Characters / Logic And Trickster

Beware of unmarked spoilers in the folders!

General Tropes

• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Facade Actors to Palace Rulers and Jailer Monarchs. Actors' behavior is controlled by somebody else, implied to be lured in, while the other two groups act in accordance to their hearts. On the other hand, Monarchs also are victims in the sense how they unwittingly gain Jails, which prey on their trauma.
• Foil:
  • Various groups of phantom thieves exist in this universe - the Phantom Thieves, Mask☆DeMasque, and the Yatagarasu. They have different goals and modes of operations.
  • Miles Edgeworth and Phoenix Wright. Edgeworth has gained a nuanced, flexible understanding of law, justice, and truth. Trying to uphold the law as an absolute is not only impossible, but also often damaging because it's created by people and thus equally flawed. What matters more is the truth and true justice. He has no problems working with the Phantom Thieves of Heart who are vigilantes and trying to stop the (new) Conspiracy. Phoenix experiences a morality crisis when faced with the Phantom Thieves' vigilantism and asked to help Akira. It takes him a few days to fully accept the idea. While he did grow in Farewell, My Turnabout, his worldview has remained somewhat black and white regarding the law even at the ending of the third game. This parallels Miles when he used to be the Demon Prosecutor and thought everybody guilty of something.
  • The Persona 5 aspects set them further up as foils. 1) The two lawyers choose contrasting codenames - "Samurai" for Edgeworth and "Knight" for Phoenix - for the venture into the Metaverse, but these terms also carry some similarities. 2) Samurai partly focuses on figuring out weakpoints to decisively strike down opponents; Knight provides back-up as in that he observes the battle field, alerts his allies to opportunities and dangers, and provides distractions. 3) Samurai, who has already rebelled and gone through self-reflection, Awakens first. His Metaverse weapon is an unbreakable spear. It has been hinted that Knight's weapon will be a shield once he Awakens. Meanwhile, Yorimitsu / Raikou has pledged his protection to him; Knight trusting him gives him strength in Knight's words. This resembles demon contracts in Shin Megami Tensei.
  • Phoenix and Akira. They stand on different sides of the law. Phoenix wishes to defend innocent people from false accusations. Akira has taken the law into his own hands in the past, broken various others, and will do so again if necessary. It seems they are at odds with no possible compromise until Akira tells that he was already falsely charged with a crime before. While Phoenix doesn't remark on that, the same happened to him. He's also faced difficulties as a defense attorney in the U.S.A. because the system is stacked against him. People more powerful than him have always the advantage. (Not to mention that he did defend people, who had committed other crimes, against false murder charges before.) Arsène, expressing Akira's bitterness about the law and his current situation, senses that Phoenix holds immense frustrations about this. Frustrations strong enough that he almost forces an Awakening in him when he challenges his ideals in Act 4.
  • Yoshitsune and Yorimitsu / Raikou. Both are based on famous Japanese historical figures that inspired many myths and stories and were formidable warriors from the same family. One is aiding Phoenix, while Akira has currently no access to the other as his Persona.
  • Edgeworth and Akira. Both visualize confrontations in forms of strategy board games: chess for Edgeworth, shogi for Akira.

Ace Attorney Cast

Maya Fey

Maya Fey/Ghost

• Epic Flail: The chain with the magatama at its end that used to bind her rebellious spirit works splendidly as a weapon to smash things.
• In the Hood: Ghost's Mask manifests as a hood that covers her upper face.

Sanzang

This close-range fighter and monk supports Maya on her journey to take control of her destiny as well as discover the beginnings of the Fey family in Japan.

• Composite Character: Mixes elements of the historical Tang Sanzang (spiritual monk), and Sun Wukong (martial arts master) from Journey to the West which was based on the real Sanzang's journey. This is obvious in Sanzang's weapon which is a staff that she can extend and shorten at will. Both the real monk and the story character were rebels in their circumstances, fitting Persona 5's theme.
• Healing Hands: She shows her skills first when she heals the wound on Ghost's arm where she was shot.
• Light 'em Up: Her elemental attacks are based on light.

