This review is mainly intended for people unfamiliar with the series. What you have to understand is that this anime is based on games already more than a decade and a half old. This is an equivalent of the FFVII remake, no one is going to be 100% happy. No one played the game exactly the same. A lot of the heart of the game is in the dialog, and there's literally hours of material that could be added to the first episode if you wanted to include choosing to present the wrong item every time it came up. Some of it was hilarious. Some of the most famous quotes and memes in the game are from dialogue you only get from being a terrible attorney. Some of it is just annoying. The point is, no one would watch an anime about three hours of some guy presenting his cellphone every time someone asks him a question.

They've tried to take a middle road here. Phoenix isn't the most competent lawyer, he stumbles on the questions that are meant to showcase play style in what is basically a tutorial case, because if he just scrolled through everything and presented where evidence was needed, it would be even more boring than “What was the murder weapon?” *Present lawyer's badge* “What the hell is wrong with you, Mr. Wright?” It's the equivalent of trying to summarize a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You have to leave a lot out.

Personality wise, I like Phoenix. I like that they kept his bicycle. It was canon in art, but never showed up in the series. I like that they made him unsure and naive. We're talking about a 24 year old man who decided his entire life's path because someone in fourth grade wasn't a jerkface to him. He loves the hell out of his friends, his boss, and most of his clients, and puts his life on the line for people he barely knows because he's just that naively confident in the power of truth and justice and believing in your clients. He doesn't have a driver's license. He's almost never canonly paid for his services. He can hardly afford to feed his assistant her fast food. He's not a lawyer you would expect. But, you know, sometimes he's the lawyer you need.

As far as the way the trials are presented, it's silly. In Japan, they assume it's based on American justice. Here, we assume it's a Japanese thing. Some parts are very Japanese, like the badges, which are actual badges worn during trial to show your status. It's based on a sunflower, because their faces are always supposed to face the sun and a lawyer is never supposed to lose sight of the truth. The large amount of sunflowers in the opening and ending were symbolic of that, especially the ending where it's a metaphor for protecting Maya when she's being trampled by a system that doesn't care. The Japanese legal system is much harsher than most. Juried cases were not mandatory in Japan until the 2000's, long after this series was produced. It's not unheard of for a lawyer to never win a case, or for a judge to never hand down a not guilty verdict. The prosecution really doesn't have the same restrictions with making evidence available to the defense. When the games were made, corporal punishment was still often carried out by hanging. All that said, a lot of the system is total nonsense created to make an interesting play system. Your enjoyment may vary.

If you're considering playing the games, you may want to hold off on the anime. A lot of the game is digging through ridiculous witnesses and stupid, seemingly irrelevant facts and evidence in pursuit of that “aha” moment when you realize that, yes, the metal detector is very relevant, and it's a good thing you decided to bring it to court with you today. After the anime, it will probably be hours of poking at testimonies trying to find the way they want you to get the witness to change his testimony so it's exactly perfect and you can point out the contradiction you already know about because you saw it happen in thirty seconds in the anime. In the first episode, it was basic stuff. This was a tutorial case. It will get more interesting. However, if you were bored by the anime, you're probably not going to want to dig through all the cases to laugh forever about things like a ridiculous conversation about who does and does not like Detective Gumshoe's lovingly made weenie lunch. Enjoy the cliff notes version. Or don't. Just don't expect it to quite live up to playing a sprite game on an old-school DS when people still had dialup internet and playing games on your cellphone meant your invincible Nokia had Snake pre-loaded. I'll be honest, I don't remember much about those years. Seems to me I wasted a lot of it playing silly games about lawyers.

Let's face it: Although people constantly thought Ace Attorney would work well as an anime, it really doesn't. The games take a slow pace - The cases, or at least most of them, are not pieced together in a short space of time, they take hours and hours of carefully piecing clues together, shifting through testimonies, disproving accounts, and going through interesting dialogue. Phoenix stumbles through the case, but ultimately is able to prove his worth by turning things around. That's why that grand moment when you finally corner the culprit and earn that verdict for the sake of the truth is so satisfying.

That does not transition well into anime. You need to wrap cases up swiftly, and you need to focus only on points that actually move the case forward. Ace Attorney is full to the brim with filler content in all of it's cases - What in the game was an entire cross-examination is wrapped up with a single observational line from Phoenix in the episode (The deal hearing the time on the TV & the blackout).

Does this make it feel less grand, and less involved then the games? Yes. Is that the anime's fault? No. Rather then the anime being bad, it's the simple fact that it IS an anime. No matter what you do, you are not going to be able to recreate the games. Well, that's a lie: Technically you could, but it would make for the the most boring and slow mystery drama of all time. Not to mention it'd make the MC look like a complete idiot.

Because the player is actually involved in the games and is the one shifting through the testimony during cross-examination, and when you actually present the contradicting evidence, you're the one who worked it out, and made Phoenix notice it. Here, you're observing , so seeing Phoenix uselessly press the witness while the blackout record sits there right next to him would make him come across like a complete man-child.

