The Walking Dead season six finale might be one of the most controversial finales in recent memory. The question that’s has everyone speculating is who exactly was it that suffered at the hands of Negan and his bat Lucille. Well, it seems that we won’t have to till October to find out thanks to some quick thinking people on the internet. One fan of the show slowed down the last ten seconds of the leaked audio and by doing this you can clearly hear who’ s at the receiving end of Negan’s brutality. What do you think? Take a listen.
While we do realize that this could be easily created in Pro Tools, it’s hard not to acknowledge the striking similarities between what you are hearing and what transpired in the finale. What do you guys think? Who do you think died last night during the finale?
Sending The Internet Into A Frenzy, Walking Dead “Trolls” Their Fans
If you went on Twitter this morning, ‘The Walking Dead‘ fanbase has been in an uproar after last night’s season 6 finale. The show ended this season with their biggest cliffhanger to date; the introduction of Negan & the murder of one of our favorites. We know it won’t be Carl or Rick Grimes due to Negan’s line of “If anyone talks, cut the boy’s other eye out and feed it to his father”. That instantly let the audience know that both of them won’t be meeting Lucille but WHO WAS IT!?
Well, we won’t find out until the Season 7 premiere in October. The creators of the show left us with so many questions for the next season but very little answers.
And that’s perfectly alright.
Rarely do filmmakers & artist leave mystery around what they create; fans now want an definitive answer immediately and the creators give them that. But look what happens when you leave them hanging…we saw it with ‘The Force Awakens‘ and now we see it with ‘Walking Dead‘, the mystery allows more people to talk about it and allow the moment to go viral.
It was rumored for weeks now that the season finale would end with Negan swinging his barbed-wire covered baseball and cutting to black before we saw who he kills. The rumor came true and sent the audience into a tizzy. Fans of the comic books have a good idea of who will die but with this cliffhanger, their assumed answer is still left up in the air. Viewers will no doubt be tuning in during the first episode of Season 7 even if they would have shown who was killed so this was a great of making them even crazier during the near 8 month long break.
This is also the perfect time for the creators behind ‘The Walking Dead‘ to “troll” the fans even more. During filming of the new season, how perfect would it be if they kept cast members around on set even if they weren’t filming? If any set photos leak, you can combat that by not showing any missing cast members. In the era of spoilers and rabid fans, I think that any chance to create something with this much mystery & hype is magical.
How did Walking Dead’s finalemake you feel? Was this cliffhanger too much for you? The only thing we know is we have a long wait ahead of us.
Since the kick-off of the second half of The Walking Dead’s sixth season, everyone involved with the show began teasing what was to come. We were promised the premiere of the villainous, diabolical Negan. We were told not everyone would make it out alive. We were promised a season of The Walking Dead unlike any other. And that’s what we got. But to be clear, what was got was NOT good.
The Walking Dead’s season finale, “Last Day on Earth,” was nothing more than the writers deciding to troll its viewers. We saw Negan for a total of ten minutes, and sure, they were evil minutes, but noticeably sparse compared to what we were promised. If you compare screen time and overall impact throughout the episode, this season might as well have been leading up to the big bad being Dwight, or the Grand Theft Auto Trevor actor. Negan seemed like he would breathe new life into the show (by delivering a whole mess of death, mind you) but instead, we only get him for a short amount of time, and our real Season 6 villain turns out to be a guy who looks like Cricket from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
And then comes the season’s big “death” that we were promised. I wrote up an article detailing my Top 5 candidates for deaths, based off the lead-up to a big, meaningful death. And to be fair, someone did die – but we have no idea who it is. They lined up all the major characters, only to cut to a mystery POV at the last minute. There was no real combat at all in this episode – the gang fled from Saviors TWICE, watched a makeshift barricade burn down, and come up with a RV ruse that somehow fails – and again, we have no idea how or why it failed. It just did. Now it’s not like The Walking Dead is obligated to answer every mystery it presented in the finale, but it should’ve resolved something. That’s what finales are for! “Last Day on Earth” is garbage, for the same reasons the Season 3 finale was garbage – it doesn’t do anything to put a real endpoint to the action – rather, it was only in this episode that the real action came about. And at least in Season 3, we got to see The Governor throughout.
