The amnesia trope is one of the most divisive storytelling narratives, largely due to the lack of boundaries the trope has. There are many things in a story that can cause a character to lose all of their memories, ranging anywhere from psychological experimentation to a simple head bump, and in turn, there are many things that can fix a character’s amnesia. Audiences have become tired of the amnesia trope as when it’s used, it rarely makes sense, but functions to create a lot of contrived conflict between characters, and it’s anyone’s guess if or how it will be resolved.
WhenThe Great Ace Attorney Chronicleswas finally given a worldwide release six years after its initial release in Japan, many fans were eager to see what Ace Attorney creatorShu Takumihad drummed up in the spinoff.The Great Ace Attorney Chroniclesfollows the young upcoming lawyer Ryunosuke Naruhodo, ancestor to Phoenix Wright, as he leaves Meiji-Era Japan with his teenage judicial assistant, Susato Mikotoba, to travel to Great Britain. Together, the two uncover secrets that threaten to upend the British legal system as they know it. However, before the journey even begins the audience is introduced to Ryunosuke’s best friend who is also a lawyer, Kazuma Asogi, who acts as Ryunosuke’s assistant and mentor figure in the first case of the first game,The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles: Adventures. Kazuma is quick-witted and supportive, yet also slightly aggressive and a bit sarcastic. He often pokes fun at Ryunosuke for his forgetfulness and his general nervous nature.
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However,The Great Ace Attorney Chroniclesalso decided to follow in the steps of its predecessor franchise in regard to its first major plot twist, that being to kill off the protagonist’s mentor character immediately after they teach the protagonist how to be a lawyer in the first trial. In the originalPhoenix Wright: Ace Attorneygame, it was Mia Fey, and inThe Great Ace Attorney Chronicles: Adventures,it’s Kazuma Asogi. Unfortunately, Kazuma is pushed by a Russian stowaway on the journey to London, and hits his head on a bedpost, effectively killing him (yes, that is actually how it happens), and asThe Great Ace Attorney Chroniclesdoes not have any sort of spirit channeling gimmick likePhoenix Wright: Ace Attorneydoes, this is the last we see of Kazuma Asogi… right?
Much mystery surrounded Kazuma’s death in the first game, his body never made it back to Japan, Ryunosuke never saw his body after he died, and many of the other characters were acting rather suspicious in regard to the events around his death. It is in the second game,The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles: Resolve, that we learn of Prosecutor Barok van Zieks’ new masked apprentice, who physically holds himself in a manner that Ryunosuke and Susato both find very familiar. As it turns out, Kazuma never actually died, and instead, has returned to the story as a new character in the form of Van Zieks’ apprentice, or so it appears.
When we meet Kazuma again after he has regained his memories in case four ofResolve, no longer is he the stern yet supportive best friend we knew inAdventures, instead he has become a cold and calculating prosecutor, hard focused on the dark and mysterious goal he had been vaguely alluding to in the previous game. As the case progresses and we dig deeper and deeper into the mystery of the “Professor Killings” and the truth about Kazuma’s father, Genshin Asogi, he grows more and more unhinged and desperate for justice. He is shown to be aggressive and abrasive, pulling no punches against Ryunosuke. His new facade is a part of him the audience has never seen, and thus may be inclined to think is a result of his amnesia, as that is typically how personality changes occur with the amnesia trope.
Ryunosuke has to watch Kazuma despairingly from the opposite side of the courtroom, mourning the loss of the person he used to know. This would continue until Kazuma ultimately remembers who he is at the climax of the final case. This is the way the trope typically plays out when it’s aiming for the maximum level of character sadness and angst. However, instead,The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles’ writing shines in these final three cases of the second game, as it chooses to use Kazuma’s amnesia as the inciting incident for his character arc instead of as the source of the plot’s drama like how the amnesia trope typically does. The aggressive and borderline violent tendencies and actions Kazuma exhibits inResolvewere present in the previous game, but they read differently to the audience because of the change in perspective in regard to his abrasive words.
In these final two cases, Kazuma is still the same character Ryunosuke and the audience knew, but we just hadn’t seen the full extent of what he was capable of. This creates the illusion of a shockingly new character, which upon further reflection, is simultaneously still in line with his previous self. When Kazuma reappears inResolve, he is still the same Kazuma fromAdventures, but he feels like a new character as a result of the perspective changes that occur on behalf of both Kazuma and Ryunosuke because of how the plot develops.
