the culprit, the defendant has constant outbursts since his dialogue outside the court was mixed in, and the first episode is a gibberish mess. You have a culprit you already know, a defendant that makes no sense as to why he's acting in a manner that is incriminating, or as to why he wasn't instructed at least slightly to not have any sort of outbursts such as: flailing your arms wildly, screaming and hitting your head against a solid surface repeatedly. As I watched this, I immediately thought this is very stupid and since I've seen the game, I am sure that whoever adapted this series doesn't understand the purpose of that trial. In the game, the trial is the starting point that familiarizes you with the game and its mechanics. You won't have too many complaints about how the trial emerges because YOU'RE AN ACTIVE PART OF IT, and these things help you. In the game you have the choice to tell the defendant during the trial to asbtain from saying things and making them say the truth, and so on and so forth. You have control over him. His stupidity isn't an important factor. And the fact you already know the truth helps you plan out the case. But here, it makes everything seem really dull and ridiculous

But perhaps this means that they're just trying to stay faithful to the adaptation and they're not exactly incompetent in this adaptation. In that case, let me move over to the next trial. In this trial there is an autopsy report. The situation is as follows. You present a discrepancy in a testimony that says that a victim that has died immediately after a sudden blow to the head, had enough time to write the name of their killer after the attack, at a time they were most certainly dead. However, turns out that another autopsy report was released the next day, that says that the victim didn't die immediately after the blow. This is the line delivery in the game "A second autopsy was performed yesterday, at my request, that says: Death was almost immediate due to a blow from a blunt object. The victim might've lived for several minutes afterwards." Eloquent, to the point and most important, not ridiculous. This is the line delivery in the anime. "Yesterday, another autopsy was performed, that changed the report from died instantly... to died PRETTY MUCH instantly." That's the wording. Pretty much instantly. So I reacted by walking around in the room a bunch with my hand behind my head, thinking "This is so bad. It's terrible. I love this. This is incredible."

I expected at least some minimal level of professionalism and well defined thinking and reasoning, even if with any sort of logic gaps, but that, caught me completely offguard. I never expected quite what I got in Ace Attorney. I mean, you have cases where attorneys don't even talk to their defendants, like the first one. You have cases where the judge is bossed around by a guy and told to finish the trial, in front of everyone else, by the prosecutor. You have cases where the defendant, judge, defense attorney, and the witnesses, get repeatedly whipped. There's no professionalism in the trials.

Okay then, perhaps it is because the series is quite lighthearted. Maybe it is not because the crimes themselves and the mystery aren't orchestrated well. Well, how does this sound? How about we frame the defense attorney that was defending the victim, as the murderer? Because that's the most logical way to go about things. Oh, okay, that sounds believable, right? How about keeping a bullet inside your shoulder after being shot for 15 years inside your body, a bullet that links you to an infamous incident, while also, somehow, avoiding lead poisoning and being able to function as healthy as a spring for said 15 years? Doesn't sound that good, does it? I think should be convincing enough, but lets ruin all credibility. How about shapeshifting your body in a trial, from a 8 year old little girl to a 27 year old woman with huge tits sticking out of her dress? Why do they shapeshift you ask? Oh, because of spirit summoning. They summon a spirit inside their body. Yes, this is an anime about handling trials in the courtroom. Yes, this is a recurring thing. Yes, it also is a recurring gag that nobody really questions this.

These things are factors from the games too, but I have not crossreferenced everything I said to see if everything is the same in the game and the anime. And yes, these criticisms are fair for the game as well, if they are indeed there. But one thing that is clearly there is the spirit summoning, and in both cases, they take away from the trial, as Phoenix Wright couldn't have had solved the case, without outside intervention from an element that realistically wouldn't be able to be a factor. In the game itself, the literal second case, you can't solve this, without the intervention of the spirit. In other words, you, the player, can't solve your first case after the tutorial, on your own. But that is a flaw of the game, that I've decided to state to say that the source material is far from perfect itself.

