After three years of arrest, Lana Skye is finally on her parole. Now that she has made up for forging evidence under Damon Gant’s orders, she only wants to enjoy her freedom with her sister Ema and catch up with the man who freed the sisters: Phoenix Wright.
There’s just one problem. Phoenix Wright has lost his status as an attorney after presenting forged evidence. Unable to bear to see the man who saved her in a lowly state and not believing that he’d fall under such corruption as she had, she reached out to Miles Edgeworth for the chance to find the truth as a detective.
“Lana Skye’s Parole” is a Point of Divergence video series by Debastian Sebeste, following Lana as she and her old team of detectives investigate the events of Phoenix’s disbarment, uncovering the various secrets of the series. The series concluded on April 15th, 2024.
There will be Late Arrival Spoilers for the original trilogy, the Ace Attorney Investigations series, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies.
You can watch the whole series here on YouTube
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Lana's Skye Parole provides examples of:
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed. In canon, Kristoph has no redeeming traits whatsoever, to the point that he has a
Complete Monster entry in the YMMV page for Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. In the finale of this series, however, he strongly implies to Klavier that he genuinely loved him as a brother, explaining that he would have had several reasons to get rid of him throughout the events of the series, but never attempted any such thing. - Adaptation Origin Connection:
- The evidence that Lana and her team gather, such as the Mishams' involvement in the forgery of the diary page, are what Phoenix will use in the MASON system.
- Magnifi Gramarye hired Quercus Alba to smuggle his blind and amnesiac daughter Thalassa out of the country and into Borginia.
- Arc Welding: This series connects the entire plot of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Damon Gant's corruption of the legal system and manipulation of Lana Skye that led to the events of the fifth case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, the smuggling ring from Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth as well as Franziska's work with Interpol from that same game, and another series of Debastian Sebeste's own, Mia Fey's Law School Years. There are even connections to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, a game whose plot hasn't happened yet; Aristotle Means gets an indirect mention due to how Phoenix’s actions to defeat Kristoph remind Lana of Aristotle's morally dubious beliefs, while episode 5 introduces Bobby Fulbright, the real one before he was killed by the phantom.
- Asshole Victim: Lana Skye and Jake Marshall hold nothing but disgust towards Shadi Enigmar/Zak Gramarye, given that he not only abandoned his daughter Trucy and failed to reveal the torn diary that could have helped Phoenix clear his name but also tried to sabotage Phoenix’s reputation as an unbeatable gambler, which would have impacted Trucy’s standard of living. Lana’s only concern at Shadi’s death is how it implicates Phoenix as the murderer.
- Blame Game: After Vera is hospitalized due to the poison in her nail polish, the detectives start blaming each other for letting it happen. Angel blames Ema because she was in charge of Vera's custody; Ema and Jake point to Fulbright because the former had tasked him with looking after Vera; after Jake goes too far in putting down Fulbright, Ema takes him down a peg over failing in his pursuit of Zak Gramarye, while also saying Angel should have found out about the nail polish sooner because she kept visiting the Mishams virtually every day. Lana breaks up the argument by noting that they all got played, since no one ever suspected that something like this would happen.
- The Bus Came Back
- Lana Skye returns years after the events of Rise from the Ashes. Her former co-workers, Angel Starr and Jake Marshall, are also recruited as detectives to help them out.
- Franziska von Karma makes a cameo in part 3, before returning and trying to investigate Phoenix’s disbarment on her side.
- Both Tyrell Badd and Jacques Portsman return years after the events of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: For Kristoph Gavin, Lana Skye wasn’t just the first prosecutor they faced but the humiliating defeat is what led them to become an Amoral Attorney. While back then Lana saw Kristoph as another attorney she had to crush under Gant’s orders, she now blames herself for having used faked evidence and sending Kristoph on their path of corruption.
- Call-Back: After Lana suggests using Vera's trial as a test for the introduction of juries, Courtney thanks her for making it so she's "finally able" to help Phoenix defeat Kristoph. Phoenix comments on how Courtney was on his side from the start, to which she answers that she seems to be prone to such situations, referencing how she was Good All Along in Investigations 2.
- The Cameo: Simon Blackquil, still imprisoned for murder, makes an appearance in part 6 playfully telling Kristoph that Phoenix is investigating his cell.
- Canon Welding: Other works by Debastian Sebeste have been established as canon to this series:
- In part 5, after Jacques Portsman gives Edgeworth the information on Thalassa's whereabouts, Lana comments that Portsman was in the same year as Mia at Themis Legal Academy. Mia studying at Themis was established in Mia Fey's Law School Years, another story arc introduced to the channel.
- In part 6, Phoenix and Courtney make a nod to If Phoenix Wright appeared in Investigations 2, a gag What If? video, when both characters comment on how it's been 7 years since Phoenix last set foot in the PIC meeting room.