However, “Last Day on Earth” did do one thing effectively – it made me care about Carol again. For this second half of the season, the writers have been doing their hardest to strip everything good about Carol away, leaving the same scared housewife from Season 1. At least with her face-offs with Morgan (feel familiar?) and the remaining Savior, we got a Carol that could be hard and unflinching in her resolves. She isn’t just a scared woman, unwilling to kill – in this episode, she makes it clear just why she left. She knows that the loss of her killer instincts come with a death wish, and in the face of death, she laughs, knowing she doesn’t deserve this release, but that it’s found her at last.
And for anyone concerned about the fate of Daryl Dixon from last week’s episode, never fear – he’s alive. Of course, we don’t get any explanation as to how he’s totally fine. He’s a bit bloody, sure, but much like how the Great RV Ruse failed, it’s left up to the viewers to suspend disbelief and just assume the writers played with our emotions like that for a good, justified reason, despite the fact there appears to be no proof of this.
“Last Day on Earth” does nothing to satisfy the audience, nor does it tie up any plot points explored in the season. Rather, it feels like the mid-season finale for Season 7. This season should have ended on a powerful note, like “No Way Out” – big deaths, lots of zombie-fighting, and just enough uncertainty to whet the fans’ appetites, keeping them on the hook. Comparatively, “Last Day on Earth” just feels like a right hook to the face – purely offensive, not a shred of satisfaction, and making the fans wait several months just to know what the hell they had to sit through. The Walking Dead is as bad at ending its season as its characters are at avoiding roadblocks & toll booths. Essentially, every bit of hype building up this episode has been just that – hype. Nothing of real substance or importance justified this episode’s gravity, certainly not enough to justify the longer run time. If this world is just, AMC’s executives will give their PR personnel a pat on the back as they line up The Walking Dead’s showrunners for execution.
Court is now in session, the honourable Mr. Justice Hardiman presiding. All parties to the matter are asked to step forward. In case, it wasn’t clear I love courtroom dramas and Capcom’s Ace Attorney or Gyakuten Saiban (Turnabout Trial) as it’s known in Japan is one of my favourite game series. A cross between the old point and click adventure games and Japanese visual novels with a bizarre sense of humour, the series stars defence attorney: Phoenix Wright, the Dean Strang and Jerry Butin of his day, as he defends his clients from being falsely accused of murder. Players are tasked with investigating crime scenes to collect evidence and then use that evidence to prove your client’s innocence and discover the real killer at trial. Luckily for Phoenix, most of his clients are innocent and are merely suffering from an old-fashioned case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The series’ trademark humour and stunning sprite visuals has made it a darling among gamers and has been the subject spanned a substantial body of tie-in material from manga and musicals to a live-action film in 2012 and a crossover with Professor Layton. Finally, fifteen years after the series first premiered on the Gameboy Advance, Phoenix has gotten his very own anime, but how does it compare to the original?
The series’ debut outing is a point for point remake of the first game’s tutorial case and sees Phoenix defend his best-friend; Larry Butz (get used to terrible puns) after he is framed by an unscrupulous newspaper salesmen. If you think I’ve spoiled anything, let me say that the stitch up, and the identity of the true culprit, is revealed in the opening 2 minutes of the episode and therein lies a problem that not only this episode has, but potentially the series as a whole. Being a murder-mystery show, part of the fun is trying to work out the identity and motives of the real killer before it’s revealed to you and that is taken away from the viewer in a lot of Phoenix’s cases. Later cases towards the end of the game tend not to reveal the who’s, how’s and why’s until the player figures it out, but until that point player’s were still in the driving seat and therefore, had control over whether their client was found guilty or not. Presenting the right evidence to contradict a piece of testimony and turn the case around was satisfying because you figure it out yourself, or potentially had turned to Gamefaqs. This is particularly important seeing as Phoenix isn’t a very good lawyer, but rather an every-man, often presented as a complete chancer who is way out of his depth. Much of the humour comes from Phoenix’s over-reactions to his own failings or his inability to remain calm when under pressure. Crime dramas that feature genius detectives like Sherlock Holmes can get away with walking you through the mystery because their leads are shown to think on a completely different level to us, but Phoenix lacks that edge. There is no satisfaction to seeing the case play out in court because we already know everything going in and because we are no longer in the driving seat as players, then we don’t even get the joy of catching the witness out on their lies either. This is always a problem that game adaptions face, but the nature of the Ace Attorney series makes this discordance between the game and anime much more apparent. Were the series to feature more original material than what this episode and the next episode preview seem to suggest then a lot of those problems could be resolved, but a straight adaptation is always going to struggle. The live-action movie was able to get around this by being more character focused and being a bit looser with how it adapted the cases. All that being said, however, the characters remain endearing and fun to learn about, with series’ stallworths Prosecutor Payne, and the Judge all retaining their eccentric personalities. Phoenix maintains his “so nervous it’s adorable” charm from the games and his inherent desire to help people makes him an incredibly likable lead.
