Pratique du Shadowing: The Animation of Phoenix Wright - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec la vidéo

Order, order everyone.

New Frame Plus is in session.

By order of the patrons, we are here to examine the animation in the Ace Attorney series.

So, before we begin: Thank you to Marina DeMarias, ScoutHunter546, and Arki Andruski for suggesting this very good topic.

Now, I realize that this might at first seem a strange series to make an animation analysis video about, because the animation in the Ace Attorney games is incredibly minimal.

You could even argue that it is unnecessary.

Just a flourish, a light sprinkling of movement over top of an otherwise static visual novel.

But however non -essential the animation might seem, it is still an important additive element, and it's a big reason why Phoenix Wright games have proven so memorable.

Game animation is always a challenge of delivering the most bang for your buck, and Ace Attorney's developers have historically had very little buck to work with.

This is a series whose visual identity has been shaped by its limitations.

The first game was developed by a team of seven people over the course of just ten months.

The original Phoenix Wright trilogy was first made for the Game Boy Advance, of all things.

And yet, despite all that, these games are loaded with expressive characters and silly things charm.

So how do these games manage to do so much, using so very little?

To start, it helps that Shu Takumi and his team chose the perfect presentational format.

The visual novel is an ideal genre for delivering an interactive story on the cheap.

I mean, all you really need is backgrounds, some static 2D character art, and a text box.

And you can't get much more efficient than that.

And if all these games had was a handful of static poses and backgrounds in a text box, they still would have worked.

I mean, lots of successful visual novels have been just that.

But Ace Attorney does not stop there.

The first thing that really sets Ace Attorney games apart from the pack is the quality of their pose design.

Characters in these games only have a handful of poses each, and you're going to be staring at those poses for hours, so they have to be good.

And they have to somehow convey the totality of each character's personality.

Capcom's artists have to essentially take each character and condense all of their body into just a few snapshots.

And these games are so good at it.

All these characters are so expressive.

So many visual novel characters will spend their entire game standing in these relatively neutral poses letting the text

and their facial expressions do all the work.

But not these folks.

Just look at the range on Edgeworth's courtroom posing.

You got neutral, Smug.

Stern.

Assertive.

Very assertive.

Taken aback.

Exasperated.

That's not a whole lot of poses, and yet, he is larger than life.

Every one of these characters makes an immediate, strong impression.

Like, you don't need to read a single line of dialogue from Red White to know that you hate him.

Here, I'll show you.

See?

Just one glance at that pose and that smug expression and you have all the information you need.

Heck, This game has some of the most iconic poses in all of gaming.

You don't have to have played a single Ace Attorney game to recognize this.

This brings us to another important element that sets these games apart: their approach to limited animation.

Because, as you can see, these are not just static poses.

Compared to a lot of their visual novel contemporaries, Ace Attorney characters actually animate quite a bit.

You see, one of the common challenges for this genre is that you want your visual novel to be visually engaging, right?

Because static images can get pretty boring to look at after a while.

But you got no money.

So you've either got to accept that your game's just gonna look pretty static, and that's gonna have to be fine,

or you've got to figure out how to liven things up in a way that costs very little.

And it's pretty fun looking around to see how many varied solutions different visual novels

and adventure games have used to address that problem, because there are a lot of really creative approaches out there.

Now, in the case of Phoenix Wright, fully animating these characters on such a tight budget and schedule, obviously out of the question.

So, what the artists did instead was work within their key poses, adding just enough movement to keep the characters feeling alive.

I've talked before about the concept of limited animation, which you often see deployed in animation for TV, which has to work on a tighter budget.

Well, this is basically that, but stripped down even further, down to the barest minimum possible.

So the characters will hit these striking poses, but then, as they hold each pose, they will continue to blink.

When they speak, as their text dialogue appears below, their mouths will cycle through a handful of talking shapes.

And, for certain poses, characters will even have extremely limited, unique animation.

Just one or two additional drawings wherever it'll have the most impact.

Maybe even on just one part of the body.

Like, nervous characters will visibly sweat.

Detective Gumshoe will do this heavy breathing, which just adds to his sense of eager intensity.

Dee Vasquez will smoke her pipe, Cody Hackens will try and fail to draw his toy sword, Luke Atme will clean his magnifying eyeglass thing.

