phoenix is absolutely unhinged before and after the trilogy. in his early twenties he’s a pathetic little theatre kid who eats glass and in his thirties he’s the cryptid of the legal world who plays poker in a dingy basement and may or may not be the chief prosecutor’s sugar baby. and i absolutely love that in the midst of this drastic transition, there is a point in his life–the three years spanning the trilogy– where he’s the most normal person ever
ok guys. addendum. i am aware he is not normal but. like. he starts out as more of a protag whos meant to be perceived as sort of a pov character that the player projects onto, before hes established as actually unhinged. in terms of outward appearance and mannerisms he is Just a Guy
Meiji period fashion was some of the best in the world, speaking purely from an aesthetic standpoint you can really see the collision of European and Japanese standards of beauty and how their broad agreement even in particulars (the similarity between Japanese and Gibson girl bouffants, the obi vs the corset, the obi knot vs the bustle, the mutual covetousness for exotic textiles, the feverish swapping of both art styles and subjects) combined and produced some of the most interesting cultural exchange we have this level of documentation for. Europeans were wearing kimono or adapting them into tea gowns, japanese were pairing lacy Edwardian blouses with skirt hakama and little button up boots. haori jackets with bowler hats and European style lapels. if steampunk was any good as an aesthetic it would steal wholesale from the copious records we have in both graphic arts and photography of how people were dressing in this milieu.
«The botany professor,» from Kkokei Shimbun, October 20, 1908. she’s wearing a kimono blouse or haori, edwardian skirt or hakama, gibson girl bouffant, a lacy high-collar blouse with cravat and brooch, and a pocket watch with chain
1910-1930 (Taishō era, right after Meiji, which I should have included in my OP) men’s haori with western lapels
I have a love for both kimonos and bustle dresses, so I love seeing how the two fashions influenced each other over this period. And thanks to Pinterest, I have pictures!
Victorian tea gown that clearly started as a kimono. It still has the long furisode sleeves, but now they’re gathered at the shoulder and turned around so that the long open side is facing the front instead of the back. Similarly the back is taken in with curved seams to fit the torso and pleated below that for the skirt.
Woodblock of a woman in a a bustle dress made with colorful patterned fabrics and examples of how a woman could style her hair with it.
More prints to showcase hairstyles, two women wearing western wear and two women wearing kimonos.
This next one’s modern, but it involves hoopskirts so I’ll add it in because it makes me so happy. There’s been different styles of wedding fashion that take kimonos and give them a more modern look. Often this involves taking a kimono and then cutting and resewing it into a new dress. Very pretty, but it can’t ever be worn like a traditional kimono again. But now there’s another trend where the bride wears a hoopskirt with a white skirt, then you take the kimono and drape it on. The back of the kimono covers the front of the dress, the long sleeves fall across the sides or the back, and you still wear an obi with it. The result is pretty and the kimono itself doesn’t have to be altered at all.
And because you mentioned steampunk, I have to add in these two:
I have been thinking about how the resurrection of Layton may be a sign of a new Phoenix Wright game in the next two years
I am almost positive that a new game would be one of the following concepts:
SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER. We piggy-back off of Dual Destinies and rather than robots, we use space, and the space thing helps us introduce yet another new and spunky lawyer character for Athena to be the senior of. Stuff about DD is brought up, Apollo communicates from Khura'in, and Trucy stays in the agency and jumps up and down happily rather than actually have any agency in the story why do you do this to me ace attorney writers she has so much potential and you always waste it
New country 2, Electric Boogaloo.Like Khura'in, we go someother place, probably cold, probably based on Norse mythos, maybe a bit based on Russian iconogrophy, and it’s probably going to have Cold War symbolism with either America or Khura'in. Gives a good excuse for Apollo to still be helping the gang out.
(dr. who theme plays menacingly in the distance). The old Great Ace Attorney characters and the current cast of Ace Attorney meet in the past so we can tie the two series together. Only Phoenix and Maya go because the writers are absolute pussies and refuse to admit Herlock and the Gavins are probably related. This one also probably involves Wright showing up and being mistaken for Naruhodo immediately, having to act as an attorney under everyone thinking he’s one person when he’s another, and no convincing works, and there’s the tutorial, I just wrote the whole fucking first case for you
option 4 is chaotic evil where we get a third investigation game set in the modern canon where edgeworth is an old man who takes heart medication and pays his taxes