The animation is satisfactory, accurately depicting the characters and there is nothing that would stand out as being particularly shoddy. It never delves into Dragon Ball Super levels of mediocrity, but neither does it shine like a Madhouse production. In the transition from sprite to screen, something was lost. The dynamism and eccentricity that made the characters pop in the game isn’t present. Seeing Phoenix panic or triumphantly shout “Objection” doesn’t have as near as much of an impact as it’s sprite-based counterparts. The series’ does give a nice presentation of Phoenix’s reasoning as he slowly putting the puzzle together and highlights evidence/testimony that is will be important later. There is a vague Sherlock mind-palace element to this and it’s something I look forward to seeing them utilise more in the future. The music as always is a memorable part of the Ace Attorney series and the anime provides charming orchestral renditions of your favourite Midi tunes. If you don’t find yourself humming the “Objection” theme afterwards then there is no hope for you.
The inaugural outing for Wright and Co. Law Offices provides an interesting opening argument to endear Ace Attorney to a new audience, but those already familiar with the games will find themselves with little original material to gravitate towards. While there is nothing objectionable about the series per se, it is going to need to up it’s game if it going to hold people’s attention long term. Until then judgment is reserved and we shall reconvene at this time next week. Court is adjourned.
I’m pretty sure many of you know about the Fate franchise. With well received shows like Fate/Zero,Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, and the infamous visual novel itself, this franchise can’t seem to help but churn out money. So that brings the question of its spin-off series Fate/Kalied Liner Prism Illya. Is it any good, how does it stand up to its predecessors, and should this be something you look into? Partially the reason I’m bringing this up is because Fate/Illya is getting its fourth season this summer and probably a fifth season, so there is something to look into here about its feverish success. And as one who was on board of a magical version of Fate from the very first season I think its only fitting that I tackle this show myself.
Personally I’ve had a very complicated past with the Fate franchise. The Studio Deen adaptation of Fate/Stay Night was one of the first shows I watched that I genuinely didn’t like (and 14-year-old me liked almost everything). Back then of course I didn’t necessarily know why I didn’t like it, and now that I do I think my dislike has grown even more. But this isn’t a review of Fate/Stay Night so I won’t get into it. Fate/Zero on the other hand is a show I hold in the highest regards. One of my favorite Anime to date, I find it hard to criticize this show other than the plot points it has to have by being a Fate/Stay Night Prequel. Honestly I think if you’re going to watch anything Fate related, go with Fate/Zero it’s the best this franchise has to offer. I watched the first half of the Unlimited Blade Works TV series and couldn’t get through it, for some weird reason I prefer to movie adaptation (pretty embarrassing). I think I downloaded the Visual Novel twice but once I realized there weren’t voice overs I quit and never came back to it.
So with a whole Fate universe to explore I need to find out just where Fate/Illya fits in here. In short I’d say its pretty good. Not on the level of Fate/Zero, although few things are. I hold it in higher regards than any of the other fate adaptations, which may seem weird, especially if you have seen Fate/Illya and know what it’s about. I guess its time to stop beating around the bush and tell you why I love this stupid show so much.
Fate/Illya takes the characters from the Fate universe and puts them into a magical girl setting. This concept was originally in the VN but was only unlocked after beating all the routes and doing enormous amount of replay. Never-the-less the concept was created in the VN so I need to give credit where its due. In this new magical girl universe where the holy grail war that everyone suffers so much over doesn’t exist anymore. So magicians find other things to do with their time. Sealing heroic spirits inside trading cards sounds like a good way to spend it, and who else is better to be tasked with this than Rin Tohsaka. No wait Illyasviel Von Einzbern, yeah because the magical device didn’t like Rin and decides to turn Illya into a magical girl instead, out of spite. This happens with another set of characters, Rin’s partner Luvia is rejected as well and the magical device goes to a mysterious girl named Miyu. Oh and these devices are sentient, and sassy/annoying. Together Illya and Miyu use these magical devices to become magical girls and help Rin and Luvia hunt down the heroic spirits and turn them into trading cards.
