Sebastian Debeste

Sebastian Debeste

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This article contains information from the unofficial English translation patch for Gyakuten Kenji 2.

Owing to the lack of an official translation of the Japan-only Gyakuten Kenji 2, the information and names in this article come from the unofficial English translation patch known as Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Prosecutor's Path. More information on this can be found here. If you have personal experience with the item of media in question, you can help the Ace Attorney Wiki by improving on this article. Please heed the manual of style when adding information.

Sebastian Debeste V · T · F
Occupation	Prosecutor student at Themis Legal Academy (lapsed) Prosecutor
Biological information
Reckoned birth year(s) (this is for age comparison purposes, and so may look odd; click on the question mark for details)?	2002
Documented age range (as recorded in court record profiles & case files)	17* (The Imprisoned Turnabout)
Last known status	Alive (Apr. 2019)
Eye color	Brown
Hair color	Brown
Height (the metric (cm) values are sourced from official guidebooks and may not reflect the relative sizes of characters as depicted in-game or in other official media)	5'8"; 173 cm
Associates
Family	Blaise Debeste (father; arrested) An unnamed mother ("disappeared")
Friends	None mentioned
Affiliates	Justine Courtney (investigative partner) Franziska von Karma (fellow prosecutor) Miles Edgeworth (rival prosecutor) Themis Legal Academy (former school)
Aliases/nicknames
The Best* (self-styled) DaPest* (by Raymond Shields) Debestest* (self-styled) Besty* (by Delicia Scones)
Names in other languages
Japanese (romanization written with the given name first)	一柳 弓彦 (Yumihiko Ichiyanagi) イチリュウ検事 (Ichiryū-kenji)* (self-styled; lit. first class prosecutor) イチヤナギ君 / イチヤナギくん (Ichiyanagi-kun)* (by Reiji Mitsurugi (Miles Edgeworth) & Tateyuki Shigaraki) イチくん (Ichi-kun)* (by Delicy Scone) ユミヒコさん (Yumihiko-san)* (by Hakari Mikagami) 一柳検事さま (Ichiyanagi-kenji-sama)* (by Hakari Mikagami) 弓彦 (Yumihiko)* (by Bansai Ichiyanagi) バカ息子 (Baka Musuko)* (by Bansai Ichiyanagi; lit. idiot son)
Actors
Japanese (romanization written with the given name first)	Naotaka Noda
Miscellaneous
Debut episode	The Imprisoned Turnabout
Musical theme	"Sebastian Debeste - First-Class Reasoning" "Sebastian Debeste - First-Class Farewell"

Sebastian Debeste

Haven't you heard of me? At the Prosecutor's Office, everyone calls me "The Best". Ah, I'm so beloved there...

— The Imprisoned Turnabout

Sebastian Debeste is a rookie prosecutor. He was assigned to take over a number of Miles Edgeworth's cases by the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee, which was headed by his father Blaise. Although he graduated at the top of his class, he was incompetent to the point of being ridiculed by the likes of Kay Faraday, Dick Gumshoe, and Larry Butz. It would often fall to judge and Committee member Justine Courtney, who acted as his assistant, to challenge Edgeworth's logic. While starting out as incompetent, Sebastian would eventually learn the truth about himself and reform his ways.

Early life

Sebastian Debeste was raised by his prosecutor father Blaise Debeste, who would often verbally abuse him. His mother "disappeared" at one point, and since Blaise frequently made people "disappear" as a euphemism for being thrown in jail, kidnapped or worse, it is likely that something along those lines happened to his wife. Sebastian attended Themis Legal Academy, where he took the prosecutor course. He received many awards and graduated at the top of his class, earning him a special red jacket. However, unbeknown to Sebastian, all of these accolades were only due to the influence and manipulations of his father.

Sebastian's "shining logic"

Main articles: The Imprisoned Turnabout & The Inherited Turnabout

The "genius" prosecutor Sebastian Debeste.

Sebastian's supposed prowess was soon put to the test when Blaise sent him to be in charge of the investigation into Horace Knightley's murder at the local prison, accompanied by judge and Prosecutorial Investigation Committee (P.I.C.) member Justine Courtney. They searched the entire prison for the murder weapon, to no avail. Despite taking over the case from Miles Edgeworth, Sebastian had trouble following the details of the case, resulting in the former easily rebutting his arguments. Nonetheless, Edgeworth eventually found the murder weapon and indicted Patricia Roland as Knightley's killer. The evidence was handed over to Sebastian, who decided to give it to his father for safekeeping.

A few days later, Sebastian and Courtney were sent to Jeffrey Master's mansion, which had become the scene of an attempted murder via poison gas. Sebastian encountered Edgeworth once again, but again had little grasp on the information that he was supposed to have gathered. The young prosecutor practically faded into irrelevance after a failed attempt to indict Larry Butz. He watched as Edgeworth connected the poisoning to the IS-7 Incident, found the culprit behind the poisoning, and exposed the victim, Dane Gustavia, as the culprit behind the IS-7 Incident.