Well, the next thing that you might think that, this was intended strictly for the fans of the game. Even then, I'd say this is a pisspoor attempt that deserved no recognition, if you are to compare the animation quality, not to other anime, but rather to the game itself. The spritework animation in the game of Ace Attorney is absolutely gorgeous. It is incredible to see how much detail they have managed to add in spriteart, which is done by drawing everything pixel by pixel. Am I supposed to believe this is meant to be an omage to the fans of the game, when they couldn't even do proper shading on the characters in the anime's animation? Am I supposed to believe that when there's just the bare minimum of details in the animation, while the simple spritework of the game did so much work to convey as much detail as possible, am I supposed to think this is meant to be made for the fans? No, this is just someone exploiting the intelectual property for money. If this was meant for the fans, they would've gotten far better animation, as I can't see how this anime could enrich the experience of the games, when they just have rushed in trials with pisspoor animations

What is left to say about Ace Attorney? It is a mess. It is terrible. But it was really fun to watch. It is flawed in so many ways and on so many levels, that I've enjoyed it a lot. Seeing the constant flow of flaws that it threw my way truly entertained me, because I really enjoy when a series is so flawed, that I have to praise them for it. This series did nothing right, except for a single episode, where they've shown the childhood of Edgeworth, Phoenix Wright and Larry Butz, strictly because it is unexpected and has nothing to do with the cases. I found it endearing because there wasn't really any of the elements that made me rant what I've ranted in the review. But the trials, have so many obstacles to be properly consumed, so many discrepancies, be it logic gaps, be it unprofessional behavior that leads nowhere, be it blownout overreactions, be it supernatural elements that shouldn't be a factor in court, be it etc, that I couldn't just manage not to enjoy the obstacles themselves. The reason I have not stated as many of the flaws I've seen in this series because the flaws of the series were quite honestly the sole enjoyment factor I've got out of it. I think anyone that watches stuff and can enjoy a series for how bad they can be, would have a great time watching Ace Attorney. It is truly bad. Hence it is truly great. It is a great mess that should be watched solely for that reason. Because quite frankly, that is the only way not to be dissapointed with what you get.

I didn't expect much out of this anime to begin with. Everyone wanted it, but from the very begginig I knew, that adapting the Pheonix Wright games was not the smartest idea. For the most part the story was pretty predictable, but I had hoped, that at least it would be a decent adaptation. I was wrong.

NOTE: I boosted scores by about a half or so, because of the second to last arc, that actually was really good in every aspect. Most of the stuff I'll write below does not apply to that arc.

You might like this anime if:
-You are a fan of the Pheonix ... Wright games

You might dislike this anime if:
-You never heard about Pheonix Wright. This anime does not have much to offer to you.

Story: 5
This is a mystery anime right? So why, for more than half of the cases, culprits are revealed at the beggining or in the middle of the investigation? It makes no sense. But hey, even if that wasn't the case, you can only guess who is the culprit, because most of the time, the evidence is provided way too late into the trial and at that point it's already obvious who did it. Though the cases can be interesting, the decisions that have been made concerning the story take away most of the fun of mystery anime, and leave you with a semi-decent drama. Also, let me mention the humour, that is at times decent and even better at a few select moments, but at others it feels incredibly misplaced. For example, a few seconds after an information about a murder occured, someone throws a joke. How can you laugh after someone told you that? I understand that it never is too serious to begin with, but when some events happen that are supposed to make you nervous, they don't, because you feel like it wasn't meant to do that. The games were never good in the story aspect, not counting a few cases, but this is a disaster. Overall, a first part of the long list of disappointments. The failed battle of silliness and seriousness does not help either.

Art and Animation: 2
This is an absolute disgrace when it comes to today's standards. Except for maybe Maya, everyone looks so wrong, and their animations are so weird. Even the main hero changes his face almost every scene. Honestly at some points it looks like some old animation from Newgrounds or something. It even made me burst out laughing because of how bad it was. It perfectly represents how little care was put into this. In the very last episode, the judge moves his mouth, but no voice can be heard, and the only sound is his hammer beating againts the palm of his hand. I usually leave the next part for the OST, so I though I'll mention it here. Overall, it's abysmal by today's standards. One or two scenes can't change that.

