Igiari! - The Takarazuka Revue's Phoenix Wright Musicals

This is the Igiari! - The Takarazuka Revue's Phoenix Wright Musicals piece that I wrote for The Luchazine (Issue #5) that was never released. The header is by aurahack.

You may have heard me talk about the Takarazuka Revue and their amazing Phoenix Wright musicals on episode #3 of The Luchacast, but I wanted to delve more into on just what these magnificent shows really are.

Founded by the president of Hankyu Railways in 1913, the Takarazuka Revue is an all-female theater troupe based out of Japan. Often performing musical adaptations of Western works, the Takarazuka Revue has performed shows based on movies like Casablanca and JFK, novels such as The Great Gatsby and Zorro, various plays by Shakespeare, manga, and even video games.

The Cosmos troupe—the newer, more experimental of the five troupes that make up the Revue and the one that did the Phoenix Wright musicals—were performing their rendition of Trafalgar, and I was fortunate enough to attend a showing in July. Though I barely understood any of it, I was enthralled throughout the entire two-hour showing. With a live orchestra located in the lower front, revolving stages, seamless background and scene transitions, crazy lighting effects, beautiful and detailed clothing designs, along with great acting and singing performances, it was quite a show indeed. Now, apply everything I just said to the Phoenix Wright universe and you have something of ridiculously awesome proportions.

The first musical, "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Truth Resurrected", focuses on Phoenix Wright as he tries to prove the innocence of his former lover, Leona Clyde, who has been accused of murdering a senator. Of course, Miles Edgeworth is there to get in his way, and the results are awesome song and dance sequences featuring some of your favorite characters from the franchise. In fact, the big opening sequence features Phoenix Wright, Miles Edgeworth, Larry Butz, Lotta Hart, Detective Gumshoe, Maya Fey, and Ema Skye all dancing in tandem. My favorite sequence, however, would have to be the Phoenix Wright/Miles Edgeworth dance-off that seamlessly turns into them facing against each other in the court room. The combination of the music, lighting, and general mood due to their history makes it truly special.

Miles Edgeworth and Phoenix Wright face off.

Premiering just six months later due to the popularity of the first Phoenix Wright, Phoenix Wright 2 focuses on a young woman whose mother is a suspect in a crime she didn't commit. Well, that's all the official description will give you, anyway; the story actually goes much deeper, but I won't spoil anything for potential viewers. It does do a good job of capturing the twists and turns the games are so known for, however, and even introduces Franziska von Karma herself—carrying her signature whip, of course! The best part of the show comes at the end, when the main characters dress in extra fancy versions of their outfits and do a song/dance number that lasts for a good ten minutes.

It's really all the little touches that help make these musicals so great, though. Working alongside Capcom, the musicals feature a close attention to detail that doesn't go unnoticed and is much appreciated. Using actual songs (particularly from the court room), art assets and sound effects from the game just oozes fanservice, and it totally works. They even go so far as to mimic character mannerisms you're familiar with, such as the way Miles shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders, or the way that Franziska waves her finger back and forth at Phoenix whenever he has screwed up. They also do a great job with the character design, making changes when needed; for example, Ranju Tomu (Phoenix Wright) was originally going to have the same hairstyle as the character does in the game, but they changed it due to it actually looking pretty terrible. Some purists may complain about this, but the changes they make are for the better. It's just like when a movie changes a superhero's costume from the comics—some things just don't translate properly to real life.

I could write an entire Luchazine about these wonderful works of art, but I'll stop here. Words and screens can only express so much, so I highly recommend that you look up these musicals on your own; there are plenty of fansubs just waiting to be watched.

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All images are screencaps I took from the DVDs I got at the Takarazuka Revue gift shop. (The 'u' is silent in Takarazuka, by the way.)

Here are a bunch of images that weren't included in the article!:

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Truth Resurrected

Phoenix Wright 2

Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part II

This is the Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part II piece that I wrote for The Luchazine (October 7th, 2010 edition of Issue #5) that was never released. I'm only including a small image of the design (done by JohnRabbit) this time, as the text included isn't final. You can read the full article below! You can read Part I in the fourth issue of The Luchazine.