Francisca von Karma will tensely grip the fabric of her sleeve, just like her dad does, by the way.

And they'll add these anticipation frames to the poses that really need to pop with some more energy,

like Phoenix's accusatory point, or the moments where Phoenix or Edgeworth slam their hands down on the stand.

That tiny bit of extra animation attention goes wherever it will achieve maximum personality or appeal. Or comedy.

Like, the first time you're up against Godot, and you see him lean forward, hand outstretched, and a coffee mug suddenly slides into his palm out of nowhere?

If that gag is not worth a few more frames of animation, then what is?

But the real value of this strong -pose design

and hyper -limited animation is in the ways

that they can both be used to show a progression of emotions over the course of a story.

and the posing on this cast of absurd caricatures needs to reflect the drama of the moment, and not just for narrative purposes, but also for player feedback.

In the context of a virtual courtroom, visible shifts in a character's emotional state are some of the clearest feedback the player can get in response to their choices.

Like, if that last question got a big emotional reaction, then you might be onto something.

Or, if the prosecution starts looking smug all of a sudden, that's probably a bad sign.

To show you what I mean, let's look at just one character's entire animation set over the course of one story.

From the start, let's do it with a character from the very first episode in the series.

Frank saw it.

Now, this particular episode opens with a cutscene showing us that Frank is, in fact, the real killer, so there is no ambiguity going into this case.

We know for a fact that the accused, our client, is innocent, and that Frank is not to be trusted.

So when the trial starts, and it's finally Frank's turn to take the stand, this is the first pose we see.

Look at this suck -up.

Clearly, he is hoping to come in here, sweet -talk his way through his testimony, and get out without a scratch.

Now, obviously, this is not subtle characterization, but it's not supposed to be.

This is a game of larger -than -life caricatures.

Subtlety has no place here.

And he's already got some limited animation happening in this first pose:

just a set of three drawings on only his body to allow him to do that little sycophantic wiggle.

And this is a particularly great touch, because that back and forth movement not only adds to the cloyingly over -friendly nature of the pose,

but it also gives Frank a sort of nervous energy.

And of course, we know why he might be feeling nervous.

It's just two extra drawings, but they have a big payoff.

So then, the prosecutor asks his first question, and it's a pretty simple little softball of a question, but Frank's response is accompanied by a flash and a screen shake.

The Ace Attorney games use these fullscreen effects a lot for emphasis.

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In this instance, it makes Frank's response feel kind of over -eager, like maybe he replied a little too suddenly or too loudly.

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This is also where we see the additional drawings for Frank's talking mouth in this pose.

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Just his default mouth shape and three additional mouth poses playing on a loop.

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Now, as Frank starts giving his testimony, you might notice a subtle difference in his animation during the moments when he's speaking.

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He is still holding that same pose as before, but as the text appears on screen and his mouth flaps, speed of his wiggling increases slightly.

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When he's usually just standing there idle, his little wiggle animates on 20 frame intervals but when he's talking,

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that animation speeds up so that the drawings cycle every 15 frames or so, which makes him feel a little more active on screen.

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And I love this little efficiency.

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The artists are altering the character's performance just through timing alone here, without having to add any new art

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and we're going to see them play with that timing a lot more in a second.

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So, Frank gives his testimony, and, wait a minute, we find an inconsistency.

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When we call him on it, that's when we see Frank's second pose.

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And it's very similar to the first one.

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In fact, I think the body animation might be identical, which, again, hey, efficient.

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But now, his head is tilted downward slightly.

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His brows are furrowed, he's looking a little more worried, he's starting to sweat, and that body animation cycle is going even faster.

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Now the drawings are switching on 8 frame intervals.

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Plus, we're starting to see more screen shake on his responses.

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He is getting more and more nervous, and that act he's been putting on is starting to feel less charming and more desperate.

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And mmm, does that not feel satisfying?

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Of course, he does come up with a lie to dig himself out of that hole, and he reverts to that original smarmy grin.

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But then he gives revised testimony and, aha, another contradiction.

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And with another flash and screen shake, Frank is cornered again.

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Brief glimpse of pose number three: an expression of furious shock.

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Kind of like when a cat digs their claws into your leg.

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It's only on screen for a second, but it's a telling sign.