Sound: 8
It is.... good actually. The soundtrack from the game has been implemented here and the openings are catchy (the first opening ends in a weird, abrupt way though). There are some mistakes, the music at times doesn't fit the scenes and at some others it is dead quiet. In the last episode (again) there was clearly supposed to be a conversation, but instead we get a silent nod from a character. That lasts about 10-15 seconds. In complete silence. Some music would help at least, you know? Overall, pretty good, fails to fit sometimes.

Characters: 4
The characters were probably the strongest point of the games. Here they are bland and boring, maybe except Maya, but even she can often fall under that category. I did not care about anyone, they can all go disappear for all I care. No development, no interesting moments, nothing. They feel like butchered versions of themselves. I don't have anything else to add.

Enjoyment: 3
The only redeeming factor was the circus arc that I mentioned at the beggining. If not for that, this would easily be a one. It's boring, painful to look at and overall just a huge disappointment. I did play the games and I was a little bit excited, but after the second arc, I ended up mindlessly grinding it to the finish line (except for the circus arc, it was a huge surprise to me really).

Overall: 4
It has nothing that I would consider worth recommending. I will never look back at it again. This is only watchable, if you played through the games and you want to see them turned into an anime. Everyone else might as well watch a field of flowers or something, I don't know. I could probably watch another season, it would cover my favourite game after all, but this one was a pain to watch. Glad it's over.

Of course, this is purely my opinion, but I can't recommend you to develop your own. Watch at your own risk.

I would've given this a 4, but a 3 because I am an avid Ace Attorney fan for six to seven years, especially with the fact that this anime did not really do the main games any justice. Even, the walkthroughs on YouTube are better to watch. The anime is only decent if you really want to kill time, but it does not cut it for me.

The games do have several puns and memes, so this anime was a letdown for me because the execution was poor. If anything, I only like the opening because of my Feenie x Edgeypoo fangirl heart.

A lot of these low reviews come from people who haven't played the games, but I've played them—all of them—and this is the definition of butchering a series. I'm surprised the fandom was as forgiving of this adaptation.

Nearly all of the problems from this stem from the difficulties of turning games that take more than 30 hours of pure gameplay to finish into a single season of a TV show. What made Ace Attorney memorable were the characters and the interactivity. Converting it to anime automatically loses the interactivity, so you lose the suspense or the feeling of being connected to the action. Then because ... it's rushed, plot holes are created and you lose a ton of characterization. What results is a rather boring show with 1-dimensional characters. Not to mention the animation is just bad. All around this was not a well-done adaptation.

tl;dr stick to the games if you like Ace Attorney, but the basic story lines just aren't believable or compelling.

My thoughts on Pheonix Wright,

Fictional lawyers that act like justice driven detectives when in reality lawyers are blood sucking parasites that care about their salaries over justice and principles. The most believable parts of the show are when the lawyers are defending scumbags and asking irrelevant questions. If I close my eyes and pretend that Mr. Ace attorney is not an attorney and more like a detective solving a case, I still find myself unimpressed with the show. I can't take anything seriously, so when 'serious' ... moments occur or characters preach about justice I just think " You interviewed a damn parrot, the dead ghost of a 34-year-old woman possessed the 6-year-old again and gave her uncomfortable assets, the prosecution whips people when she is unhappy, and every fucking case has some last-minute-no-way-in-hell-it-would-ever-fly-in-real-court evidence that shows up." In regard to the technical aspects of the show, animation is very basic and not impressive. Sometimes a rack of cleavage will just be a block of cleavage.

On the bright side, the music is good, the dub is pretty good, and that's about it. I derived more enjoyment out of this show than SVU at least.

I decided to do a quick review of an anime I dropped, please note I haven't seen all of the episodes or played the games, but I'm sure I have a basic understanding.

Story (4) - An attorney getting clues and defending someone? Sounds, great honestly. I would give it an 8 but, the execution is god awful. It's nothing more then a being mess with no attempts for jokes or character development, it's more of a thing that happened then the characters just move on. They forget about that the next episode.

Art (2) - I love is art style of a video game, but ... that's the only good thing about it. The art can be awkward and still at times that I wish I could look away but I can't then I'm stuck with a headache. Sometimes the animation looks odd as well, like in the opening.