Yes, this would make the experience closer to the games technically speaking. But it would make for a mystery anime that's complete horse-shit.

It's things like this that shape the way a story works in it's respective media. You can have Phoenix stumble through a video game, and witnesses who give useless testimonies, because that's how video games are like. An anime needs a coherent, constantly moving story, with an MC who helps it move along at a constant pace.

I mean, just look: You have some people complaining that the anime bangs things on the head TOO much. That's exactly the point I'm making: Even what they did with The First Turnabout here, taking liberties to essentially rush points along for the sake of not making it seem like the MC needs points hammered into him, makes points seem too hammered in. If they actually went at a slower pace it would have been ludicrously pandering, to the point of seeming like it sees the viewers as complete babies.

My rating of 5 stars is based on how well they adapted the source material into anime , which I believe they did to the best of their abilities. On every level it gets things as close to the game as it can, without actually compromising the fact it's an anime: The characters are spot on, the case is just like you remember it in terms of it's actual plot points, the animation works well enough for the series, and it gets that feeling of seriousness & comedy just on the line, as par the games themselves.

This is seriously as close as it can get to being a pitch perfect anime adaptation, and I'm looking forward to the rest of it. It absolutely does not deserve just 3.7 stars (at the time I'm writing this) and I'm actually surprised so many people hated it - Yes, I much prefer the games and I would definitely recommend them over this in a heartbeat. But for what it is, it's as good as it's ever going to get as a straight up adaptation of the first case.

After watching the first twelve episodes (which is a standard lapse of time for a season), I can honestly say that I love it. Yes, I've played EVERY Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney game and I was just as astonished as I was when I first played this masterpiece and when I first watched the anime. But there's a few points I'd like to explain concerning the anime:

First of all, the characters are exactly the same. There is absolutely no changes whatsoever, and I believe it is an excellent thing. Also, the fact that there's an English Sub with the English names is just perfect. Thank you for that. I think each character is defined quite well, so it's not a problem for new people who wants to discover a great new anime.

Secondly, if you wanted a new Pheonix Wright story, I am truly sorry. As for me, I wasn't expecting anything new, just the good old story with the same characters and no big changes. Of course, the way the investigations go is not the same as in the games, but on the plus side, I don't think anyone would've wanted a character that looks everywhere for every tiny piece of evidence, even though half of it is useless.

Finally, the animation is pretty good. There's not much to say about it. I don't think this anime needs a million-dollar investment in an out-of-mind animation. It is well done, it doesn't lack anything and it's as smooth as it gets.

TL;DR: The reason I gave 4 stars out of 5 is simply because, as much as I love Ace Attorney, it is not because of the anime itself. I feel like I am biased by my previous experience with the characters and the story since I've played the games over and over, a countless number of times.

When producing an anime based on a story-centered game in an episodic format, it is best not to rock the boat too much. This series follows that philosophy pretty well, with the first five episodes being decent transcriptions more than translations to a narrative animated format.
However, when the source is a murder mystery adventure game, there can be huge problems in pure transcription. First of all, Naruhodo/Phoenix was notable in the game for being a fairly developed main character and far from the silent protagonist one might expect for an adventure game, but this was only relatively so. So his weird bipolar emotions which make sense in the context of game play are quite weird in this series. Overall this can be extended to almost all the characters. Also, we never really saw Naruhodo do anything with his life other than jump to seemingly impossible and outlandish cases in the game, and the anime seems like it will largely follow suit in leaving anything else about the lawyer's and his associates' life.
There are issues with the flow of time and the locality of events that also different between adventure games and narrative that I think need to be addressed better in this series. I think it is assumed in the Gyakuten Saiban games that things happen off camera that settle issues that we don't see, with the game events only being parts featuring interactions that drive the investigation or character development. Also, the events are highly localized in space and time as required by a mystery adventure game. About the only vibe I got in the anime that there was an attempt in showing that things were taking place in a functioning world was seeing Naruhodo in his apartment resting and Mayori/Maya sitting in jail after contending with the terrible events of Turnabout Sisters, something I always thought was odd to omit even in the game as the game just always skips directly to the next interactive bits.
Overall, I think this anime's producers probably went down the safest route of producing the original game's story authentically into an anime and doing little else. It is easy to forget for established fans that even the DS modernization of the game is a decade old now and really lags behind fit and finish of the most modern productions, so I'd imagine some younger audiences will appreciate being able to watch the anime to catch up on the plot before playing the oncoming 6th game rather than playing an older game. Even some who played the original only once will like a plot refresher. It is an impressively functional production, but that limits it to being far from a great anime in its own right.