Humiliation

Main article: The Forgotten Turnabout

Three days later, P.I.C. member Jill Crane was found dead in the P.I.C. meeting room at Grand Tower. Blaise moved to arrest Kay Faraday for the murder, but Edgeworth defied him, even willingly turning in his badge to escape the leverage that Blaise had over him as the chair of the P.I.C. During the investigation, Sebastian met Franziska von Karma, who had no qualms with giving, both verbally and with her whip, her opinion of Sebastian's competence.

Edgeworth eventually accused Blaise of Crane's murder. During the ensuing arguments between the two, it was revealed that the killer had a burn mark on his face. It was then that Sebastian realized that his own father was the killer. Sebastian tried to deny this truth as Blaise's other allies turned on him. His father then revealed to Sebastian that all his good grades and awards that he was so proud of were due to his influence, and said that Sebastian was not even worthy of being called his son. Completely humiliated, Sebastian ran from the meeting room in tears. Blaise was then arrested for the murder.

Confronting his father

Main article: The Grand Turnabout

Bound and gagged.

Sebastian ran outside the Grand Tower, where he encountered two men in black. The men asked him whether he knew Courtney, and when he said that he did, he was suddenly bound, gagged, and placed inside a box. He was left at the Debeste residence, near the back door of the garage, and was told that Blaise had ordered the kidnapping. All Sebastian could do until he was found was to reflect on his own uselessness and confusion as to why his own father had him kidnapped.

Edgeworth and Faraday discovered him while searching for John Marsh, whom Blaise had supposedly kidnapped to coerce Courtney to acquit Patricia Roland. Sebastian was in a terrible emotional state and on the verge of a mental breakdown, unable to trust anyone. To his surprise, however, Edgeworth showed that he was willing to listen to him. From the information that he managed to get out of Sebastian, Edgeworth deduced that Blaise had meant to kidnap Marsh, but his men had accidentally kidnapped Sebastian instead. Sebastian also realized that his father had betrayed him and thrown the evidence against Roland in the trash.

Desperately hunting for evidence at the dump.

Edgeworth then offered his support, but said that Sebastian would have to decide his path for himself going forward. Sebastian decided that he wanted to continue as a prosecutor, but he would be different from his father and would overcome him. Now knowing what to do, Sebastian bolted from the house and unlocked a safe owned by Blaise at the Grand Tower's 51st floor. He then ran to the dump and searched through the piles of rubbish for the discarded evidence, but could only find a bell wrapped inside a newspaper.

Sebastian hurriedly returned to the courtroom where Roland was being tried. Von Karma, who had been acting in Sebastian's stead, saw the young prosecutor's resolve and agreed to give the prosecutor's bench back to him. Blaise laughed at his son for his apparent failure to produce decisive evidence. Despite everything, Sebastian was still reluctant to convict his own father but, with Edgeworth by his side, he regained his determination and connected an oily handprint on the newspaper to Blaise's biker gloves. Blaise was finally defeated and broke down in court while screaming his son's name in anger. Despite his mistreatment, Sebastian still thanked his father for all that he had done for him and bid him goodbye.

Personality

Mugshot.

Sebastian was obsessed with being better than everyone else in the things he did. Even mentioning the word "first" was liable to make him want to do whatever was being talked about before anyone else, a fact that was sometimes taken advantage of by others. This rash tendency would also cause him to indict people without any real basis. While he was often very arrogant and condescending, as he considered himself the best in all things, Sebastian would break into tears rather easily when proven wrong. He also had few qualms with taking credit for the hard work of others, claiming to have found various pieces of evidence when police officers had found them on their own.

As an investigator, Sebastian was not very competent. His logic was full of holes and frequently made no sense, and he would sometimes present incorrect evidence (or even forget the name of said evidence) and not even realize it until corrected by Courtney. Additionally, he would frequently lag behind everyone else in what was happening in a case (or even a conversation) and would often use the wrong word in a sentence. This meant that it was often left to Courtney to gently push Sebastian in the correct direction or to combat Edgeworth's logic on her own.

Sebastian had a very childish and naive view of what it meant to be a prosecutor; he believed that his purpose as a prosecutor was to defeat his rivals. Much of this attitude is attributable to his father, whom he admired and whose approval he sought. As Sebastian's "achievements" stemmed from his father's influence rather than his own merit, he was ill-prepared for the realities of criminal investigation. In a bitter irony, the first time he actually found the truth before anyone else was when he realized that his own father was a criminal, a discovery from which he could derive no satisfaction.

