Shopping for a new fandom to become obsessed with?

Then it’s time for you to immerse deep beneath the slightly wonderful, overly-dramatic, emotionally intense world of… don’t laugh now… Ace Attorney. In fact, consider this Ace Attorney Week on Royal Jelly. I’ll be sharing new dimensions of the fandom for you to savor, all week long.

So… How to begin? You’re either cackling mad laughter right now because you already know and have been exposed to this CAPCOM video game for Nintendo DS that came out a whiiile back in 2001, or you are wondering how someone even made a video game (at this point, I realize you’re still taking my word for it) about… an attorney? In the first place? But there is so much more involved in this. And I’m not just talking spirit mediums. There’s also a movie, an anime, a few musicals, tons of beautiful fan art, moving fanfiction stories… This week, you’re in for a great ride.

I crashed into Ace Attorney on YouTube

So let me tell you something… (Taking a breath here, trying to stop laughing) I was drawn into this fandom because of a deadly combination of one funky Mystery Skulls Song and AMV combo: the Turntable Turnabout. This fan video I stumbled upon featured strangely dressed (at least I worried poor Edgeworth was) lawyers slamming tables perfectly in time with a sexy song about not-worrying-about-money. If you scroll down the comments a little, you can see my ‘Stay Calm and Fangirl On’ comment begging to be told where the sprites are from… thence, my pure and unshakeable obsession began.

Now a little warning: I don’t own a Nintendo DS or 3DS… yet. So I’ve gotten into every little wonderful thing about the Ace Attorney universe that folks who’ve played the game may not know about and certainly those who haven’t played the game will enjoy falling in love with. My ultimate goal, of course, is to get properly stuck into this and play Ace Attorney as soon as I humanly can… And like everything on this blog, I am still traversing the wilds of wonderful geek-chic things and have yet to do everything on my nerdy or fashionable fangirl bucket list… But after that music video, I was hungry to know what video game in the world was based off court trials!

Man oh man, was I not disappointed. I started with an Ace Attorney playthrough, which really shocked and amused and intrigued me… I’ll admit, I was expecting something way over the top and CSI-like, since those are the police and court type of shows I’ve been exposed to. I did not expect something more dry (in a nice way, like a soothing white wine), and intelligent and charming… the more I watched, the more I felt someone who really liked Perry Mason which is a classic TV lawyer show… perhaps the original American TV lawyer show (I believe Perry Mason began as a novel, then a radio show, then became a classic TV show in black-and-white and in color… so I guess it’s not so unusual after all) because there was a lot of attention paid to the technical aspects of the trial, rather than the drama and scandal being revealed. Being a nineties kid, it reminded me in a lot of ways, of Carmen Sandiego for whatever reason… the player has to make choices on how to proceed and unravel the mystery. You can choose wrong or right (or Wright!) and that affects the progress of the case and, it also seems, your relationships with the aptly-named characters, such as your long-time shady friend, Larry Butz. (And prosecutor Winston Payne definitely reeks—in a good way—of Perry Mason-like adversaries like Hamilton Burger.)

Several iconic trademarks of the show hooked me in: the dramatic “Objection!” which I believe sells the entire thing when you later want to yell that at work or over the phone with friends; the case contradictions that, when dramatically revealed, result in lawyers and witnesses being blown clear across the courtroom with… the power of justice, I guess? It must be like the Force. I loved the crazy justice-wind thing. The whole spirit medium element with Mia and her younger sister Mystic Maya, is strange and fun. The rivalry-friendship between Phoenix Wright, defense attorney and the prosecutor Miles Edgeworth (insert Wendy Oldbag fangirl squeal here) is just yummy to watch develop.

Wait…watch?

Oh, yes. There is an Ace Attorney anime ontop of everything else. More on that next time. Tune in again on Wednesday as I dig deeper into the story and characters, with some  beautiful fan art. And by week’s end, I am going to let you in on an incredible Ace Attorney fanfiction that was freshly completed just last month.

Hope you don’t have any objections!