Dick Gumshoe

Dick Gumshoe/Jackpot

• Actor Allusion: Jackpot's Persona is "Columbo," directly referencing the television series Series/Columbo. Both Jackpot and Columbo have specific design elements which directly reference Peter Falk, the actor who played Columbo. Peter Falk's right eye was actually a glass eye. Jackpot's Phantom mask is a bandana that diagonally covers his right eye. Columbo, the Persona, has a magnifying glass in place of a head, and that glass has an eye on it.
• Cool Car: Columbo drives the same 1959 Peugeot 403 car that Columbo drove in the show.
• Dance Battler: Jackpot fights in the Metaverse with the martial art known as capoeira, otherwise known as dance fighting or breakdance fighting.
• Mythology Gag: Jackpot's use of breakdancing in his fighting style is a reference to the Ace Attorney stage plays. The actor who plays Detective Gumshoe in the theater performances knows how to breakdance, and this is repeatedly used as physical gag comedy in the theatrical performances.

Major Original Characters

Ritsu Chitsujo

Ritsu Chitsujo/Hawkshaw

• Badass Long Coat: Fitting of his detective image.
• Badass Normal: He and Detective Gumshoe both keep their guns at the ready while in the Metaverse, despite not having awakened Personas or having any kind of cognitive superpowers.
• Bond One-Liner: Does a very subtle but sufficiently snarky physical gag during an infiltration. There's a shadow guarding a barrier that Mona knocks out before they cross over the barrier. While crossing, Hawkshaw facetiously leaves the guard a 100 yen coin as if he were simply passing through a toll booth.
• Code Name: Hawkshaw, which is a vintage slang term for a detective. It was not his first choice; he pitched several suggested names that were all related to detective slang, but were deemed too similar to existing Phantom Thief code names.
• Establishing Character Moment: Teaming up with Phoenix and Maya to search the former apartment of Goro Akechi. It's during this scene that they learn of Ritsu's penchant for detective work and mystery solving, and he actually very active in contributing his wits to locating the hidden computer hard drive they were looking for.
• Hardboiled Detective: Played straight, as he admittedly loves Sherlock Holmes and detective literature. His love of mystery fiction and similar media is what led to him becoming a detective.
• Hidden Depths: Ritsu is introduced early on in the Prologue as an unassuming looking detective who seems bad at his job due to lack of sleep the night before. This makes him seem as simply a requirement for an Ace Attorney trial, as there is usually a detective character to give the case facts. However, we soon learn that Ritsu is actually very sharp, observant, and analytical. He loves suspense novels and detective fiction, and his dream is to solve grand mysteries.
  • On top of that, recent chapters have hinted at a yet-unknown history to Ritsu. He is made severely uncomfortable by watching a movie focused on Yakuza characters, and expresses an intense dislike of organized crime.

The New Conspiracy

The Director

• Big Bad: The Director is the story's main antagonist and seems to be at the head of the Conspiracy that aims to affect the entire world from Japan.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Shido and Yalbadoth. They're mind controlling people on top of other machinations unlike the two former antagonists who relied on manipulation and lies.
  • While they aim for political power, their goals reach even further than Shido's - globally rather than nationally.
  • Yalbadoth intentionally took control over the Velvet Room to steer the Trickster and reach his goals to control all of humanity. The Director has taken over the Velvet Room accidentally and unconsciously as a side effect of their ambitions, will, connection to the World Arcana, and using the Orb of Mind.
  • The Persona 5's antagonists' overarching theme was tied to the cardinal sins; Arcana were secondary. Igor stresses the Director's inherent manifestation of the World Arcana.
• Marionette Motion: Iron-clad hands puppet Mizusawa on the World Stage. Their control is absolute at first so he fights smoothly. His motions become more and more marionette-like the more the Director loses control over his feelings.
• Mind Control: They use the Orb of Mind to impose Contracts onto people. Mini-contracts manipulate the perception of the people of the place they work at, making them unable to notice the Director's ally. The general contracts enforce certain actions or behaviors like protecting somebody. The most invasive method changes the victim's entire demeanor to the Director's wishes, forces them to go along with their orders, and creates an artificial Palace: a Facade. The Director has control over every aspect inside including the Shadows the Actor attracts. However, it only affects the mind and not the Actor's actual feelings. Appealing to said feelings / giving the Actor hope weakens the Director's hold over the Facade as well as how accurately the Actor plays their role.