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We're beginning to break through the act.

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And there's a little animation to this pose, too.

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But so long as you don't blink, you might see his toupee flap off of his forehead just a little.

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It's a little bit of foreshadowing for you.

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So Frank digs himself out of this lie also, but this time he doesn't go back to the smarmy pose he sweats through his entire third attempt at testimony.

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And when we call him on yet another inconsistency, this time we get pose #4: anger.

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He's shaking his fist, the screen is shaking a lot on his dialogue now, his eyes are blinking just slightly out of sync, which, mmm, that's good.

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We're seeing a new side of Frank come out: the true Frank, who can't keep his anger in check.

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We've almost got him.

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You see what I mean about this animation acting as player feedback?

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Frank's emotional state functions as evidence of your progress in this case.

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And these emotional outbursts also weirdly function as a kind of celebration.

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But as you wear the witness down with more and more of your very good lawyering, their escalating nervousness and anger is your reward.

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And if you can manage to keep pressing them, and break through their last few desperate lies Then?

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you The game will celebrate your victory with a relatively elaborate meltdown.

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This is almost always the most animation you're going to see on these antagonist characters.

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Frank's little toupee throw here requires a whopping seven new drawings

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or I guess closer to 12 if you include the hair and also Phoenix's expression.

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It is no wonder players love these meltdowns so much, because they are immensely satisfying moments that you worked so hard to earn.

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And the actual animation of these moments isn't even that impressive.

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By most standards, this would probably be considered kinda poor, but the over -the -top comedy of the outburst still makes for an incredibly satisfying surprise.

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But Frank's not done yet.

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Now that he's had his outburst, we've got a sixth pose of pure rage, and it has a lot of movement on it.

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The Frank that started this trial is nowhere to be seen.

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And when you deliver the final, final blow, the game has one more reward for you.

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A court case won by knockout.

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That's some good lawyering we just did.

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And that's it!

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That's all of Frank's animation.

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Just seven or eight poses with some extremely limited movement thrown in for emphasis.

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Compared to most other hit games, that's barely anything, and yet, it achieves everything it needs to.

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In fact, this style of limited but exaggerated animation is so effective that modern Ace Attorney titles are still using it.

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The characters may all be 3D models now, and the snippets of animation may have a bit more detail than they used to, but everything is still built on simple,

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held poses, accented with extremely limited, specific motion.

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And I'm actually shocked at how well this works in 3D.

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Granted, the models aren't able to hit those old poses with

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quite the level of appeal as the original pixel art and drawings had, but they do get like 95 % of the way there.

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And the constant use of unusually static poses makes the flourishes of animation even more appealing by contrast.

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The animation in Ace Attorney games is simple and impressive all at once.

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Aesthetically, it has to strike this extremely delicate balance of adding just enough movement to keep things feeling alive and expressive,

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without that simplistic movement just feeling like bad animation.

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to be cheap, without feeling cheap, basically.

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The line between limited animation and bad animation can be extremely thin.

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And Phoenix Wright does drift over that line with some frequency, if I'm honest, but when your posing is this strong,

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and when your characters are this expressive and their reactions are this satisfying, I'm not sure any amount of clunky animation can ruin that.

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Like I said, at the end of the day, the eternal challenge of game animation is in delivering the most bang for your buck

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and very few teams succeed in achieving this much while working with so little.

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Thanks once again to my patrons for choosing this topic.

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This was not a franchise I was planning to dig into, but I'm very happy you gave me the opportunity to do so.

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If you would like to suggest a topic for a future New Frame + episode, then consider supporting the show like all of these beacons of justice over here.

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Thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time.

✨ Vidéo recommandée

166 phrases

Vocabulaire et conseils d’expression pour cette leçon

Cette leçon d’expression orale de niveau B2 s’appuie sur la vidéo « The Animation of Phoenix Wright ». Les mots qui reviennent le plus souvent : animation, pose, character, Frank. Cette vidéo contient 176 phrases et 2627 mots à répéter en shadowing. La partie parlée dure 15:03. Le locuteur parle à un rythme naturel d’environ 174 mots par minute, proche d’une conversation courante. Seuls 80 % des mots font partie des 3 000 mots les plus courants en anglais, le vocabulaire est donc exigeant.