Sound (8) - Easily the best part about this show, the voice actors and actresses do an amazing job on there parts. Listening to the opening and closing of each episode is the best part of each episode. They don't sound grading to the ears! It sounds like effort has been put into them!

Character (1) - Uh... who are these people? The characters in this show are so, boring. It makes each episode go for longer and longer. Mr. Attorney Can't Remember His Real Name Man is the blandest and the most forgettable of them all, at least the other characters seem cool and heck maybe even OKAY but since THIS guy is our main character we have to follow him around and hope he does something another then some random stuff that's ends up working in the end.

Enjoyment (3)

Overall (2) - If you're drink and bored, THEN watch this anime but if you aren't both of those things kindly run away from this monsterpiece of a show.

I could wrap up this review in one sentence: 'what did you do to poor Phoenix?!' Okay one more: 'this anime was terribad'!

I guess it's not easy to do decent anime based on two games. Games that takes about 65 hours to beat them. But on the other side I loved Persona 4 anime, and to beat game you need over 100 hours.


I will start with acceptable things (don't confuse them with good!). Animation was goo... decent. Sometimes I wanted to pluck my eyes off but well Maya looked nice. If we would change Franziska's lips I believe it would fix her weird looks too. ... And hmmm characters looked kinda like the ones in game. But all the time I had feeling that they are weird and creepy! Bodies looked awkward. Dunno maybe it is me.

So let's look at Voice Actors. They did decent job but I just didn't like Phoenix's voice. Same goes for more characters. But that is just my opinion as you know in game we could hear only few words 'objection' and 'hold it'. But that was the thing that made Phoenix Wright the game awesome. It fit in this game style and I really always was feeling like shouting with him while pointing my finger like idiot at my console.

What else made the games so good? Soundtrack. Making you feel the mood. And we can hear poor versions of them in anime. And it is not even used properly! Yes they messed it up! While in game you felt fired up with 'cross-examination theme' in anime... eh I guess they used it somewhere? Music was building suspense but anime didn't provide it at all. Etcetera etcetera.

And you know what? That was the 'not worst part of anime'. Really!
Story. They showed sketch of intriguing and sucking in stories. And in anime we couldn't feel it at all. Shortened into absolute minimum, skipping factors that made the twists work so well left us with pile of s... ah no swearing. Sorry but I really was pissed off when I watched this and saw what they did to plot. Where was the investigation that made us think 'what the hell really happened here'. Where were some barely visible clues? Skipped!
Instead of dialogue that built the plot we got exposition! To be honest it reminded me of reading the checklist. 1. Phoenix talks to cop, 2. Phoenix finds out something (skip it, we will show it in point 4 or 5). You get the idea.

You still don't believe it was terrible experience watching this anime? Okay so let's look at characters. We don't get any development! For example my least favorite one: Larry Butz. It is hard to say if he has any personality. At the beginning we see Phoenix save him in the court, we get a little, tiny piece of explanation that he is quite immature guy. While in game we got his goofy character clearly showed to us here even that didn't work.
Also how usually we develop characters? Through story. And while story was bad you know what that mean. Next example: Miles Edgeworth. The DL-6 Case was his nightmare and we saved him, we 'killed' that nightmare. In anime it is barely mentioned! And we don't get how he hurt Phoenix when he ran away. Ah wait we got information about this in one of the last episodes! No build up for his come back, no nothing. And I could talk about this for hours writing way more but it's waste of time.

And watching it was waste of time! Do not watch this until you are really bored or want to see something very very very bad!

Story: 2/10 (not 1/10 because at least they showed all cases)
Art: 4/10
Sound: 4/10
Character: 1/10
Enjoyment: 2/10
Overall: 2/10

Well... to put it simply, it's a mix between "uuurgh!", "hm..." and "what the hell?!"

I don't know the game series, but I guess there the characters had at least a bit of a mysterious or interesting feeling. But here every character so far is so much simplifield, it's hard to take the plot serious. There is no tension like "Did he/sehe tell the truth?" or "Wow! Didn't saw that comig!" Instead everything is just so obvious and it's like the show doesn't even want you to think about the cases.
On top of that, most of the characters so far behave like cartoonish morons, unable to ... see any contradiction until someone says so.