Major Arc Villains

Hebi Hibiki

• Animal Motifs: Snakes in various forms. His first name Hebi can literally mean "snake"; he often hisses in his speech as part of his projected persona; his clothes' color scheme of red and black and of his real hair - red and blond / yellow - reference the colors of some venomous snakes. His job as a museum curator extends this to the theme of the Medusa and Perseus, as his hair moves like snakes and the murder weapon he used was an exhibit of Perseus' shield which the Greek hero had used to petrify Medusa. His court breakdown has his body turning still and grey as if he had become a statue.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: It's technically the curator's own "no touching the exhibits" rule that turns his fingerprints into the very evidence that proves his guilt.
• Smug Snake: An arrogant fellow who treats everybody around him disdainfully and thinks himself untouchable. His own insistence of being a good curator reveals that he murdered Austin Translation. Only museum staff may touch exhibits AND only with specialized gloves. Yet Hibiki's finger prints cover the murder weapon.

Kaz Mizusawa

• General Ripper: Mizusawa's Shadow in the Metaverse is the general of a military force, and he is extremely violent and irritable.
• Gun Nut: Has shades of this, as he seems to know specifics about weapons. This possibly ties into his own cognition being an ideal location for the Director to form a Facade that takes the shape of a weapons-producing military base.
• Healthcare Motivation: Kaz Mizusawa has a daughter with leukemia, and his entire reason for signing onto the Director's Contract is to earn money to save his daughter.
• Nice Guy: Inverted and then played straight. We spend most of the story thinking Kaz Mizusawa is a soldiery person who behaves as such and cares little for anyone other than his mission or himself. It turns out, however, that his soldier personality was just a side effect of the Director placing him under Contract and turning him into an Actor. The real Kaz Mizusawa is mild mannered, polite, and highly regretful of what he has done.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Kaz Mizusawa has the mannerisms of a soldier, but when he is pushed into a corner in the courtroom, he snaps and begins to act more like a drill instructor. He puts Phoenix in a headlock in order to take him as a hostage and threatens to shoot him.

Buzz Strongarm

• Fake Identity Baggage: Possibly. Alluded to possibly being a spy/saboteur who is faking his entire identity. However, Buzz Strongarm has twisted enough desires to have manifested a Palace in the Metaverse. This is noteworthy because he acts in ways that are detrimental to his goal of becoming an astronaut, such as causing incidents and threatening violence. If he truly is a spy, then it is possible that in faking his identity, he has become warped to the point where he is jeopardizing his own mission.
• Jerkass: Extremely prideful and haughty, and he gets on the nerves of almost everyone he encounters.
• Legacy Character: In an interesting sense. Throughout his introduction and presence in the story, it is unclear whether or not Buzz Strongarm is a spy infiltrating the Cosmos Space Center. This unknown element to his character could possibly mean that he is actually The Phantom From Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, or potentially a related character.
• Wacky Racing: Buzz Strongarm's cognition of the Cosmos Space Center is that he sees it as a racetrack. This Zero-G Grand Prix becomes an actual racing competition that the Phantom Thieves have to enter in order to steal his treasure and change his heart. The competition involves racers who are made up of all kinds of cameos and parodies of other characters or concepts from other works.
• Would Hurt a Child: Almost strikes Athena Cykes in the real world, and his Shadow in the Metaverse actually does attack his own cognition's version of Athena. Strongarm seems to have no issue with hurting children in pursuit of his goals, though what those goals are remain a mystery.
  • Strongarm's willingness to hurt children is what directly leads to detective Gumshoe's own Persona Awakening.

The Collective Unconscious

Velvet Theater

Igor

• Nice Guy: He's very supportive of Akira because of how many hardships he's gone through.
• Perpetual Smiler: And the new state of the Velvet Room excites him so that he regularly laughs.

