#The Phantom (Ace Attorney)

[danielleargentino]

quick and messy doodle!!!!! as usual!!!!

[doctorsiren]

thinking about Phoenix Fulwright….😳

[sceebybeeby]

⚠️MAJOR AA5/DD spoils, minor blood⚠️

naners n' blow

[that-sad-guy]

this one is dedicated to @theonceoverthinker who requested i make more of these. and i can never ignore an encore.

[bagelbun333]

The death penalty in Ace Attorney | The fandom’s biggest misconception

Capital punishment is something we all know is a real consequence when it comes to murder in Ace Attorney, but do all culprits who commit these crimes actually get the death penalty? That’s what I’m going to go through in depth within this post!

CW and TW: mentions of death, execution, murder, suicide etc.

Also major spoilers for basically all the mainline ace attorney games!

To start off with, what exactly warrants a death penalty in Japanifornia? Murder has been referred to as a capital crime that deserves a capital punishment, which in turn led people to believe that all murder convicts get the death sentence. However, there is a slight mistranslation within that statement and it should say “murder is a charge that risks the death penalty.” “Risk” is the keyword here. While yes, it is possible murder charges can warrant the death penalty, that doesn’t mean every culprit will get executed. Like, this isn’t Danganronpa 😭 What people don’t think about is the different kinds of murder charges there are, and the differences in sentencing this can create.

Murder charges can go from:

1st Degree Murder - Premeditated/long time planning

2nd Degree Murder - Not premeditated but the intent is there within the moment/deliberate killing

3rd Degree Murder - Deliberate reckless behaviour resulting in death

Aggravated Murder - Murder when an aggravating circumstance is proven (such as kidnapping or torture)

Voluntary Manslaughter - Intention to kill but is not guilty of murder due to provocation or mental incapacity

Involuntary Manslaughter - Killing without intention within the heat of the moment

Self Defence - Killing for defence of oneself

Consensual Homicide - Assisting a suicide

Attempted Murder - Planning and failing to kill

In Japan (the country this series is initially based on) these charges have different kinds of sentences depending on circumstances. So naturally, Japanifornia must have punishments very similar to this. These are the sentences for these crimes in Japan according to my research:

1st Degree - 5 years to life imprisonment

2nd Degree - 5 years to life imprisonment

3rd Degree - 3 to 5 years imprisonment

Aggravated Murder - Death penalty or life imprisonment

Voluntary Manslaughter - 1 to 15 years imprisonment

Involuntary Manslaughter - 1 to 15 years imprisonment

Consensual Homicide - 6 months to 7 years imprisonment

Self Defence - No imprisonment

Attempted Murder - 5 years to life imprisonment

Death penalties are usually passed in cases of multiple murders, although there are exceptions where individuals have committed a single murder that have been executed because it involved torture, extreme brutality or kidnapping with a demand for ransom. It is punishable by five years to life in prison, and with the death penalty if aggravating circumstances are proven. The only exception is for juvenile offenders since the minimum age for capital punishment in Japan is 18.

With this, we can work out what kinds of charges each of the ace attorney culprits will be given. (Mostly for the Phoenix Wright trilogy since I can’t recall much beyond aa4.)

(For clarification’s sake: a “/” is used when a crime could be one or the other or both, while the “,” is used to separate different crimes.)

Frank Sahwit: 2nd Degree Murder

Redd White: 1st Degree Murder

April May: 1st Degree Murder (Accomplice)

Dee Vasquez: Self Defence/Voluntary Manslaughter

Yanni Yogi: 1st Degree Murder

Manfred von Karma: 2nd Degree Murder, 1st Degree Murder (accomplice, planned out)

Joe Darke: Serial Murders (technically spree murder, guilty on five counts)

Damon Gant: 1st Degree Murder, 2nd Degree Murder (Serial Murders)

Lana Skye: 1st Degree Murder, 2nd Degree Murder (Unwilling Accomplice in both)

Richard Wellington: 2nd Degree Murder/Involuntary Manslaughter

Mimi Miney: 1st Degree Murder

Morgan Fey: 1st Degree Murder, Attempted Murder (Accomplice in both, planned out the crime)

Acro: Attempted Murder, Involuntary Manslaughter

Matt Engarde: 1st Degree Murder (Hired a hitman), Consensual Homicide (driven a woman to kill herself)