Also,if you know at least a little bit about lawsuits, you can already see mistakes for example how evidences are used, especially when they are new, or the ludicrous arguments used sometimes. And, oh, did I tell you about the outlandish behaviour of the most of the characters so far?

To keep it short, if you're interested in at least somehow realistic lawsuits inside anime, better watch some episodes of Detective Conan. But if you're not interested in characters you can take serious or if it doesn't bother you that everything is obvious, this anime is at least a guilty pleasure.

When looking at Gyakuten Saiban, to be honest, I was never really sure what to think of him. On the one hand, the plot around the court and this whole search for evidence and speculation was quite interesting even if the implementation is terrible.. On the other hand, the anime, really had properties that I kept thinking to myself "Why are you doing this?"

There were about 5 different cases that were worked out quite well and could be maintained over a period of 2-3-4 and even up to 5 episodes. . The characters weren't really bleak either, they had more human traits and were easier ... to understand. Extreme exaggeration was lacking here, but it was not entirely out of the question.


Unfortunately, the anime also had an urge to ridicule some of its cases. For example, that everything is set up properly and there is no resolution for a case. In the scenario, it is simply pushed over the table with some excuse, which has nothing to do with the actual events, only to bring an end to the case. See e.g. spoiler


Spoiler!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is not enough evidence to defeat the perpetrator in court and he walks off the field confidently since there was no longer a target. But then a person comes up from the realm of the dead and throws a note on his head, in which the names of his blackmailed politicians are written and he suddenly confesses everything?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Something like that is of course just disappointing when you consider that 4 episodes were used to build this interesting case, just to insert such an ending. The same applies to some others.

Most of the time, the appropriate reasons were simply missing. The structure and implementation of the cases were interesting, but they almost never managed to come to a useful end and somehow put everything together. There are also plenty of parodies on YouTube that convert these shortcomings into amusing gags.

The thing with the spiritual stuff and the summoning of spirits was just completely inappropriate.
Just like the character of the protagonists constantly giving up at the end of a case and dropping everything, just so that someone tells you not to give up and suddenly he no longer gives up. This property was also quite troublesome, especially since it wasn't just that
had a unique appearance. I also found the point that the characters were able to fire a kind of shock wave by hitting the wound point of a statement. It was weird but kinda funny after all.

I don't want to start talking about the judge in the courtroom. I really don't know how he got his job. I had the feeling he didn't even understand why he was there in the first place.




Story:


The Main Story was missing the "red thread". It was a series of successive cases that occurred over a longer period of time. In other words, there was no real plot after all.

There were certainly changes, characters came and went and relationships changed slightly, but there was nothing more behind the action.

As interesting as the cases were, they only told their own short story without any connections expect for the first case.

Animation / pictures:


I don't know what to make of the animations. These were quite close to falling well below the average.

These animations corresponded roughly to the level of the actual game, but the effort was hardly comparable to any other work.

Also, the characters rarely had to move, which means that there were hardly any animations regarding the movement apart from the "objection".

Characters:


The characters were a little more satisfactory.

The protagonist Ryuuichi was a typical clumsy and idealist. He tried to help people in the name of justice and to go his own way. His personality was not particularly sophisticated and can be summed up well with the above two words. He also had no real change in the anime, which means that he simply remained the same person from start to finish.

Mayoi was the typical innocent good girl who was allowed to be in the courtroom for an unknown reason. Apart from that,she was a medium that could come into contact with the dead. About her personality there is to say that she was very excited, a fan girl for different superheroes and is often hyperactive. She hadn't gone through any remarkable changes and remained the same.

Reiji, on the other hand, was already a bit deeper character than these two. He had a slight change in his character and was also dealt with a little more. His personality was very calm, cold and cool, even if he was often upset about surprises.

Music:


The musical performance in the intro was just average, and the endings were nothing special. There was one or the other useful East, but there was very little choice either. You can clearly see that not too much effort has been put into the work.

My conclusion

to



This anime is a double-edged sword. On the one hand he had cases of interesting structure and the characters were not a disaster, on the other hand the cases were closed quite laughably and the actual story was often ridiculed. If you had put more effort into this work, it would have had potential to become very interesting.

Until the end, i really wonder if the Games are actually better.