The concept is very simple and the tasks that these girls have don’t require a lot of time thematically. Most of the show is spent focusing on Loli fan-service, Yuri/Loli fan-service, and Comedic Yuri/Loli fan-service. Which isn’t anything new to the magical girl genre. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which this show shows heavy influences from, had similar loli fan-service, but it was much more subtle. Fate/Illya really tries to push the bar of just how lewd it can push some of its scenes for the sake of comedy or just parodying the magical girl genre all together. However I never felt gross since it’s all played off in a light-hearted way. Every Fate series has something that can be deemed out of poor taste and if you can’t handle loli fan-service comedy than Fate/Illya isn’t for you.
If you don’t mind it though, or even enjoy that, this show will be a fun time. I can’t lie there are times where I cringe that they’re suppose to be ten-year old girls, but it’s almost always accompanied in service of a punchline. Not really justifying it, but most of the time it’s for a reason. Would it be better if these girls weren’t so sexualized? maybe. But it makes up so many of the things that make the show entertaining and memorable.
Another thing is just taking all the cool concepts that exist exclusively to the Fate universe and taking a new approach on it. Mainly I think it’s putting Shiro Emiya in the position that I feel his character should exclusively be in (Shiro is the biggest reason I hate Fate/Stay Night). Other than that I like how they explore the magic world of Fate in a light-hearted and less Lovecraftian horror spin. There really isn’t any of the thoughtful themes that Fate/Stay Night tries to convey. And they always try to fit those themes into the fight scenes, making the focus split and sometimes anticlimactic. Fate/Illya for better or worse doesn’t have these problems in its fight scenes. We just get thrown into battles that last for quite a long time and always are entertaining in putting the focus on the fight. The colors and world they fight in all mesh well together and the art style lends itself to really cool character motions and flashy attacks. Sometimes it gets a little too dramatic but it transitions into it well enough it doesn’t seem disruptive of whats going on in the show at the time.
So if you like cute loli hijinks with intense fight scenes then this show is more than enough to get you adding it to your Crunchyroll queue. But there is also a lot of slice of life elements here so it goes without saying that you’ll have to like the characters to even be invested in these loli hijinks and fight scenes. Now before I get to the good characters there is a character who might ruin the show for you. Ilya’s sentient magical device Ruby is nothing short of the biggest reason to roll your eyes I’ve ever seen. She’s present to instigate most of the magical girl commentary and loli fan-service. But there’s something about her voice and her inability to have any other mood than perverted that at most times ruins whats going on. Its like someone adding too much of a certain ingredient to a dish and then it tastes like shit.
Other than that all of the other characters are cool and interesting. Illya is cute and secretly perverted but is shy of it as a ten-year old should be. In contrast she has a twin sister Kuro who is over sexual and loves getting sexy with their older brother and the other girls. Miyu is the personification of cool and confident along with being mysterious enough to want to see her story play out. And if you have any prior Fate experience just think of those characters but in a more silly light-hearted way and that’s the rest of the cast. Theres enough diversity and clashing characters to make the wacky scenes wacky, and enough chemistry to make the endearing scenes endearing. Unless Ruby jumps in to ruin the fun. It’s all very basic though, so don’t go into this expecting great any deep characterization (If you want that go watch Fate/Zero). Everything is serviceable in what it tries to convey. But if it did more I don’t think it would work as well at what it’s trying to do.
In short I love this show because it’s a funny magical girl parody that looks really cool at times. One of the main girls is a dark skin sex maniac that I would totally be on board with if only she were of age. All of the events are entertaining and has easy to understand motivation towards whats going on. I wouldn’t say its any more than “popcorn” entertainment, but it does “popcorn” in the most entertaining way. It never tries to be something other than entertaining. Sometimes those entertaining elements might not jell with you but that’s okay. If you are into that there’s three seasons currently streaming on Crunchyroll with a fourth season coming out this summer. Personally I don’t think you need any Fate prerequisite to enjoy this show, so don’t be opposed by its seemingly meta barrier of entry. Fate/Kalied Liner Prism Illya is nothing more than a good time tied together in an interesting package that is good enough to be great for some people and just not for some other people.
HBO has had its fair-share of problems of late. They’ve perpetually stalled Westworld, shut down production on Steve McQueen’s Code of Conductand given the axe to two separate David Fincher projects: Video Synchronicity and Utopia. And where the latter would’ve reunited the director with his Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn, it looks like the Home Box Office isn’t calling it quits with the bestselling author just yet. They’ve officially picked up Sharp Objects, an eight-part mini-series based on her novel of the same name, with Amy Adams set to play the lead and Jean-MarcVallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Wild) directing every episode.
