迷探偵
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Rank: Ace Attorney
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 8:27 am
Posts: 2319
Some people appeared to be interested when I mentioned a rather obscure Ace Attorney-themed book in the manga thread, so I figured I might as well make a more detailed explanation of the book here.
Gyakuten Hōtei - Saiban-in Kōryaku Tokuhon ("Turnabout Court - A Lay Judge Reader", 2009) is an easy-to-understand introduction to the
Lay Judge / Saiban-in system in Japan, which was introduced in 2009 (it was the reason why Ace Attorney 4's story included that). The gimmick is that the book follows an Ace Attorney theme. The book was written by Hiroyuki NAKAJIMA, a mystery writer
and attorney.
The book is split in two parts: a short introduction of the main characters of the Ace Attorney series is followed by a short story titled
Gyakuten ! Saiban-in Hōtei ("Turnabout! Lay Judge Court") starring the familiar cast. Basically, it involves Phoenix defending someone in a lay judge trial. The story is about 100 pages long, and features some illustrations they re-used from the manga written by Kenji KURODA / illustrated by Kazuo MAEKAWA (like
here). The story functions as a 'hands-on' example of the lay judge system, making it easier for people to see how a trial with lay judges works. Obviously, it has nothing to do with canon of the games or anything like that.
The second half of the book consists of the explanation of the Lay Judge system. Why it was re-introduced, how it works, who gets chosen, what happens during a trial: all of this is explained in short and easy-to-understand segments of 2~4 pages. These explanations are 'spiced up' by comments made by the AA characters (represented by, again, re-used artwork).
This is for example an explanation of the interior of the courtroom. The book also has a few pages with some quotes from the games on (lay judge) trials, as well as an appendix with keywords.
I don't think this book ever got a reprint, so it's been OOP for years now. It's not a must-read for AA fans, as neither the story, nor the explanation are particularly inspired. It does offer a simple and easy-to-grasp introduction to the lay judge system though, so if you want to learn a bit about that in Japanese
and you like AA, this book might be interesting.
"One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!" - The Valley of Fear