I say the following as an avid fan of the games:
It is very loyal, which I appreciated greatly.
It doesn't take itself too seriously, which is good, because the biggest charm of this series is the humour.
It's doing something I never thought I could see: a decent anime adaptation of a video game, and so far, it is doing it with beautiful animation, scenery, metaphors and splendid, splendid cheesiness.
and it is great. If it's not your cup of tea, i totally understand. but heck it's my cup of tea and i'm following this one through to the end

The Anime adaptation for Ace Attorney seems good and stays true to the game but I'm a little confused about why they didn’t keep the part where the Witness Threw his toupee at Ryūichi Naruhod. Also the game's characters acted more realistic. Plus they also did a decent job allowing the spectator "The Person Watching The Show" learn more about the case to a point when they can guess before the statement is said using visual queues.

Nine episodes in, and I am enjoying every minute. For those who played and loved the games, it is a faithful and affectionate don't-miss adaptation.

That said: it probably won't work for viewers who are not previous fans of the game. The outrageous, cheesy over-reaction shots when Phoenix/Naruhodou scores a point off a witness were funny and appropriate in a Nintendo game that came out back when GameBoy Advance was still cutting edge technology; in the anime, these reaction shots just look silly.

Then again, silly is what the game excelled at from the beginning, so I can appreciate the over-reaction shots in the that spirit. Like another reviewer, I only lament the absence of the murderer's toupee hitting Naruhodou in the face in the first case. Also, how come they didn't include the shots of Kyuuta testifying in court standing on an orange crate because he was too short for the witness stand? And the bellboy testifying complete with full tea set balanced in one hand? I sincerely hope they included the scenes where they make the freaking parrot testify.

I didn't come to this expecting new material, and actually would have been a bit disappointed if they had created new cases for the series - it would be like having to sit through a filler arc. Instead, I get to enjoy the highlights of the drama without the hours of game play it took to get there. Like some other reviewers, I enjoy the trial-and-error process of trying to figure out what evidence to present and when to press a witness... but no one wants to sit through hours of watching that.

One of my favorite things about the series is how it includes tiny details in the background that only the fans would appreciate. I think, for instance, that we see the K trophy in one scene even though the case where Edgeworth/Mitsurugi earned that trophy is never shown. The Blue Badger (Taiho-kun) is just bobbing around in the background at one point when Maya/Mayoi is complaining, even though he's part of the same never-included case. (It's the fifth case of the first game... really too bad that it was left out. At least, it looks to me from the episode summaries as if the plot skips straight from case 4 of game 1 to case 2 of game 2.) At one point, someone is reading a newspaper and a character from a later case shows up in a blink-or-you'll-miss-it scene. And so on.

Long story short: if you played and loved the game, don't miss it. If you never played the game but always wanted to know what the hype was about, by all means check it out, then play the game. But don't expect the solutions in the game to come half so easily. The first case of the first game is moronically easy, yes, but later games have caused me to cheat without remorse by running to a walk-through whenever I get stuck. And playing the series all the way through takes hundreds of hours, no joke.

I first was introduced to Ace Attorney when my sister and I watched blind YouTube play-through's of the first three games in chronological order (SUGOI!), followed by helping my sister while she played Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies. Off of that alone, I'd recommend these games to anyone. These games are SOOOOOO hype for what they are, I love them.

I knew that this show was going to skip a lot of the dialogue, because it would run for too long and not be as engaging if the show included every small detail (though I miss the stepladder running joke). I didn't like it the first day I watched it, but it did pick up a lot after the second case. For an adaptation of a video-game, everything looks really nice, and the opening is really good, too (even though it ends so abruptly that I burst out laughing every time). Also, their rendition of the Steel Samurai is a thing of beauty.

But I think this one is made for fans and fans alone. I feel that characters aren't really done - heh heh - justice in this. I know that it's only just started, but my memories of the first game were more engaging than what I was feeling on the show. The pacing is also fairly fast to the point where I'd think that some people who have never played the games would get a bit lost.

One of the biggest problems lies in the BGM. I always felt like that the OST of the games was one thing that really got me sold to them. A lot of the original tracks - such as the Court theme and Gumshoe's theme - are not present, and ones that DO get remixed - other than Steel Samurai's - are fairly underwhelming. But that's just me being a super biased fanboy.

For the last thought, this show should be viewed as just a way for fans to re-experience the series from the beginning, without having to do hours of video-game time all over again, and in a new light. But the biggest - heh heh - crime would be to not do at least the 2nd and 3rd games, Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations , as well. The first game is great, but I'm pretty sure what we REALLY want to see is people like Pearl, Franziska, and Godot (:D). It must be all three, because those three compliment each other superbly well. But mostly because of Godot.

If you didn't play the games, I wouldn't necessarily recommend watching this show, or you may miss out on some of the full potential the series has. That's what I think.

The Ace Attorney (AA) anime is a great adaptation for what it is, remember, we're still recovering from other video game movies, AA is a step in the right direction, of course some things were changed. I mean, would you watch an anime where Pheonix looks at the guy for about 5 minutes then yells only to fail questioning his witness. Oh, and forget the memes. And if I could, I'd rate 4 1/2 stars for the lack of memes originating from the game.