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Roger Retinz
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Roger Retinz
Hang loose, baby!

Roger Retinz, also known as the "Ratings Rajah", was a producer for Take-2 TV. He was called as a witness during the trial of Trucy Wright for the murder of Manov Mistree. Before he became a producer, he was a professional stage magician and member of Troupe Gramarye under the name Mr. Reus.

Beginnings with Troupe Gramarye

Troupeposter

Retinz (in green) on a promotional poster for one of Troupe Gramarye's magic shows.

Retinz was an aspiring magician who trained under Magnifi Gramarye as a part of his troupe under the name Mr. Reus. However, sometime in 2015, he was injured while practicing an extremely reckless trick. Magnifi had Retinz removed from the Troupe during a public performance before he could ruin their reputation or injure them in turn. This humiliation caused Retinz to harbor a grudge toward them.

Retinz would go on to become a producer for Take-2 TV, even starring in some of the shows he produced, and gained popularity for his charismatic on-screen persona. "Hang loose, baby!" was one of his famous catchphrases. One day, he met an aspiring magician named Manov Mistree on one of his programs. Upon learning that Mistree was a great fan of Mr. Reus, Retinz told him his secret identity in confidence and decided to train Mistree to be his successor, teaching him his magic tricks and acting as his producer.

Revenge

Main article: The Magical Turnabout

The deadly prank

Two years later, Retinz saw his chance for revenge against the Troupe in the form of the sole heir to the Gramarye magic rights, Trucy Wright, making her television debut. He promptly offered to produce and broadcast her magic show. At the same time, Retinz had Mistree stand in for him as Mr. Reus and hired the twin magician sisters Bonny de Famme and Betty de Famme to play a prank on Wright. Mistree would be placed in a coffin Wright would escape from and stab with a rubber sword, at which point his "corpse" would fall out. Betty would then lift Mistree into the air, suspended by a wire and harness, and have a laugh at Wright's expense.

In actuality, Retinz planned to have Mistree murdered as a result of the prank – after Mistree was lifted upwards out of sight, he would be fatally stabbed by a steel sword that Retinz had earlier planted at the stage's skywalk. With Mistree seen alive before he entered the coffin for Wright's escape trick, it would appear to everyone that Wright had killed Mistree by stabbing him through the coffin. Furthermore, Retinz made sure to be at Take-2 Studios when the trick took place, ensuring that he had an alibi.

To make the death seem like a murder, Retinz forged a note with Wright's signature that suggested she had prior knowledge of the prank, and he planted Wright's Gramarye notebook in Mistree's belongings. He intended for the prosecution to give Wright a motivation for killing "Mr. Reus", on the grounds that Mr. Reus wanted revenge for his removal from Troupe Gramarye and intended to ruin Wright. In addition, Retinz reused the forged signature and planted it on a contract that required that Wright pay him three million dollars if her show was cancelled as a result of her incompetence, guaranteeing the financial ruin of the Wright Anything Agency.

Tying loose ends

As planned, Mistree ended up dead from the "prank", and Trucy was arrested on charges of involuntary manslaughter. Retinz made use of the chaos that ensued to worsen Wright's situation. He snuck onto the crime scene and tampered with it by swapping Wright's prop sword for the bloodied steel sword. Retinz also planted Mistree's blood in the coffin hole where Wright had thrust her sword. However, he later realized that Wright had stabbed the coffin on the opposite side because Bonny set up Mr. Hat over the wrong trapdoor. Since he could not wipe the blood – as this would still leave traces that could be detected with luminol – he had to tamper with the coffin by swapping the sides to make the scene appear consistent. He also edited footage his crew had taken of the trick to further cement the impression that Wright had used a steel sword to stab the coffin – specifically, removing the playing cards Wright released when switching the steel sword for a harmless rubber one.

After tampering with the crime scene, he encountered Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes, Wright's close friends and attorneys. He feigned shock and disappointment about the incident, but claimed he wasn't surprised that a magician would do such a thing. He told the duo about his plans to use his media influence to turn Wright into a pariah. Later on he presented the attorneys with the contract he conned Wright into signing, and demanded the three million in compensation. He warned the lawyers that they would go down for siding with Troupe Gramarye.

Some time afterwards, Retinz met with Betty in the understage. Betty told him that pretending to be sweet was exhausting, and expressed concerned over the inquiring attorneys. Retinz assured her that he wouldn't tell them or the police anything. When Betty angrily demanded to know how much longer until Wright's downfall, Retinz assured her that he would use his influence to give her rival worse than a guilty verdict. He pretended to be enamored with her so she wouldn't suspect that he was using her instead of the other way around. Unknown to the two, Justice and Cykes had overheard their exchange from their hiding spot in the understage.

HangLooseBaby

Telling the lawyers to "Hang loose, baby!"

As his plans continued to take their course, he seized the Wright Anything Agency, sticking repossession labels on nearly everything in the office. When Wright's attorneys returned to the office, he showed them that the building was being reported live on television. He informed them that the magic show's broadcast convinced everyone in the country that Wright was guilty. He confidently gloated that without her father around to defend her, Wright and the agency were as good as finished.[1] He gave them until the next day to clear out of the office.

