My top ten Ace Attorney Killers (10-8)

A promise I made to myself was to write as often as possible, and one of the first things I’ve learned is that coming up with an interesting topic is a bigger challenge than I thought. In moments like these, its best to stick with what you know. And I know two things for certain, fictional characters and dysfunctional personalities.

I have been hooked on the Ace Attorney series ever since I saw Ashford Pride’s parody Phoenix Wrong. It is one of only two titles I will get on its launch date, the other I’ll discuss in another piece. Now be warned, what you are about to see is a top ten lists of the most cold-hearted of villains, so spoilers are over the horizon. And to make sure I have enough content to write for a few days, I will be breaking this up in to parts. Who knows, maybe when all is said and done I might turn this in to a video.

10 Marlon Rimes

All right so right off the bat, Marlon is obsessed with killing an aquarium attraction. He blamed the “dangerous” orca for the death of his fiancée and as they say, “love makes you do crazy shit.” So, Marlon decided to get a job at the aquarium and wait for his moment to exact revenge. Now credit to the man for being able to get hired in the first place, however his boss knew something wasn’t right. One day while cleaning, Marlon was going to leave the Orca out of its water attempting to kill it. Marlon’s boss interjected just in time and the two ensued in a heated argument. During the tuff, the aquarium owner slipped and fell in to the empty pool. Marlon stretched out his hand and tried to save his boss, but was too weak to pull him up, and the owner sadly fell to his death.

Although stricken with grief, Marlon also saw this accidental death as another chance to kill the orca. He hid the body in an underwater structure and called a fellow hater of the orca to the aquarium. When the woman arrived, Marlon used a command he learned from his dead lover to trick the orca in to retrieving the recently deceased owner. The woman saw this and naturally thought the orca had claimed another life, promptly calling the police and animal control.

Even though Marlon went all Captain Ahab on the Orca, there were plenty of moments that showed he still had compassion. Throughout the entire case, he claimed that anyone else who could have possibly killed the aquarium manager was innocent, even putting himself on the witness stand to defend the orca’s handler. And let us not forget, he even tried to save his boss, so it was never Marlon’s intention to kill him, he was just blind with misguided rage and saw an opportunity.

9 Shelly De Killer

During an award ceremony between two rival actors, one of the nominees for the best actor award was brutally murdered and your assistant gets kidnapped. This was all done by the methodical, composed hired hitman known only as Shelly De Killer. De Killer is a loyal man, putting the safety and privacy of client above all else. While he takes no actual pleasure in his work, Shelly is very good at his job to the point he was able to get away twice.

Shelly De Killer can, and has, gone to great lengths to protect his client in the past. Along with the fore-mentioned kidnapping for leverage, he also held the entire courtroom hostage and even went so far as to shoot the prosecution to ensure victory for his client. And to make matters worse, he’s not an idiot making it rather difficult to stall for time.

Like Marlon, Shelly De Killer isn’t exactly a callous man, he’s just a professional. But he does one trigger, and that would-be betrayal. Once he is betrayed by his client, he terminates his contact with them and they become the next target. That is a rather extreme but understandable punishment from someone who is otherwise obedient to his client’s wishes.

8 Manfred Von Karma

For a man who claimed to do everything perfectly, he sure made some fucking big blunders! I won’t discredit what he’s done, it takes a special kind of psycho to kill your rival, corrupt his son, and let another man’s life fall to ruin in exchange for your freedom. Because of the fact he received his first penalty at the hands of Gregory Edgeworth, Manfred was consumed with rage.

As fate would have it, Manfred was waiting for the elevator when an earthquake knocked out the power. Unknown to him, was that Edgeworth, his son Miles, and the bailiff Yanni Yogi were stuck in the elevator. Yogi had panicked, and Gregory tried to calm him down. The two got in to a fight when Yogi pulled out and dropped his gun in front of a terrified Miles. Being a scared child, Miles picked up the gun and threw it in the hopes that it would reach his father. The gun hit the floor, and fired a shot through the elevator door and in to the shoulder of an unassuming Manfred.

Miles, Gregory and Yogi passed out from the shock and lack of oxygen right as the power came back on. The doors opened, and Von Karma saw his chance. He picked up the gun and fired a single shot in to the still unconscious heart of the man who was responsible for the first blemish on his perfect record. The crime went so well, even the deceased didn’t know Manfred was the killer.

But the torment didn’t stop there, he soon adopted Miles Edgeworth as his own and turned him in to his protegee. He kept Edgeworth under his wing until his pupil lost to a rookie. It was then that Manfred, who kept an eye on the now defamed bailiff Yani Yogi and formulated a fiendish plot. The only reason Yogi wasn’t convicted for the murder of Gregory Edgeworth was because his attorney forced him to take an insanity plea. It worked but Yogi’s reputation suffered so badly he was forced in to hiding. Manfred sent detailed instructions to Yogi about how he could get revenge on his attorney and let Miles Edgeworth take the rap for the murder.

Now while it is horrible to kill a man AND corrupt his family, Manfred only did this because he felt like he was attacked. He had no real personal issues with Gregory, and truthfully, I can see him doing this to any poor sap who comes across his way. Your assistant finds your encounter with him to be quite shocking to say the least.