I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the real reason they had to rename the characters (whereas other versions are able to get away with using their names) is not due to the copyright on Sherlock and Watson (which has expired for the most part), but the copyright on the rest of the story elements they used. That is, they could have either had Sherlock and Watson by name, or they could have had all the other myriad references to the Sherlock Holmes canon by name, but they could not have both. (Obviously I don't know what the actual creators have said on the matter though)
Reading an article about the whole "you made Holmes too nice in Enola Holmes" debacle, the lawsuit (which got dismissed) wasn't "Sherlock would never act like this", but rather, "Sherlock only acts like this in stories that are still under copyright". So basically, most of the Holmes stories are no longer protected by copyright law, but the Doyle estate will go after anyone who can be seen as infringing on the few remaining stories that are. So the localization team basically said "Oh, we're not infringing on the Holmes canon with all these references, because our character is named Sholmes :)"
Yeah I'm not sure that Sherlock having a romantic(?) relationship with Moriarty is "acting like Sherlock is supposed to."
Like I don't know the exact specifics either, but this claim is also forgetting that the Sherlock Hound anime DID have issues with the Doyle estate despite the fact that Sherlock Hound is completely in-character with classic depictions of Sherlock Holmes (and there's also the fact that no lawsuit was attempted on the writer of Enola Holmes, just the Netflix adaptation.) It seems that if the contention is that Sholmes isn't acting like he's "supposed to," then the estate does not have consistent standards in this regard, or else does not notice these other anime, probably because they are not as popular overseas.
Edited by Octoya
I think a lot of the spoiler tags on the Great Ace Attorney pages need some more context of what they're spoiling. I went back to the page after finishing the first TGAA thinking "now I can read all the spoilers about just the first game", only to find that a lot of the spoilers are not clear on which game they are talking about.
While it is true about copyright issues for Sherlock and Watson were part of why they were renamed for the English version, the Arthur Conan Doyle estate also has very clear rules about how they're supposed to act. Holmes's Adaptational Dumbass status and Watson being an In Name Only version led to them being renamed for the dub and evidentally, not even the Affectionate Parody and Shown Their Work for Holmes could appease the Arthur Conan Doyle estate. This is further supported by the fact that Holmes and Watson show up in multiple anime such as Empire of Corpses and Moriarty the Patriot and are referred to by their original names because they act like Sherlock Holmes and Watson are supposed to.
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