Deadline reports Flynn will help write this adaptation alongside UnReal co-creator Marti Nixon, who joins as the showrunner. Based on the 2006 New York Times-bestseller, it centers on reporter Camille Preaker (Adams) who must return to her small hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls following a brief stay at the psychiatric hospital. The more she studies this case, however, the closer she finds herself identifying with the victims. The award-winning book stayed on the list for over 70 weeks, and as such, this adaptation sparked a lot of interest. Reportedly, Netflix was aggressively seeking this project, hoping to bring this murder tale to life.
Sharp Objects marks not one, but two separate HBO mini-series Vallée is working on at the moment. He’s currently neck-deep on Big Little Lies at the moment, which reunites him with his Wild co-stars Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern along with Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgård and Adam Scott, and he’ll presumably get to work on this Flynn adaptation immediately after he finishes working on those seven episodes. That’s a lot for one filmmaker to take on, especially with such little turnaround. But he’s talented, passionate and committed enough to want to make it work. And if that wasn’t enough to handle, he’s also planning to co-edit the upcoming series too. This guy doesn’t like to take it easy, apparently.
Nixon, Flynn, Vallée and Adams are all on board as executive producers as well. Meanwhile, producing superstar Jason Blum is also involved, as are Charles Layton, Jessica Rhoades and Nathan Ross, Vallée’s regular producing partner. It’s a lot of talented people coming together at once, so this one is most definitely on my radar. Hopefully, though, it doesn’t befall on the bad luck found on many promising HBO projects of late.
Stephen King’s ‘Doctor Sleep’ Headed To Big Screen
Warner Bros. has announced that Akiva Goldsman will be adapting King’s latest novel to a feature film. ‘Doctor Sleep‘ is a sequel to his classic novel ‘The Shining‘ as it follows Danny Torrance as he deals with the aftermath of the events in the Overlook Hotel. After spending his life as a drifter and alcoholic like his father, this time Danny finds comfortable in using his special abilities to help others. Obviously things take a turn for the worse when he meets a troubled young girl. The film is said to follow the plot but with the history of Stephen King adaptions, expect major changes to be made.
Goldsman is also a writer and producer on Sony’s adaptation of King’s The Dark Tower. I believe his connection with King’s work will make for a solid adaption. Also, Stephen King will be the executive producer of the project. After his much-talked about dislike of Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’, let’s hope he remains a key part of production so there is no issues this time around.
At the time of reporting, there is no director attached to the project. Warner Bros. has not confirmed a release date for the project as well.
The long running manga series is back again to introduce a new group of characters to go on bizarre adventures. Jotaro, the hero from the previous season returns to meet up with a lost member of the Joestar family. It’s revealed Joseph Joestar, had a love child named Josuke Higashikata which technically makes him Jotaro`s uncle.
Josuke seems like he will be very interesting main character. He is a polite teenager who is often trying to overcome his fears. Just don’t talk about his hair or he will mess you up. His Stand`s ability to repair things after they are broken will allow the show to have absurd levels of carnage and destruction to occur which can be fixed a moment later. In the first episode alone there is a moment where you will be gasping in shock over the action Josuke takes to stop a crime which is fixed moments later thanks to his powers.
In an effort to try to find a way to make this series different from previous seasons of Jojo, the studio decided to make some alterations with the art. The colors used this season are soft pastels. It actually lures you into a false sense of security and makes you think the show will be peaceful but then surprises you on with the level of violence it unleashes.
This season is already set up to be another fascinating story. Josuke and Jotaro will be working together to stop this mysterious Stand user. Given what has happened so far, you can bet things will continue to be bizarre.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable is streaming on Crunchyroll.
‘Preacher’ Promises Mayhem & Someone Named Arse-Face
The supernatural dark comedy ‘Preacher‘ based on the popular graphic novel is coming to AMC on May 22nd. The newest teaser trailer promises some wicked madness. The story follows a West Texas preacher named Jesse Custer with a mysterious entity living inside him that gives him unusual powers. He is joined with his ex-girlfriend Tulip and an Irish vampire named Cassidy as they fight all sorts of dangerous creatures from hell.
This AMC original series has been highly-anticipated since the graphic novel was announced to be produced by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg. The hype continued when the shocking world premiere trailer debut introducing us to this crazy world. Following ‘The Walking Dead‘, the show’s creators are hoping to capitalize on the audience’s love of graphic novels turned TV shows.
Will this be another hit for the network? I believe the odd world of the cult classic graphic novel will lure in audiences. ‘Preacher‘ debuts on May 22nd, at 10pm!