Exposed in court

He went to the courthouse the next day to watch Wright's trial, where he wasted no time antagonizing the defense. He put out a call for hecklers to attend the trial and disparage Wright. During recess he paid a visit to the Defendant's Lobby, brandishing his camera for shots of his opponents' dejected faces. Athena shouted that filming was prohibited in the courthouse and threatened to get the bailiff. Retinz made the camera vanish with a magician's skilled sleight of hand, something Wright took notice of.

Back in the courtroom, the hecklers he called in disruptively denounced Wright as a murderer. Despite the harsh comments coming from the gallery, Wright put on her best confident smile. She was granted special permission to perform her sword-switching trick for the court. Not only did she receive an ovation that drowned out the jeering, but Justice managed to notice that the moment of the switch was absent from the show footage. After comparing the broadcast footage with film recorded by one of Bonny's fans, Justice was able to prove that the show footage was tampered with. His hand forced, Retinz stepped up to the witness stand and offered to testify.

File:Roger Retinz - fire.gif

Mr. Reus gets serious.

He claimed that the edit wasn't done with malicious intent. Additionally, he suggested that although Wright may have plunged the rubber sword into the coffin, she proceeded to murder Mistree unseen after the dragon set piece came crashing down. Despite Retinz's various manipulations, Justice was beginning to figure out the truth behind everything, forcing Retinz to reveal his magician persona. His exposure as the original Mr. Reus did not concern him, as he reminded everyone that he couldn't have murdered Mistree because he wasn't at the scene during the time of the crime. His "unbreakable" alibi didn't last long, as Justice managed to figure out both the magic behind his crime and the error only he could have made while planting blood on the coffin. In defeat, Retinz cursed the Gramarye name, blaming them for having humiliated him and eventually driven him to murder to get his revenge. Wright suggested that it had been this hatred and disregard for life that Magnifi had witnessed and ejected him out of the troupe for, to which Retinz gloated that he had proved himself the better magician, since Wright had not figured out the truth behind his magic until Justice had.

Personality

Roger Retinz
I'm telling you, man -- modern viewers eat this stuff up with a spoon! Trust me! All we gotta do is serve it up nice and hot. A feast for the eyes!
Rogerretinz

Mugshot.

Retinz usually portrayed the typical traits of a television producer, namely always being on the lookout for things that would lead to high ratings on television. Employing a confident façade, Retinz would often talk down to people he considered beneath him, but he would switch to an overly ingratiating persona whenever approaching someone he sought to curry favor with, such as the judge or Betty – the latter of whom he even feigned attraction for to trick her into believing she was the more powerful individual in their professional relationship. He also claimed to have a low opinion of magicians to conceal his hatred specifically directed at the Gramaryes. When in conversation with someone, Retinz would often act like a producer on set, pulling out cue cards and using a video camera to record the other person's reactions.

When his identity as Mr. Reus was revealed, Retinz adopted a much more serious demeanor, displaying considerable confidence and showmanship as an illusionist and performing tricks with coins, cards, and fire. He also demonstrated an ability to easily switch between his producer and magician personae.

Ultimately, Retinz was an incredibly self-absorbed person who would do and disregard anything to achieve his goals, even if it meant sacrificing the life of the one person who actually admired him as a magician.

Name

  • His Japanese name can be translated by following the customs in Japanese TV production crew lingo, which involves flipping the names around. "Shinoyama" becomes "yamashino" (山師の). "Kanenari" (金成) turns into "narikin" (成金). Together, "yamashi no narikin" (山師の成金) means "a swindling/cheating nouveau riche". "Nouveau" and "riche" are French for "new" and "rich", respectively, so put together, his name literally means "a new, rich swindler/cheater".
  • His Japanese stage name comes from the word "Menyō" (面妖), meaning "strange" or "suspicious."
  • His English stage name, "Mr. Reus", is a play on "mysterious." Reus may also come from the Latin word "reus," which means "guilty."
  • His English surname, "Retinz," may be a play on the word "Ratings".
  • His English alias, the "Ratings Rajah" possibly references to his Japanese alias, which involved flipping the names around and "Retinz Roger" sounds like "Ratings Rajah."
  • He is referred to as "Mr. Retinz" in court, which may be a play on words of "misdirection", which is relevant not only to his true identity as a magician but also how he was hiding in plain sight.

Development

  • Unlike other members of Troupe Gramarye, Retinz, as Mr. Reus, did not wear a card suit brooch. Instead, he wore a crown-shaped cravat. However, he wears a mask highly reminiscent of the Joker found in playing cards.
Retinzunused

Retinz holding up the Ace of Spades.

  • Retinz has several poses not used when he has his sleeves up (such as typing on his phone) or down (like performing with his coin), yet all of his animations contain a sleeves up and down version, although some of his sleeves up animations are glitchy and unused. Curiously, he also has an unused pose in which, his sleeves rolled up, he holds up an Ace of Spades (much like how he holds up his business card in game).

Notes

  • Previously, in Turnabout Succession, when Phoenix Wright speaks to Valant Gramarye at Sunshine Coliseum about Magnifi's death, he suggests the possibility of a third disciple in Troupe Gramarye, to which Valant denies this. As it later turned out, there really was a third disciple, which was Retinz as Mr. Reus, though he was removed a long time before Magnifi's death.

References

  1. Retinz: Looks like the famed Mr. Wright left behind nothing but incompetent newbs to run things.
    Apollo: (No way... He was counting on Mr. Wright to be away for this plan of his...?)
    Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice. Capcom. Episode: The Magical Turnabout (in English). 2016.
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