During the first case inAdventures, much of Kazuma’s dialogue to Ryunosuke when Ryunosuke makes a mistake exhibits his unchecked aggression, with phrases like “The next time you make a quip like that, I’ll make you eat your words. Then you’ll be needing some dental surgery yourself”, and “But see if you may use one of your other skills this time. Otherwise…you’ll have my sword to answer to!” However, Kazuma also uses this tone towards the prosecution and witnesses as well, instructing Ryunosuke to “Present the evidence to the court! Thrust it in the witness’s face and make him choke on it!”
The central difference in these scenarios when contrasted with his appearance inResolveis the direction of his aggression. InAdventures, his aggression is targeted in the favor of the player, causing it to come across as overdramatic and almost a little comical with how pointed it is. By contrast, when Prosecutor Kazuma is poking at Ryunosuke’s blunders with aggressive remarks inResolveit feels much more cutting and unwarranted. Having Kazuma on the other side of the courtroom creates a physical and mental divide, emphasizing the gap that has grown between Ryunosuke and him, as well as between him and the audience.
Not only this, the stakes have grown in the final two cases ofResolvein comparison toAdventures, meaning that Kazuma’s insults, while tonally the same as his previous self, come across much more serious than before. In this case, we discover that the true mission that Kazuma was being sent on for his trip to Great Britain inAdventureswas to be a hired assassin. He was hired in an “assassin exchange program” between Japan and Great Britain to eliminate anyone who was involved in the final case of the “Professor Killings”. Though he never intended on going through with the assassination, the notion that he took up the assignment anyway, and was even at the scene of the crime of the current murder that is being tried, colors Kazuma in a vastly different light than he was in previously.
When Kazuma comments about Ryunosuke having to face his sword because he picked the wrong evidence in regard to whether or not the victim had dental surgery in case one, it feels drastically less intimidating than him commenting on how Ryunosuke may need to feel the sting of being dragged behind a cart to understand his claims in cases four and five ofResolve. Morally, he has not drastically changed as he never actually committed any crimes, but the audience’s perspective of him changes with the introduction of this new information, ultimately making him feel like a different character.
Kazuma has always been as combative as he was in the final two cases ofResolve, but also Kazuma’s desperation to avenge his Father causes him to feed into his most negative traits as he spirals further and further into unrecognizable territory. Kazuma’s central goal in cases four and five is to discover the truth around the “Professor Killings” and clear his father’s name. The story around the murders was that Genshin Asogi was actually the mass murderer known as “The Professor,” and was put to death as a result. However, Kazuma believes otherwise, and as the case unfolds, he is shown to be willing to do anything to prove that.
His desperation results in him taking on an assassination mission as a ticket to get to Great Britain, and almost results as him briefly being colored as the murderer of Tobias Gregson before the truth actually comes out. The central drama and conflict of these two cases stem from his downward spiral, causing him to act out in more extreme ways that feel unfamiliar to Ryunosuke and the audience. In actuality though, the characteristics that make him feel so foreign and dark to the audience were always core traits to his personality, but by making a few changes in the setting surrounding them and by playing up the more sinister aspects of his actions, he ends up being a much more morally gray and complex character overall.
Kazuma’s character arc ultimately acts as a mirror and a foil for the amnesia trope as a whole. Because of how his character develops and how the information we learn about him in this trial taints how we view him, he feels like a completely new character despite hardly changing at all in reality. The aspects of his character that are being played up for plot-related reasons in cases four and five ofResolvehad all existed in his characterization inAdventures, but it is perceived very differently because of the specific changes made to Kazuma and Ryunosuke’s relationship in the courtroom. Here, Kazuma’s amnesia acts as the inciting incident for his character arc, but his arc ultimately mirrors the typical plot beats of how amnesia tropes tend to unfold. He is both the Kazuma we knew, but feels like a completely new character, much like how amnesiac characters are completely transformed characters for the sake of drama.
The result of this is Kazuma becoming much more nuanced and morally gray, but also more intriguing. The final two cases beg Ryunosuke, and the audience by extension, to ask “Who is the Kazuma in front of us? Because this is still the sane Kazuma, did we ever truly know him to begin with?” which is a much more engaging emotional conflict than what typically results from amnesia plots.
