It’s finally time for Apollo’s time in the hot seat in Turnabout Airport, when the person in line in front of him at the security checkpoint rudely falls over and dies, stabbed to death by the bloody icepick in Apollo’s hand. (Apollo claims he just noticed it on the ground and picked it up without realizing what it was, a likely story.) And, of course, there was nobody else on line at the time besides Apollo and the victim. Whoops! Naturally, Phoenix must swoop in to save Apollo and prove his innocence.
Turnabout Airport, like the previous tie-in novel Turnabout Idol, is written by Mie Takase, and a lot of what I said about Turnabout Idol applies here too. On the whole, Turnabout Airport felt refreshing (like a spring breeze, one might even say). Perhaps it’s just the dearth of official new Ace Attorney content and looking back at Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice with jade(d)-colored classes, but Turnabout Airport feels like it’s written by someone who gets the Ace Attorney franchise in a way that the powers-that-be behind Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice did not. Turnabout Airport wasn’t mind-blowing and undoubtedly has flaws (which I’ll get into), but it also captures the quintessential Ace Attorney spirit.
While I obviously don’t know the process behind Turnabout Airport, my assumption is that Takase received a list of stipulations from Capcom that the book had to satisfy, with my guesses being: it must be around 200 pages, it must be appropriate for tweens (the book was published under Kadokawa’s juvenile label), it must use a predetermined list of canon characters (and no others),it must be accessible to someone who has never played an Ace Attorney game before, it must not spoil any major events or plot threads from the canon games, and it may not disrupt or contribute to canon in any meaningful way. (It’s also possible that in addition to the characters used, some of their roles—such as making Apollo the defendant—were also stipulated.) While this is all conjecture, I highly doubt Takase was given free rein to write official Ace Attorney fanfiction—and within the context of these constraints, Turnabout Airport is pretty good. I think if Takase was given free rein we’d end up with something even better, but that’s not how it goes.
It’s great seeing the characters interact in a way that feels true to themselves (to the extent that’s possible for fictional characters). I actually think that making Apollo the defendant was a great move, since juggling Phoenix, Apollo, and Athena made the defense bench felt quite cramped in Turnabout Idol—but with Apollo locked away in jail, Phoenix and Athena can have a much more traditional attorney-assistant dynamic. (It would’ve been nicer if we could’ve had Trucy instead of Athena, but I digress.) That being said, (presumably because of the hypothetical constraints I listed above) the book doesn’t have a chance to fully explore the character questions it brings up. It’s merely taken for granted that Phoenix defends Apollo; there’s no discussion or explanation for why Apollo isn’t defending himself. Klavier is the prosecutor, which makes this his and Phoenix’s first “real” showdown—but the book doesn’t even allude to the baggage brought over from their first trial. While the character interactions are great, there are certain scenes where Turnabout Airport feels like it’s holding back (or is being held back).
Speaking of canon characters, Maya makes a (brief) appearance! Obviously she’s handled better than she is in Spirit of Justice.
Other points of improvement from Turnabout Idol are integrating the canon characters better into the plot (none feel obviously tacked on—although Edgeworth is close) and dialing back on wacky gags that would work in a visual medium but fall flat in text. The major step down from Turnabout Idol is the logic. Which isn’t to say that Turnabout Airport is full of plot holes, but a lot of testimony progress is made from Phoenix pressuring witnesses until they spontaneously confess to their lies rather than exposing lies through evidence-based contradictions. It feels like Takase thought of the big trick, but then wasn’t able to reverse-engineer proper Ace Attorney-style testimonies and contradictions that would lead to it, and so instead took this shortcut afforded by the fact that Turnabout Airport is a book and not a video game. The big trick is… a bit silly, and is probably helped by being surrounded by Ace Attorney wackiness, but the final piece of evidence felt pretty contrived. Not only does it feel like a huge lucky break that the evidence exists, but the killer just confesses without even needing the evidence examined. I understand that it needed to work like that to have the killer get caught and to resolve the case in one scene, but that doesn’t deny the scene of the typical satisfaction of taking down a culprit.
And, like Turnabout Idol, the cover is still an unholy amalgamation of official art that looks like it was put together in photoshop in five seconds. Which still doesn’t make sense, because there are actual illustrations peppered throughout the book.
In any event, Turnabout Airport is another decent Ace Attorney tie-in novel. The mystery plot is serviceable (albeit not particularly memorable), but it does its job. Turnabout Airport is quintessential Ace Attorney where sources of that are becoming increasingly rare.
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