#3 days left

[fraeuleintaka]

Official Investigations Artbook

This is the 78th post in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Countdown: 3 days left until release!

Today's topic: the official Investigations Artbook!

[Spoilers for Investigations 2 in some of the images]

Back when both Investigations games were first released there was not only a Complete Guide for the first game (sadly not for the second one) but also an official Artbook for both! By now it's also out of print and was, again, only released in Japan so it's difficult to get but not quite as difficult as some of the other books I showed in previous countdown posts. Since I also call the Artbook my own now (my newest treasure) and it's full of amazing art from the Investigations games I want to talk about it as well!

Firstly, I love it's unique cover art! Justified to show off both of the games' main casts and it's so pretty! Being an Artbook of course the book is on the larger side (compared to, say, the Guide) and the paper is thick and glossy to really make the art shine. It's not a hardcover, unlike other artbooks I own, but the spine is robust enough that it doesn't hurt that much. Still very nice quality.

The first few pages contain a collection of all kinds of promotional artwork for the Investigations games in large and wonderful detail. I especially love these illustrations with Miles, Gumshoe and Kay in various situations. Gumshoe holding Miles' umbrella. Them thinking hard together on the solution of a case. Kay and Gumshoe taking pictures together. Gumshoe draping his coat over Miles when he falls asleep in his chair. So cute!

Then we get two double pages of extensive relationship diagrams of all characters appearing in both games and how they relate to each other. Unlike the Complete Guide the Artbook doesn't hold back on spoilers so all of these connections are what you know them to be at the end of the games and not only what they might appear like at first. Really appreciate that, it's much more detailed and useful this way. (Though it does make total sense that the Guide doesn't spoil everything immediately like this.)

The main section of the Artbook is filled with character artworks (obviously), that includes their full body art, a collection of some of their chibi sprites and a large collection of their confrontation animations. These are drawn especially detailed and with various frames depending on the animation! The high resolution confrontation sprites of the collection (and the mobile version) are directly based on these. And they look absolutely gorgeous! So worth it for these alone!

The main characters are all put together at the beginning while the rest of the characters are sorted with the cases they first appear in. They also don't get as many pages to them as the main characters do which is to be expected.

Every case is introduced with a little summary at the beginning with all the major characters appearing in the case and all of the relevant pieces of evidence. We get a show of all the significant images appearing during each case and even the zoomed in deduction screens. Lovely! Before that though we get a complete timeline on the events that are important to the games' story, when they take place and what important things happened there. So nice and really useful for mapping everything out (like when writing fanfics)!

The next rather large section focuses on concept art for the characters. Especially for the main characters there's a huge variety of sketches, some of them from very early development! It's by far not all of them, as the Complete Guide had several that aren't shown in the Artbook, but it's definitely a lot and pretty much for every little character, even the victims. I especially love seeing what changed in different development stages and what stayed the same. There are even some additional treats in the sketches like an illustration of Shi-Long fist fighting de Killer that looks insanely badass!

Towards the end we have a bunch of shorter sections with one being a detailed show of all the background artwork of the two games including some fun commentaries from Gumshoe! On Miles' office, for example, he rants little about Portsman being a bad prosecutor and states that it was a lot of work to clean up the entire mess (because of course he's the one who cleaned it). There are also a bunch of interviews with the staff and a nice little Q&A section about some character detail (like what kind of ice cream de Killer holds). Definitely my favourite part of the interview was them delving a little into Shi-Long's design and how hard the character designer Iwamoto fought to make him shirtless! He even came up with a reason after being denied (that Shi-Long has 7 scars on his chest that are formed like the constellation Orion and he wants to show them off) but Yamazaki didn't buy it 😄 I wouldn't have minded a shirtless Shi-Long at all but I'm also very happy with his final design 😉 The spirit of the idea is definitely conveyed in it!

And speaking of favourites, the last and probably my favourite bonus in the Artbook that I want to mention is a couple of pages full of these short character interactions! They essentially play out a scene of the characters talking about something with these wonderfully drawn animations. I can't go through them all but I want to highlight my favourite one: Shi-Long and Miles meet in a restaurant. Unusually for him, Shi-Long is on his own without his subordinates and Miles asks him about it. Shi-Long quotes Lang Zi at him and says that he does do stuff on his own occasionally. Miles then notes the amount of food on his table (enough for more than 20 people!) and after trying to deflect a little by mocking Miles' "deduction" to which Miles doubles down Shi-Long admits that he tends to order way too much when alone and asks Miles to join him. Miles doesn't refuse but makes a little comment about Shi-Long apparently having some difficulty with being alone. Awww, so cute! The other interactions are of a similar kind, ranging from funny to heartwarming and wholesome. I can totally see Shi-Long having such issues when he's used to being accompanied by so many people (especially considering what happens inbetween I1 and I2) and I adore the idea of Miles (and the others) keeping him company. Reasons why this is my favourite cast in AA and I love their every interaction! Getting more of those is not something I necessarily would've expected from an Artbook but that's just makes it even more amazing!

[sydcarmyfan]

The running time for the episodes is 27-43 minutes, so we only need approximately 6 hours to binge-watch all the episodes of s3? Say less, but I wished the episodes were longer.

[xo-blue]

"I try not to think of you at all."

The hand placement 😩🩷

*If you zoom in, there's a little line in her skin from how tightly he's holding her ���*

Artist @mellendraws here and on Instagram.

[tosrcountdown]

🌠 3 Days Left! 🌠

We're starting off today with a collab art piece by @moldy-mold and @atsuko-tenshi featuring our main party from Symphonia! Though divided in the separate worlds of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, they'll need to unite before time runs out. ⏳

[ahoodgirl]

just 3 days left until the season premiere of 911: lone star

[kcmonohilly1]

@bloogers-boogers

@zkylearnstherope

@bugsyboo-bb

@obsessedstick

@wallymolly8you

@tulipsempai

@lakedo

Only find the ones that has your name on it, it's still in progress but I finished them all!

And I know I got A lot to do but there done, that was the hard part, the fun part is coloring!!

[blackblooms]

3 days left until Irredeamable release

Don`t forget to follow on gamejolt

[tbb-appreciation-week]

EXACTLY 72 HOURS LEFT TO VOTE!!

[catspeaksaboutarcane]

That's just 3 DAYS AWAY

[miku-meeku]

Your choice! Whatever is easier for you since you're gonna do a LOT.

Wait when is the "day"?? I need to know and arrange my schedule too if I were to draw anything :00000!!!

3 DAYS, APRIL 26 HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEWHEHHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHERFWHHFERSUHIUTFZEGAEHJEAEAGEGEAAGEAGEEGA

[felixisourayofsunshine]

3 days till Hyunjinnie's birthday 🎊🎂

[bell-mere-zine]

just THREE DAYS LEFT! Can we hit 30 responses on our IC? we're so close!

thanks @opfandombase for the boost!

[iliketoeatplastic]

HAZBIN HOTEL 3 DAYS LEFT

hazbin is not gonna help me with my sleep problems at all is it

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[tosrcountdown]

🌠 3 Days Left! 🌠

Last for today, we have art by @limedumplr with Lloyd Irving! Our main hero knows that double the weapons = double the power, and these particular swords he received will make him twice as strong for the journey! ⚔️

[ashlovereptiles22]

3 days till hazbin hotel

i dont think i will end up sleeping friday tbh

[pro-philosopher]

OH NO I THINK THE ARBITER PUT ON THE WRONG MASK THIS MORNING Just THREE DAYS until the Pro Philosopher 2 demo releases for Steam Next Fest!! THREE!!!!