Vocabulaire clé de cette vidéo

Les 15 mots les plus avancés de la vidéo, avec leur prononciation et leur sens :

Mot	Prononciation	Sens
pose verbe	/poʊz/	poser
animation nom	/ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/	animation, invigoration
static adjectif	/ˈstæt.ɪk/	statique
testimony nom	/ˈtɛstɪmoʊni/	témoignage
expressive adjectif	/ɪkˈspɹɛsɪv/	expressif
satisfy verbe	/ˈsætɪsfaɪ/	satisfaire
animate adjectif	/ˈæn.ə.mət/	animé
smug adjectif	/smʌɡ/	auto-satisfait, suffisant
blink verbe	/ˈblɪŋk/	ciller, cligner des yeux
buck nom	/ˈbʌk/	bouc
handful nom	/ˈhæn(d)fʊl/	manipule
assertive adjectif	/əˈsɝtɪv/	assuré, assertif
caricature adjectif	/ˈkɛɹɪkət͡ʃʊɚ/	caricature
inconsistency nom	/ˌɪnkənˈsɪstənsi/	inconsistance
outburst verbe	/ˌaʊ̯tˈbɝst/	transport

Les verbes à particule que vous entendrez

Mot	Prononciation	Sens
break through verbe		percer
come out verbe	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	sortir
come up with verbe		inventer, imaginer
figure out verbe		cerner
get out verbe		sortir
speed up verbe	/spiːdˈʌp/	accélérer

Des phrases à répéter

Des phrases courtes et complètes de la vidéo, à réutiliser dans la conversation de tous les jours :

We're beginning to break through the act.
It's a little bit of foreshadowing for you.
You see what I mean about this animation acting as player feedback?
That's some good lawyering we just did.

La grammaire de cette vidéo

Les structures que le locuteur utilise le plus, avec les mots exacts de la vidéo :

Structure	Dans la vidéo
Voix passive be + participe passé — l’accent est mis sur ce qui arrive, pas sur qui le fait	has been shaped · was developed · are loaded
Present perfect have/has + participe passé — une action passée qui compte encore maintenant	have proven · has been shaped · have been

Prononciation à surveiller

Le locuteur utilise 31 contractions et formes réduites, comme I'm, we're, don't. Prononcez-les sous leur forme courte, telles que vous les entendez.

Les sons « sh » et « zh »: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, genre /ˈ(d)ʒɑnɹə/, flourish /ˈflʊ̈ɹ.ɪʃ/, characterization /ˌkæɹəktəɹəˈzeɪʃən/, limitation /lɪmɪˈteɪʃən/
Mots longs — placez bien l’accent: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, testimony /ˈtɛstɪmoʊni/, caricature /ˈkɛɹɪkət͡ʃʊɚ/, inconsistency /ˌɪnkənˈsɪstənsi/, accusatory /əˈkju.zəˌtɔɹ.i/

Les sons difficiles pour les francophones :

/h/ — il se souffle, il n’est pas muet: handful /ˈhæn(d)fʊl/, forehead /ˈfɔɹ.hɛd/, heck /hɛk/, historically /hɪˈstɔɹɪkli/
/tʃ/ et /dʒ/ — à ne pas adoucir en « ch » et « j »: caricature /ˈkɛɹɪkət͡ʃʊɚ/, charm /t͡ʃɑɹm/, exaggerate /ɛɡˈzæd͡ʒ.ə.ɹeɪt/, trilogy /ˈtɹɪləd͡ʒi/, rage /ɹeɪd͡ʒ/
/r/ anglais — langue recourbée, sans frotter la gorge: expressive /ɪkˈspɹɛsɪv/, caricature /ˈkɛɹɪkət͡ʃʊɚ/, smarmy /ˈsmɑɹ.mi/, patron /ˈpeɪ.tɹən/, charm /t͡ʃɑɹm/

Comment s’entraîner avec cette vidéo

Écoutez la vidéo en entier une fois sans parler et notez les mots que vous ne connaissez pas.
Commencez à la vitesse 0,75×, répétez phrase par phrase, puis revenez à la vitesse normale quand cela devient facile.
Enregistrez-vous et comparez avec l’original, en faisant attention à des mots comme pose, animation, static.

Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?

Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.

Technique du shadowing : lire le guide complet étape par étape →

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