11 seasons deep at this point, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia hasn’t missed a beat since 2005. With over a decade on television, the improv-heavy sitcom continues to find inventive and imaginative ways to stay fresh and creative. So FXX doesn’t want to change a thing. With a twelfth season already in-the-cards and set to premiere in early 2017, the station has also given seasons 13 and 14 a go. And with this new development, the Rob McElhenney-created dark comedy makes TV history.
According to Deadline, Always Sunny will match The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet for longest-running live-action comedy series ever. Granted, these aren’t The Simpsons numbers. Their animated Fox counterparts is currently on season 27, with a 28th season already greenlit. Nevertheless, it’s an impressive feat, especially with a show with such humble beginnings. Once a meager passion project shot on a camcorder between McElhenney and fellow co-stars/writers Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day, it soon launched an avid cult following and revamped Danny DeVito’s career after he joined in season two. It’s the stuff of dreams, really.
“If anyone doubts the power of a camcorder and a dream, just look at It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which was a DIY backyard pilot when Rob, Charlie and Glenn brought it to FX and will go down in TV history as one of the most loved and enduring comedies,” Nick Grad, co-president of original programming for FX Networks and FX Productions stated. “Few shows make it this far or have such devoted fans, and we owe it all to the creative vision and great humor of the creators and cast who keep Sunny fresh and inventive every season.”
The fate of Always Sunny has been cast in doubt for a few years now, with rumors suggesting it would end since around season 10. Also causing concern among fans were recent reports about McElhenney transitioning into filmmaking with a Minecraft adaptation and Figment, a family-friendly action-adventure movie set up with Legendary Pictures. Of course, with these new developments, any speculation has been thrown to the waist-side. There’s still no word yet on where these two films stand.
Though the gang is known for their pranks, this is no April Fool’s Day joke. The show is here to stay, and it’s a sunny day indeed for fans. Still cloudy, however, is the fate of Man Seeking Woman, which aired directly after. FXX has yet to announce a third season for the high-concept millennial sitcom.
The series’ debut outing is a point for point remake of the first game’s tutorial case and sees Phoenix defend his best-friend; Larry Butz (get used to terrible puns) after he is framed by an unscrupulous newspaper salesmen. If you think I’ve spoiled anything, let me say that the stitch up, and the identity of the true culprit, is revealed in the opening 2 minutes of the episode and therein lies a problem that not only this episode has, but potentially the series as a whole. Being a murder-mystery show, part of the fun is trying to work out the identity and motives of the real killer before it’s revealed to you and that is taken away from the viewer in a lot of Phoenix’s cases. Later cases towards the end of the game tend not to reveal the who’s, how’s and why’s until the player figures it out, but until that point player’s were still in the driving seat and therefore, had control over whether their client was found guilty or not. Presenting the right evidence to contradict a piece of testimony and turn the case around was satisfying because you figure it out yourself, or potentially had turned to Gamefaqs. This is particularly important seeing as Phoenix isn’t a very good lawyer, but rather an every-man, often presented as a complete chancer who is way out of his depth. Much of the humour comes from Phoenix’s over-reactions to his own failings or his inability to remain calm when under pressure. Crime dramas that feature genius detectives like Sherlock Holmes can get away with walking you through the mystery because their leads are shown to think on a completely different level to us, but Phoenix lacks that edge. There is no satisfaction to seeing the case play out in court because we already know everything going in and because we are no longer in the driving seat as players, then we don’t even get the joy of catching the witness out on their lies either. This is always a problem that game adaptions face, but the nature of the Ace Attorney series makes this discordance between the game and anime much more apparent. Were the series to feature more original material than what this episode and the next episode preview seem to suggest then a lot of those problems could be resolved, but a straight adaptation is always going to struggle. The live-action movie was able to get around this by being more character focused and being a bit looser with how it adapted the cases. All that being said, however, the characters remain endearing and fun to learn about, with series’ stallworths Prosecutor Payne, and the Judge all retaining their eccentric personalities. Phoenix maintains his “so nervous it’s adorable” charm from the games and his inherent desire to help people makes him an incredibly likable lead.
The animation is satisfactory, accurately depicting the characters and there is nothing that would stand out as being particularly shoddy. It never delves into Dragon Ball Super levels of mediocrity, but neither does it shine like a Madhouse production. In the transition from sprite to screen, something was lost. The dynamism and eccentricity that made the characters pop in the game isn’t present. Seeing Phoenix panic or triumphantly shout “