Dahlia Hawthorne: 1st Degree Murder, Consensual Homicide, 3 counts of Attempted Murder, and 2nd Degree Murder (Serial Murders)

Luke Atmey: 1st Degree Murder

Furio Tigre: Either 1st or 2nd Degree Murder

Godot: Voluntary Manslaughter/Self Defence (defending someone else)

Iris: Voluntary Manslaughter (accomplice)

Kristoph Gavin: 2 counts of 1st Degree Murder, Attempted Murder (Serial Murders)

Those who canonically got the death penalty:

- Joe Darke

- Dahlia Hawthorne

- Terry Fawles

- Simon Blackquill

Those who canonically got the death penalty but didn’t get executed:

- Terry Fawles (he died anyway rip)

- Simon Blackquill

Those who are most likely to get the death penalty but never canonically stated:

- Manfred von Karma (not explicitly stated but heavily implied)

- Damon Gant

- Matt Engarde

- Morgan Fey (vaguely implied)

- Kristoph Gavin

- The Phantom

Those who don’t get the death penalty:

- Frank Sahwit

- Redd White (he would if his blackmail victims got leaked)

- April May

- Dee Vasquez

- Yanni Yogi

- Lana Skye

- Richard Wellington (could be a chance that he would considering his victim was a police officer)

- Mimi Miney (unsure considering her accomplice is implied to be on death row)

- Acro

- Luke Atmey

- Furio Tigre

- Godot

- Iris

To recap, the death penalty in Japanifornia is reserved for the criminals with absolutely no hope for rehabilitation, and for those who have aggravated murder charges/serial murder charges. Even people like Redd White will not receive the death penalty.

After all, Redd White did plead guilty to Mia’s murder specifically because getting arrested for one murder would be safer than having his list of blackmail victims get leaked to the press. It would be strange to confess for his own safety if he was just going to get executed anyway.

In the later games it is shown that the law is changing, and the death penalty is even less involved when culprits are convicted of murder. (Not counting charges in Khura’in, that’s different.) So it is very possible that the punishments can change overtime for those who were already convicted; meaning there’s a chance that they can be given a lighter sentence later on. There’s even a culprit in aa5 who was planning a murder but ended up killing someone else accidentally, and they were released from prison mere months after the trial. If they can released for that then surely a lot of the other culprits deserve the same treatment.

Speaking of Khura’in, that is actually more of a parody of what the fandom thought Japanifornia’s death penalty worked like. Even then, after the ending aa6, it looks like that judicial system will change for the better too.

And that’s pretty much it! The reason I wanted to go through this topic is because the whole murder = death penalty ideology is taken way out of proportion, and has been treated as a fact for far too long when it’s actually not completely true. This is just what I’ve managed to research and you can feel free to believe it or not, but I really wanted to share a new perspective on this subject. I, for one, wanted to share some hope for people; especially because I know a lot of these culprits have a lot of fans, and they deserve to have a brighter perspective on these characters. I definitely want some of these characters to return and this research really helped me feel confident that some of them have the potential to make a comeback.

Plus with the HD release of, not only the Apollo trilogy, but the Edgeworth collection in the same year, it’s more than likely that aa7 will bring back old characters! The reason a lot of these old characters didn’t make a reappearance sooner is because Capcom stood by this “no spoiler” rule for the players who may have missed out on certain games in this series. But now that we have all the mainline games in the series getting a HD release on all modern platforms, this “no spoiler” rule will most likely not be necessary anymore!

No more of this “if they’re guilty they’re never coming back” bs, let’s be more hopeful! It’s actually less likely that all culprits would get executed than the majority not getting executed. Let’s bffr!

And even if they don’t come back in aa7, we now have a more clear understanding on this messy topic, and you can feel free to use my analysis as a way to explain ace attorney culprits being able to leave prison in fanfictions, roleplays, fanarts etc. Don’t let the fandom tell you what to do >:3

Unrelated but I think this has been my first analysis post I put on tumblr and it was very fun to delve into! I may make more if anyone is interested :3c

[river-fisher]

Have you ever wanted to have all of Bobby Fulbright's dialogue and related scenes at your fingertips, with all of his sprites alongside it?! Well, boy, do I have the thing for you! Introducing:

Bobby Fulbright's dialogue transcript!