Waking up at 5 AM, I was too excited to go back to sleep. Yesterday's experience at GiGO arcade left me wanting more, so I made a list of all the greatest arcades in the Akihabara area, including Club Sega and Taito HEY.

My worries of spending more time trying to find these places than actually playing the games in them were instantly alleviated. Turning the first corner after exiting Akihabara Station, I saw this in the distance:

Much like GiGO before it, Club Sega is a six-level arcade that continues the apparent pattern of having the first floor dedicated solely to claw games. Passing by some Hatsune Miku gear and Mickey Mouse pillows, I headed downstairs to B1, only to stand stunned at what I saw next.

"This is what I've been looking for this whole time." I thought to myself. In front of me were twenty-five Virtua Fighter 5 R machines and twenty Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion machines. The best part of all was that this place was packed—if someone wasn't in the middle of a furious battle, they were standing around watching matches. Trying my hand at Virtua Fighter 5 R and failing miserably (a series I am most familiar with via capsule toys in Shenmue), I purchased a Tekken-Net ID card and headed to the back corner of the room. My brother had been fighting this one guy for a while, and I decided to see how I would fare against him. As I sat down, I slid the overflowing ash tray to my side—apparently, people smoke a lot more when playing fighting games—and inserted my card. His Steve and my Hwoarang fought for quite some time, and regardless of how close I came, I just couldn't beat him. I guess that's the problem when you rarely play fighting games and then go to a Japanese arcade.

Coming to the conclusion that I would probably never win and not wanting to waste anymore of my precious 100 yen coins, I headed up to the 2nd floor. If B1 was the fighting floor, than this was the racing floor. Eight Initial D: Arcade Stage 5, four R-Tuned: Ultimate Street Racing, and eight Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 DX Plus machines took up the majority of the floor space. However, it seemed like most of the people there were far more interested in playing Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade, even if it meant having to stand in a roped-off line for a while. Not in the mood for racing or waiting in line for twenty minutes, I played another rhythm-based game where you hit giant buttons called pop'n music. A 1998 game by Konami that was updated earlier this year with new songs, you select your difficulty by choosing whether to play with five or nine buttons (insanity!). Most of the music was unfamiliar to me, though I did do pretty well when it came to the themes of Gradius and Kill Bill. Another rhythm-based game on this floor was Taiko no Tatsujin 13, which you may be familiar with as "that drum game" from Lost in Translation (though that was an earlier version). I watched a few gaijin play it for future reference (foreshadowing!) and scaled the stairs up to the third floor.

I cannot possibly overstate how popular she is here.

Another room packed with people and fighting games, there was a lot of variety to choose from here. You had your choice of playing: Sengoku Basara X, The King of Fighters 2002, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, Arcana Heart 3, Melty Blood, Guilty Gear XX Λ Core, The King of Fighters XIII, and Street Fighter IV. It was, to say, complete madness. Getting my ass kicked once again (my Terry Bogard just wasn't strong enough), I went up to the fourth floor to experience even more craziness.

"Actually, Charles, I think you just suck."

With the exception of the wildly out-of-place Power Smash 3 machines (tennis!), this floor was nothing but seemingly complicated-ass mech games, mostly from the Gundam franchise. Satisfied at being able to grasp Gundam far better than Cyber Troopers, I progressed up the final set of stairs to the fifth floor of Club Sega, only to lay eyes upon one of the greatest arcade setups I have ever seen. Imagine eight players, all with their own arcade cabinets, controlling and managing their football players via collectible trading cards and then seeing the results of their actions on a 100-inch plus screen in front of them which is showcasing the match as if it were a live football broadcast. World Club Champion Football Intercontinental Clubs 2008-2009 must be what Football Manager fans have wet dreams about. I know I would if I were into these types of games.

World Club was so awesome, in fact, that I nearly missed the Shining Force Cross machines. However, due to the awesomeness of the game (it being one of my favorite things I played in all of Tokyo), this author has decided to do a separate feature on it in issue #6.

Leaving the complex in a wave of euphoria, I went in search of Taito HEY wondering if my experience at Club Sega could hope to be matched.

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Obviously, there won't an issue #6 of The Luchazine, but I will continue this series in blog format.