Other people tended to show Sebastian little respect, if they acknowledged him at all. Although Edgeworth and Courtney usually employed some throat-clearing before ignoring Sebastian, Franziska von Karma would instead whip him. Even Larry Butz referred to him as an idiot, which is quite the achievement considering Butz's own reputation. However, the person who was the most flagrantly dismissive of Sebastian was his own father. Blaise frequently called him an idiot, openly lamented having such a foolish son, and later showed great relish in telling Sebastian the truth about his grades and awards.

After his father's arrest, Sebastian felt betrayed by everyone, becoming far more timid and insecure. However, Edgeworth lent him a helping hand and gave him the resolve to face his father, the one who had truly betrayed him. He learned to rely on himself rather than to try to gain approval from others, and though he still lacked confidence, he became a far more competent thinker than he was before. Despite everything, he did not hate his father, but maturely acknowledged that Blaise helped shape who he was.

When investigating a crime scene, Sebastian pokes evidence with his baton to see what happens. He also wears gloves so that he never leaves his own fingerprints on a piece of evidence.

Name

• Japanese - Yumihiko Ichiyanagi (一柳 弓彦):
  • His compulsive desire to be "first" and "number one" is reflected in his Japanese surname, Ichiyanagi. The kanji character "ichi" (一) means "one" and the character "yanagi" (柳) has the alternate pronunciation "ryuu". This gives the alternative reading "Ichiryū", meaning "first class", which Yumihiko uses as a nickname. If the second character is replaced with the homophone "龍" and placed in front of "一", the result is Phoenix Wright's Japanese given name "Ryūichi" (龍一).
  • His Japanese given name, Yumihiko, sounds like the name of a wealthy person. However, his full name creates the expression "pulling a bow without an arrow" (一矢無き弓を引く, ichiya naki yumi wo hiku), which accurately describes the quality of his deductions.
• English (Unofficial) - Sebastian Debeste:
  • Sebastian's full English name in the unofficial fan translation of Gyakuten Kenji 2 is "Sebastian Debeste". "Sebastian" is a Greek name that roughly means "adored" or "revered". "Debeste" is a play on the phrase "the best" (with "de beste" also being Dutch for "the best"), which is used as Sebastian's nickname to replace Ichiryū. "Sebastian" may also be a reference to Saint Sebastian, who is often depicted in art and literature having been shot with arrows, paralleling the "bow" connotation of his Japanese given name (incidentally, his father's name in the fan patch, "Blaise", was the name of a saint who was a bishop in Sebastea (modern-day Sivas, Turkey); "Sebastian" means "someone from Sebastea", thereby linking the names of Blaise and Sebastian Debeste). Finally, "Sebastian" could be a reference to the classical composer Johann Sebastian Bach, owing to his habit of waving a baton about like an orchestra conductor.
• Brazilian Portuguese (Unofficial) - Breno Melior:
  • In the upcoming unofficial Brazilian Portuguese fan translation of Gyakuten Kenji 2, his name is "Breno Melior". "Breno", with roots in the Welsh word "brenin", means "leader", "superior", or "noble." "Melior" is a Latin adjective that means "better than" or, more fittingly, "the best" (additionally, the Brazilian Portuguese word for "the best", "melhor", is derived from it). Put together, his full name reads "the best leader".

Development

• Sebastian was apparently by far the most popular character introduced in Gyakuten Kenji 2 with the female staff at Capcom. He is also Takeshi Yamazaki's favorite character introduced in Gyakuten Kenji 2.
• Underneath his coat, Sebastian wears a blue Themis Legal Academy uniform. It was confirmed by the Gyakuten Saiban 5 Official Complete Guidebook that he studied there, and that the blue uniform he wears was previously the uniform for students taking the prosecutor course until it was changed in later years to the red uniform seen in Turnabout Academy.
• Sebastian and his father are the only prosecutors to date who actually openly wear their prosecutor's badges.
• He has a noticeable slim forelock of hair that sticks up from from his head, usually reminiscent of a question mark, but changing to an exclamation mark in some of his reaction sprites. This type of hair is known as ahoge (lit. "idiot/stupid hair") in Japanese culture, a term that suits his character well. According to head illustrator Tatsuro Iwamoto, Sebastian carefully styles his hair this way every morning.
• Sebastian conducts in 3/4 time, which is the same time signature as his theme "Sebastian Debeste - First-Class Reasoning". The song itself is a waltz, a style of dance music that is always in 3/4 time.
• After Miles Edgeworth, Sebastian is the second prosecutor who successfully achieved an onscreen "Guilty" verdict that wasn't later overturned. However, unlike Edgeworth, the defense attorney he defeated was not controlled by the player at the time.
• Sebastian shares some similarities with Franziska von Karma; both were prosecutors constantly chasing after their fathers' approval, had obsessions with being the best, and had to deal with the shock of finding out that their fathers were criminals. Additionally, in both cases it was the positive influence of Miles Edgeworth that set them on a better path.