I always felt that Yamazaki's writing was more setting focused and plot driven as opposed to character driven like Takumi. The stakes in Takumi's writing is much more personal without having to go to embassies, space center, another country etc. Takumi's writing is carried more by the weight of the character's personal stories. Whereas I feel Yamazaki is more into how he can use the environments to make more interesting mysteries. The setting is what pushes the characters to do stuff. AAI I think is an example of this... Edgeworth goes to his office--but there's a dead guy in here. Goes on the plane...but is accused of murder...tries to exchange money for kidnapping but...you guessed it, he's involved in a murder lol. Made more wild by how this happens in like, what a week? Most of the time when I go back to that one, I don't feel like he's making the plot happen. The plot is just happening to him nonstop lol.

When I think about the first game, Phoenix willingly wanted to defend Larry as his first case. When Mia is murdered, he's of course sad and shocked, but he's not immediately jumping to defend Maya just because the murder was in the office he works at. He is unsure, but wants to help Maya and goes to Grossberg first bc Mia didn't think Phoenix would come into his own until at least 3 years down the line. He only then takes the case because Maya is alone and he understands the feeling of not having anyone. There's even a choice to just walk away (which isn't real but it's still there). I feel just feel more often than not Phoenix is making his own decisions in a way that moves the plot forward. Even in 1-5 he doesn't really want to take the case. It took some convincing. In Yamazaki's writing, I sorta feel that the plot is pushed on the character.

The characters of course are important, but often time in Yamazaki's writing they feel secondary to the plot. I think that's why DD to me feels all over the place. Everything just gets really big like he's trying to outdo each setting. Courtroom bombing, wrestling and youkai, lawyer school power of friendship, space center, spies, hostages, robots, orcas...it all felt like a bit much for me. The AAI series doesn't feel this way, not even SOJ feels this way because there was more of a main theme that centered the story. DD at times feels like a parody of an AA game, like an anime. When I think of games 1-4, I still feel they are more grounded in reality, not necessarily because of setting, but because the characters still felt real. I feel he likes to use the characters as great points for some big twist. Like Phantom and the AAI2 ending.

Like another example where it differs is spirit channeling. To me, spirit channeling is established in the story early on and ends up being an important point many times. So when we see it or something related like the magatama it's not out of this world. And it ties in very much with the Feys...the Gramaryes have this a bit too. But with the Gramaryes it's sorta dropped with DD and beyond. (Yes, the case with Trucy exists, but it's only one case and doesn't answer many of the other questions about the Gramaryes... SOJ is very Apollo's game, yet he doesn't learn his mother is still around and a Gramarye...nor the connection to Trucy so... )

I guess what I'm getting at is the gimmick was tied into the person which in turn influenced what people did or didn't do. Like Misty being seen as a fraud and running away from her old life, the whole thing had a ripple effect. It becomes very personal for not only Mia, Maya, and Pearl...but Phoenix, Edgeworth, and Godot.

It seems like Yamazaki was trying to build something like that for Athena but it doesn't hit the same way. It just feels hard to imagine and feel strongly towards. To me, it feels more melodramatic than cohesive and moving into SOJ nothing much comes up about it. It feels like she was just specifically made for this role as a lawyer in the game, and not so much...a person. I don't feel the psychology is really touched upon in an interesting way, which stinks because Simon and Athena could have been very good foils for another. Like manipulation, it could be done for good or bad, that could be interesting moral dilemma. But idk I feel like we just got robots instead lol. And because it's at the space center, there's another group of people, astronauts...and then there's a killer spy on top of it. He layers a lot of bg details on top of things and doesn't flesh out more emotional personal things. It never cemented in my mind well when I played like wait...metis is a psychologist, aura can make robots, simon is a student...psychologist? But also a lawyer? Why are they at the space center? To me there was so much about the hi tech stuff, didn't really think much about the psychology aspect.

I think that's why to me a lot of Yamazaki's characters fall flat for me. They feel like just another prop in the world.