The Ultimate PlayStation Move Breakdown

This is The Ultimate PlayStation Move Breakdown piece I wrote for The Luchazine (October 7th, 2010 edition of Issue #5) that was never released. Nicolas Perez is monkyofdoom, and I'm Charles Alan Ratliff (duh!). The design is by UberExplodey.

Click here to view the Sports Champions review mentioned on the third page.

Click the images for a better view!

Below are the images I took of TV Superstars as I was playing it. I purposefully chose not to shave before doing this. The first image is the one actually used in the article.

Sports Champions: Review

This is the Sports Champions review I wrote for The Luchazine (October 7th, 2010 edition of Issue #5) that was never released. The design is by JohnRabbit. Click the images for a better view.

The Luchazine Issue #4

Released: September 13th, 2010

This is the fourth issue of The Luchazine. It was the first issue I ever worked on. I am credited as "Charles A. Ratliff (Vito_Raliffe) - Associate Editor".

I wrote two articles for this issue:

Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part I (pages 37-38. Designed by cookiesforbreakfast)

"Mmmm, I want some more!" - Japanese Game-Related Food Reviews (pages 39-40. Designed by UberExplodey)

I also edited several first drafts as Associate Editor.

The Luchacast Episode #4: Weak Week

Released: September 13th, 2010

This is the fourth episode of The Luchazine podcast, The Luchacast. It was my second appearance on The Luchacast, and my second podcast ever. We started recording it on September 11th, 2010 at 11 PM Central time. We recorded for about 50 minutes before restarting, due to the podcast "running too long".

The Cast:

Abhishek Chaudhry - indian_boy

Samuel Cooke - pepsicolaboy

Charles Alan Ratliff (That's me!) - Vito_Raliffe

Goran "Pop" Popovic - GoranP

Official Description:

"Abhishek Chaudhry (indian_boy), Samuel Cooke (pepsicolaboy), Charles Alan Ratliff (Vito_Raliffe), and Goran "Pop" Popovic (GoranP) sit down and tackle a slow news week mixed with a lull in new releases. This may be the shortest "award-winning" Luchacast ever, but it is jam packed with a bunch of "award-winning" discussions on playing the upcoming Move & Kinect, 3D games, Halo: Reach, and much more. Does Charlie have a thing for dinosaurs? Tune in to find out!"

The Luchacast Episode #3: Mario Might Be Evil

Released: August 30th, 2010

This is the third episode of The Luchazine podcast, The Luchacast. Not only was it my first Luchacast, but it was also the first podcast I've ever done. We started recording it on August 29th, 2010 at 2 PM Central Time.

The Cast:

Samuel Cooke - pepsicolaboy

Charles Alan Ratliff (That's me!) - Vito_Raliffe

Eric Shepard - aurahack

Goran "Pop" Popovic - GoranP

Official Description:

"Samuel Cooke (pepsicolaboy), Charles Alan Ratliff (Vito_Raliffe), Eric Shepard (aurahack), Pop Popovic (myself) cooled their intense hatred of technology and the internet in order to record the third episode of The Luchazine. Join us as we talk about how Mario might be evil, the chatroulette of Xbox, the future of open-world games, Quake 1 & 3, more Starcraft II, S-linking with little children in playgrounds, Scott Pilgrim. Phoenix Wright musicals, Sam's hatred of grapes, grieving other players in competitive multiplayer, Homeworld 2 and much more! We even answer some listener questions. Feel free to send us a bazillion more questions to theluchazine[at]gmail[dot]com or simply post in this thread. You can also hit us up on our Facebook page if that's your thing."

The Luchazine

Cover by Kat Smith (Turbo_Toaster) of Whiskey Media

The Luchazine was a community-run magazine founded on the forums of Giant Bomb by Goran Popović (editor-in-chief) and Abhishek Chaudhry (lead designer).

The first issue was released on the Giant Bomb forums on June 14th, 2010, which is when I first noticed its existence (The E3 Live Stream Thread that I made was mentioned on page 8 under the "Terrific Thread" section). Thinking it was pretty cool and wanting to be a part of it, I applied for a writer position for the second issue, but I had missed the deadline due to going to the wedding of my friend, Jeremiah, in Kansas.

