karumic | (no subject)

** WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BOTH GREAT ACE ATTORNEY GAMES **PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Lex
ARE YOU AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD?: Yup
CONTACT: PM or cerebrah
CHARACTERS PLAYED: n/a

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Kazuma Asogi
CANON: The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
CANON REFERENCE: Here!
CANON POINT: Game 1, case 2
CRAU HISTORY: n/a
AGE: 24
APPEARANCE: Here!
CONTRACT PAYMENT: Return of his memories and passage to London

QUESTIONNAIRE:
Note: since I am taking Kazuma from a canon point where he has full episodic amnesia, he won't actually remember any of this information, but it's still important as a characterization point.
What does family mean to you and who do you consider a part of your family?

Family seems to be very important to Kazuma, considering he spent ten years plotting revenge for his father, who died overseas in mysterious circumstances. Despite not having seen his father since he was eight, Kazuma clearly idolizes him and took his bizarre death very personally. With his mother's death shortly afterward, this makes him the sole surviving member of the Asogi clan, a proud samurai bloodline. Kazuma takes his status as inheritor of the Asogi legacy very seriously, and considers Karuma, the ancestral Asogi sword that carries with it all the Asogi clan's souls and whatnot, to be his most important possession, even bringing it with him overseas on a study abroad trip.

If asked, he would probably say that his family consists of his father and mother, both of whom are now dead. I think, deep down, he does consider Mikotoba and Susato--who took him in after his parents' deaths--to be his family as well, but at the moment it is subconscious and something he would only realize after a great deal of self-reflection. There is definitely a strange distance between them and Kazuma that seems to be mostly enforced by Kazuma himself, either because he is too distracted by his quest for revenge or he simply doesn't see himself as worthy of them because of said quest.

How do you react to betrayal? How severe must a betrayal be for you to consider it such?

Oh, badly. The betrayal of his father by the British government sends him on a quest for revenge that takes ten years to bear any fruit. In a way the event ends up giving him lifelong trust issues--he mentions that he came to not trust any of the adults in his life for suspecting them of lying to him about what happened, he doesn't even tell his own best friend pertinent details about his backstory, he's outright hostile to overtures of help once his memory returns, and he certainly doesn't trust either the Japanese or British government for their roles in covering up his father's death.

Ultimately I would say that he is actually very sensitive to betrayal, due to knowing intimately the kind of lies that people in power are capable of, and it is defensiveness against this that makes him so inclined not to trust anyone, even including people he cares deeply about. Ironically, this refusal to trust anyone results in a sort of betrayal of those people himself, as Ryunosuke ends up totally blindsided by learning what Kazuma's priorities actually are.

Your Faction leader, not just your boss but the leader, has asked you to carry out a hit. The target is a non-affiliated public leader, well-liked by the people of the city. Do you carry it out? Why or why not?

This is a very interesting question! Kazuma proves himself, especially in the second game, to be capable of surprising violence and other morally questionable behavior in service of his goals. However, it should be noted that the person Kazuma agrees to murder and almost actually does--Tobias Gregson--is someone Kazuma believes to be morally corrupt and probably deserving of death. The circumstances are different when it comes to a neutral party who supposedly isn't guilty of any wrong-doing.

However again, Kazuma himself considers his attempted murder of Gregson to be a morally unjustifiable act, and indicative of something seriously wrong with his character. I actually bring this up to prove that, despite Kazuma's honorable nature, he is capable of doing things he personally finds reprehensible if he's desperate enough, and as such I think he would carry out the hit if he was put under the right kind of pressure. He'd also hate himself a lot afterward, but The Deed Would Still Be Done.

What is the most frightening thing you've ever done? What part of you did it test the most?

See above: while it happens at a much further canon point, Kazuma's attempted murder of Gregson--and, later, his obsessive attempt to convict van Zieks of a crime he's actually innocent of--is a major eye-opener for Kazuma, because it shocks him into realizing he's really no better than the kind of evil he claims to want to fight against. Something something Friedrich Nietzsche. He almost falls into the same trap that caused the Professor killings and resulted in his father's death in the first place. It feels a bit odd to describe attempted murder as "frightening" in this context but it certainly scares Kazuma quite a bit and forces him to reflect on all of his choices leading to that point.

Of course, pulling him from before all that occurs means none of that development has happened yet and Kazuma is free to choose violence in the game proper :)
POWERS & ABILITIES: At baseline, Kazuma is a bog standard human with no superpowers. Skills include:
Knowledge of Japanese and English law circa 1900s (as filtered through absurd adventure game logic) - Kazuma is an accomplished and ambitious law student whose achievements were enough to get him invited to participate in a cultural exchange program to study law in Great Britain, an honor extended to only a single person (supposedly). His knowledge of law is enough that he is able to competently serve as a defense attorney in Japan and as a prosecutor in Great Britain.
Good At Katana - Kazuma is the descendent of a proud samurai clan (down to the family heirloom sword) and apparently they've kept their katana skills sharp. Even without memories, Kazuma is able to use a sword well enough to help van Zieks fend off a gang of men armed with guns with minimal injuries (to themselves). He won't be coming in with his own sword, but he still knows how to use one.
SUITABILITY: As silly as it is, Ace Attorney IS a game series about murder mysteries, and thus features its fair share of content relating to death, violence, and crime. Kazuma in particular is already pretty familiar with the impact of murder, both as a student of law and because his secret backstory is that his dad was supposedly a serial killer that Kazuma believes to have been wrongly convicted and executed by the state of Great Britain. He then proves to be pretty capable of violence himself when he agrees to be an assassin in service of an international conspiracy and later attempts to murder a police detective. Normal lawyer things.

FACTION SUITABILITY:
SHUTEN - Kazuma would probably be a great candidate for Shuten, given that he is a competent fighter with very samurai-like principles. While he is not interested in amassing power personally, and he certainly does not believe in the principle of might makes right, the Shuten's simpler and action-oriented philosophy would appeal to Kazuma, who is very much a Doer with a lot of anger issues. Contracting with the Shuten would definitely push him further down the road of wanting to solve problems with violence, something he already struggles with.

TAMAMO - Probably the hardest sell, Kazuma is far too disciplined to want to associate much with the Kyuubi--but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun to see how that would go anyway! Kazuma has spent so much of his life not indulging in vice that it would be interesting to explore the kind of influence that being constantly surrounded by it would have on him.

SUTOKU - Kazuma is intelligent and educated and, as a student lawyer, is well versed in having to do research and perform investigations in formulating his arguments--in short, he already has skills in information gathering, so the Sutoku would be sure to get use out of him. Not to mention The Sutoku's more egalitarian stance would also appeal to Kazuma, who low-key holds anti-establishment sentiments. He does not like the idea of those in power keeping secrets, and would want to be in on those secrets as much as he can be. Finally, the emphasis on discipline and ascetics would fit Kazuma's samurai mindset like a glove.

ENMA - On the surface this seems like the best fit; Kazuma is already a lawyer, after all, and tends to gravitate toward those roles even without his memories. That said, he very much cares about justice and is also passionate about reform, and the Enma's focus on suppression and control would certainly not sit well with him. Not the point where he'd refuse to work with them, but enough that he'd be very uncomfortable with some of the things they'd likely ask him to do. Honestly, contracting with the Enma would probably be very like working for Stronghart (though he doesn't have any experience with that yet). Which is not actually an argument against it as far as I'm concerned--I love getting to explore some good cognitive dissonance :)
As a general note, Kazuma has proven to be willing to ally with people he doesn't agree with or trust in order to further his own goals, so he'd be able to swing with any faction willing to offer him a contract regardless of suitability.

SAMPLES
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