Kaz Mizusawa's Facade/Fort Kaz

The Lieutnant

The Lieutnant / Yorimitsu / Raikou

• Badass Fingersnap: Raikou creates a powerful spark of electricty when snapping his finger. Said spark makes a fire extinguisher explode among a group of enemies.
• Declaration of Protection: Ge vows to protect Phoenix who has no Persona after having felt his courage and trust in him to help.
• Handicapped Badass: The Lieutenant lost his left arm during his first encounter with the party. He is still an incredible force to be reckoned even he when he has to use his non-dominant arm.
• I Have Many Names: Three of them, although 'Lieutnant' is more a title than a name.
• Master Swordsman: So skillful with his katana that he can deflect flying bullets with his blade.
• Shock and Awe: He wields electricty as one of his weapons.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Yoshitsune, one of Akira's persona he currently can't access in the Velvet Room. The real persons both are based one hailed from the same lineage. Akira lampshades the similarities when they meet and fight together.

The Scientist

The Scientist / Notacon / Daedalus

• Loophole Abuse: Daedalus has been rebelling in ways that wouldn't conflict with his Contract's terms, like faking malfunctions in the Weapon. He can also lie to Mizusawa's Shadow about the presence of the Phantom Thieves. On the other hand, he's unable to reveal the weaknesses he built in.
• Tongue-Tied: He wants to stop the Icarus. But he can't speak about the Contract he was forced under, let alone reveal the weaknesses he hid in the Icarus until the Phantom Thieves and allies come to the conclusions on their own. He has to speak in vague terms to give any information.

Black King Frost

• Behemoth Battle: After the Phantom Thieves destroy the Icarus' radar dome and effectively blind Mizusawa's shadow, Joker uses his wits, some serious bluffing, and complete abuse of the way cognition works in the Metaverse to cause Black King Frost to grow to the size of a Kaiju. It works, because Mizusawa believes only a weapon or monster on the same scale as the Icarus could possibly stand up to it. The two titans naturally clash on an epic scale.
• Catchphrase: Hee ho! Just like all Jack Frosts before him. He is even indirectly responsible for the introduction of a parody of the "Hold It!" Ace Attorney interjection, stylized to "Hee-Hold It!"

• Chess Motifs: Following Joker's first exposure to Samurai's "Logic Chess" mechanic, this shadow represents the "Black King" chess piece that Joker and Samurai must achieve "checkmate" against.
• Composite Character: A "Black Frost" variation on the "King Frost" shadow.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Though encountered as a Mid-boss, Black King Frost is in truth only interested in being seen as a king. Samurai spares him after combat. Samurai's Persona, Sinbad, comes up with a clever way to coax Black King Frost into joining the Phantom Thieves under the promise that dethroning the Facade's "king" means that Black King Frost will be the real king. Frost agrees to become one of Joker's masks.
• Immune to Bullets: Frost's invulnerability to projectile weapons make him a pivotal ally in the fight against the Icarus.
• Plucky Comic Relief: A much appreciated source of gags and levity in an otherwise extremely stressful Facade while facing off against a literal war machine.
• Weak to Fire: The manifested Icarus injures Frost with his immense fire powers, which he's vulnerable to.

The Icarus

Name to both the weapon and the manifested Contract that was imposed onto Kaz Mizusawa. The state of the physical weapon empowers the Contract.

• Achilles' Heel: Only the heat sinks - and thus heat - are a significant vulnerability of the other otherwise nigh invulnerable weapon, which also weakens the Contract.
• Healing Factor: Nanomachines constantly repair every damaged part of the physical weapon.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The more Mizusawa uses the Icarus' formidable fire power and agility, the hotter the systems grow. The same happens when Icarus uses his fire. Eventually the systems overheat - movement, healing factor, and weapons slow down. This in turn weakens the Contract.
• Icarus Allusion: The name, Icarus' winged form, the weapon's weakness to heat, and the imagery of his wings burning in sunlight.
• Playing with Fire: The entity embodying the Contract looks like plasma and hot gas condensed into a humanoid figure. He attacks with fire.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction: Icarus is both this, in its form created by Mizusawa's cognition as an object, and a Person of Mass Destruction when Akira breaks the Contract's mask and reveals his true form.