It was on July 9th, 2010 that Matt Kessler, former intern and current news writer on Giant Bomb, wrote a quick article titled "Have You Seen The Luchazine?" and posted it to the front page of Giant Bomb, giving the magazine a lot of exposure. I became even more interested in writing for the magazine, and was sure to send in my application for a writing position on time. I wrote a short piece titled "Four Minutes of Terror", which detailed a recent event where I thought I had lost all my Xbox 360 saves in the process of transferring them over to my new Xbox 360 S. I had written it while sitting in the middle of my storage room's floor in Killeen, Texas, as this had been after most of my and my brother's stuff had been packed up and sent to Oklahoma. It was also right before we left for our trip to Japan, so it was quite a hectic time in my life. It was at the Shinagawa Prince hotel in Tokyo in July of 2010 that I received a reply back from Goran with confirmation that I had been hired to write for The Luchazine. Though it was a little while before issue 3's release and I had yet to do any work, I was credited in the magazine (mistakenly as "Charles Alan Raliffe (Vito_Raliffe)").

It was around this time that a forum had been created for The Luchazine staff via Zetaboards. Before, everything was done through email, and the forums were a clean, organized solution for everyone. When people started to post their drafts for issue 4 on the forum, I started to copyedit them on my own so as few mistakes as possible would be released into the final magazine. I had then been promoted to Associate Editor on August 19th, 2010, which meant that I was to copyedit all first drafts posted. If another version of a draft was posted afterward, I did not work on it.

On August 29th at 2 PM Central Time, I made my first appearance on The Luchacast (The Luchazine's podcast), which also happened to be my first podcast ever. The podcast was released as The Luchacast Episode #3: Mario Might Be Evil on August 30th. It was a lot of fun! I actually had to go out previously and buy a $30 Logitech headset since too much background noise could be heard via my webcam. All my friends I had talked to were surprised this was my first podcast, especially with a bunch of people I had never spoken with before.

Work continued on The Luchazine Issue #4, and on September 11th at 11 PM Central Time, I participated in my second podcast ever, The Luchacast Episode #4: Weak Week. We had previously recorded for about 50 minutes, but started over due to the podcast "running too long". This affected the quality of the released version, with the unheard portion being much better and natural. The episode was released on September 13th.

On the same day, The Luchazine Issue #4 was released. It was the first issue I had actually worked on, and was by far the most successful release The Luchazine had ever seen, mostly because of the incredible work the design team did. I was credited as "Charles A. Ratliff (Vito_Raliffe) - Associate Editor" and had my name placed at the top of the Staff list, even though everyone was usually listed alphabetically. Along with editing first drafts and doing promotional work, I also wrote two articles, both of which can be seen at the previous link.

A couple of weeks after the release of issue #4, I decided to mail in the cover to the offices of Whiskey Media. I went to Walmart, printed out a high-quality version of it, and then went to Hobby Lobby to have it framed with museum glass. I printed out a note I had written to go along with the frame, including The Luchazine logo at the top to make it a little fancier, and shipped it via FedEx. The total cost was nearly $140. The only proof I had that the cover ever arrived was a photocopy of the signature given when it was delivered, until my attention was brought to this Tested video where the cover can be seen between Will Smith and Jeff Gerstmann as they talk about iPhone games. Ethan Lance of Whiskey Media later posted a picture of it in a blog he had written:

The Luchazine cover hanging in the Whiskey Media offices.

Work immediately started on The Luchazine Issue #5 after issue #4 was released. I was promoted to Executive Editor on October 9th (editing drafts, handling schedules and deadlines, promotional work, along with writing). The magazine went through three different versions due to delays imposed by the founders. There was an October 7th version, an October 25th version, and a November 25th version. The Luchazine project was then suddenly and unexpectedly ended by the founders on November 27th. None of these problems had anything to do with my work on the magazine.

I wrote four pieces for issue #5 that were never officially released (I posted them up on Giant Bomb at the same time I posted them here on my blog):

Sports Champions Review

The Ultimate PlayStation Move Breakdown

Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part II

Igiari! - The Takarazuka Revue's Phoenix Wright Musicals

And that, as they say, was that.