This bad boy is a google document where I have lovingly transcribed everything related to Fulbright in Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies! Everything was done by hand to make sure that it's as accurate as can be!

It comes with its very own Sprite graph, to ensure efficiency! (Each sprite he uses to emote is labeled with a number!)

Each case is organized via a document tab chronologically!

And, of course, every word that is coloured in game, is coloured here as well!

As you can see, each character's dialogue is marked with their initials to make it easier to type out as well!

The document access is edited, so that you could leave comments wherever you want, so if I have made a mistake or missed something Fulbright related, do tell me! Otherwise, just have fun!

And, one final tidbit: Coming soon to the graph page, I plan to make some statistic graphs on how often Fulbright uses each sprite per case and in total, as well as a general section for any quirky phrases he uses!!

I hope this proves useful to anyone who needs it, and In justice we trust! o7

[anotherfandomtrash]

Blackbright shippers: no, Bobby is fine. He is fine and alive! Nothing bad ever happened to him. He is FINE. See, he's with Simon doing investigations with him! You don't understand. See, they are holding hands! He's fine! HE'S FINE! *starts to break into tears*

Phantomquill shippers:

[anatomical-puppet]

THIS ISN’T ME, EITHER!

[gyogun-luo]

I…am…speechless….💥he stole…my mouth😶

[homunculusreal]

Stupid dual destinies doodle pages. B( I can’t stop thinking about them

[haltraveler]

Okay, I just played Dual Destinies for the first time and now I'm replaying AAI so of course I've been thinking about Calisto & phantom parallels.

A few other things I noticed were that if Calisto's age in the court record is accurate then she was only 19 when she first took on the role of Cece's sister, and was already an extremely capable infiltrator.

With this in mind, I have a new headcanon about the two of them:

"Calisto Yew" and the phantom were both Codhopian-born kids who were recruited at a young age to join a top secret, Red Room-esque military espionage program run by General Quercus Alba. They were taught to repress their real identities and emotions and trained in the use of various deadly weapons. The conditioning was more effective on the phantom, but "Calisto's" impressive track record led to her being favored by Alba.

The program's funding was eventually cut, and it was discontinued some time before the country split apart. Most surviving trainees were shuffled into other branches of the Codhopian government. The phantom, however, went rogue and became a mercenary spy working for whatever government would pay him. Alba had recognized "Calisto's" potential and so arranged for her to be placed under his command. He took the still young spy in as his personal hitwoman as he built the basis for what became the smuggling ring, becoming a sort of twisted, manipulative father figure to her.

[refs-r-ences]

(Major spoilers for all Ace Attorney Games as well as Ghost Trick) I already posted something similar to this, but I’ve now played the Investigations collection and the Layton crossover, so I figured I might as well update it. Imagine a trial where “Calisto Yew" is the defence, with Kristoph Gavin as Co-council, facing off against Manfred von Karma as prosecutor, with the Phantom disguised as Daryan Crescend as the detective, Courtney Sithe as the coroner and Mael Stronghart as the judge. The defendant is Matt Engarde, accused of the attempted murder of William Shamspeare, who survived due to plot armor, with Cammy Meele, Luke Atmey, Ashley Graydon and Fifi Laguarde as witnesses. If it’s done TGAA style, then the Jurors would be Enoch Drebber, Nikolina Pavlova, Darklaw, Shelly de Killer via the radio, Roger Retinz, and Yomiel from Ghost Trick because why not. Now the culprit would turn out to actually be von Karma because of course it is, and since he got annoyed by Shamspeare, being well, Shamspeare.

[yakool-foolio]

I do NOT have a type I do NOT have a type I do NOT have a type I do NOT have a type I do NOT have a type I do NOT have a type

[undeadhost]

finished ghost trick why has this become my character niche

[that-sad-guy]

more of these but they’re evil this time so its cool and different

[inbarfink]

Concept: an Ace Attorney trial with Kristoph Gavin as the Defense Attorney, Manfred von Karma as the Prosecutor, ‘Bobby Fulbright’ as the Detective and some sort of Resurrected Steampunk Zombie Mael Stronghart as the Judge. Just an entire Courtroom of culprits. 

(The Defendant could be Matt Engarde but he was actually framed by Dahlia Hawthorne)