- The finale has Gant tell Lana that back in "Rise from the Ashes", Phoenix's unwavering righteousness reminded him of Gregory Edgeworth, which is a clear nod to Gregory Edgeworth's channeling, where Gant scoffed at Gregory's ethics and altered his testimony in order to indict Yanni Yogi.
- Cassandra Truth: At the end of episode 4, Portsman claims during the outro that he also helped with Lana's investigation. Herlock Sholmes makes fun of him while pointing out that he'd be in prison at the time of the events of the series, annoying Portsman. This turns out to have been true as of episode 5, where Portsman tells Edgeworth at the Detention Center that Thalassa is still alive and proves it by giving him the location where evidence of Magnifi hiring the smuggling ring to send Thalassa to Borginia is stored away; in the outro, he reprimands Sholmes for having mocked him last time.
- Crazy-Prepared: Portsman knew that the smuggling ring would eventually implode, hence why he collected evidence from both his employers and clients. This is how he has proof that Magnifi Gramarye hired the smuggling ring to transport his daughter out of the country.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: While he doesn't say the words directly, Lana recalls how Kristoph's eyes screamed "I don't want your pity" after she compliments him on keeping his composure until the very end of their trial.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: When Lana blames herself for both Kristoph becoming an Amoral Attorney when she defeated him with forged evidence and Phoenix resorting to the same trick after Lana failed to find definitive proof after so many years, Phoenix stops her. He tells her that regardless of their past, both he and Kristoph made their own choices, regardless of how involved Lana is or is not.
- In Love with the Mark: Played With. Angel Starr was tasked to investigate the Misham family in Part 3, though found herself hesitant to use her interrogation method. Years later in part 6, Angel has grown to care for Drew and Vera, providing them lunch and getting protective and vengeful for Vera when the young girl is poisoned by Kristoph.
- It's All My Fault: After the detectives get into a heated Blame Game argument over Vera's poisoning and storm off one by one, Fulbright blames himself for everything because he was the one guarding Vera at the time.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Angel has a confrontation with Ema when the latter, who arrived at the crime scene first, is arresting Vera, whom Angel believes to be innocent. After their back-and-forth ends up striking a nerve, Ema has the officers under her command remove Angel from the crime scene.
- Locked Out of the Loop: In part 6 Phoenix tells Lana that he isn't going to tell Apollo and Trucy yet that they are half-siblings and that Thalassa is their mother. Currently, he can't get himself to trust Apollo even after three months of working as he isn't sure Apollo still isn't working for Kristoph. If Apollo turns out to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing like Kristoph, finding out that he was her brother would only devastate Trucy further.
- Loophole Abuse: This is how the implementation of a jury for "Turnabout Succession" was justified in this series: Courtney notes that introducing the system just so it can be used for one case in which Phoenix, the person requesting it, has a conflict of interest, would result in public outcry and cost pretty much everyone their jobs. Lana gets around this issue by proposing to use Vera's trial as a test trial, pointing out that while tests tend to use mock trials, it isn't actually in the law that the test trial has to be fake; this is also a loophole in that for a mere test trial, Courtney can overrule the rest of the PIC and greenlight it without holding a vote.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten:
- Weaponized by Kristoph when Lana is interrogating him about being a suspect in framing Phoenix, with Kristoph reminding her that she had used forged evidence many times against defense attorneys under Gant’s orders, Kristoph being one such opponent that fell against such tactics.
- During a heated argument among the detectives in Part 6 after Vera collapsed from her poisoned nail polish, Ema snaps at Marshall on how he failed to apprehend Zak Gramarye six years prior.
- Putting the Band Back Together: Along with asking Edgeworth to reinstate her status as a detective, Lana also asks him to do the same for Jake and Angel so they can work together again to clear Phoenix's name. This is both because Lana remembers how talented they were and wants to make up for ruining their careers due to Gant's manipulation.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Part 6 is so serious in tone with hardly any positive notes that the usually lighthearted outro is devoid of comic relief this time around. Herlock Sholmes is missing altogether, while Jacques Portsman simply comments on how serious the whole episode was before asking the viewer to subscribe.
- Uniqueness Decay: In canon, the Not so fast! speech bubble is exclusive to Shi-Long Lang. In this series, it's picked up by Angel Starr while questioning the Mishams.
- Worf Had the Flu: In part 3, Jake Marshall and Angel Starr lament how years off of being detectives have made them rusty at their jobs. Jake found himself easily beaten up and knocked out by Shadi Enigmar when he confronted him, and Angel “The Cough-Up Queen” was unable to muster the resolve to get Drew and Vera Misham to reveal everything they knew.
- You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: In an unusually polite take on this trope, Miles Edgeworth remarks that Jacques Portsman could easily be an agent of justice with his talent in being Crazy-Prepared and preserving evidence.
