| Tateyuki Shigaraki |
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Tateyuki Shigaraki is a defense attorney who owns the Edgeworth Law Offices. He worked under the law firm's original owner, Gregory Edgeworth, and worked with him in the field during his investigation of the IS-7 Incident. When he met his former mentor's son Miles Edgeworth years later, he questioned Miles about his chosen path of being a prosecutor, rather than becoming a defense attorney like his father.
The IS-7 Incident
- Main articles: IS-7 Incident and The Inherited Turnabout
In a photo with Gregory Edgeworth.
In December 2000, Gregory Edgeworth invited Shigaraki to work a case with him, in what would turn out to be their only case together, the IS-7 Incident. Edgeworth's client was the famous television chef Issei Tenkai, who was accused of murdering fellow chef Isaku Hyōdō during a confectionery competition held at Tenkai's mansion. During their investigation, Edgeworth and Shigaraki met the infamous prosecutor Manfred von Karma, who was leading the police investigation. Von Karma saw the pair as mere pests and actively stifled their attempts to investigate.
During the investigation, the sherbet sculptures that Hyoudou had made for the competition disappeared. Tenkai's assistant and adopted daughter, Tsukasa Oyashiki, claimed that she had accidentally melted them. Von Karma subsequently took her in for questioning, along with the other competition contestants, Yutaka Kazami and Delicy Scone. Meanwhile, Edgeworth discovered that, although the police claimed that the body of the victim was in their possession, it had really disappeared. Additionally, the victim was actually a sculptor who went by the name Paul Holic.
In court, Edgeworth confronted von Karma about the disappearance of the body, but the prosecutor responded with a forged autopsy report. The trial lasted a year, until von Karma got Tenkai to confess to being an accomplice to the murder. However, Edgeworth proved that the confession had been coerced; the detective in charge of the initial investigation, Wataru Shirase, had threatened to indict Oyashiki as being complicit in the crime. Although Edgeworth still lost the case, von Karma was penalized for the first time in his "perfect" career. After the trial, Gregory Edgeworth was murdered by an unknown assailant (which would be revealed fifteen years later to be von Karma) inside the courtroom elevator.
Shigaraki subsequently took over the Edgeworth Law Offices. He tried to appeal Tenkai's case, but although von Karma had left the case to a different prosecutor (having gone on the first, and only, vacation of his career after Edgeworth's death), the appeal failed due to a lack of new evidence pointing to a killer. Shigaraki continued to visit Tenkai regularly, and though he could not make it every day, Oyashiki managed to do so. Meanwhile, Gregory's son Miles was adopted by von Karma. Miles grew up to become a ruthless prosecutor like von Karma, and Shigaraki grew to resent the man who had abandoned his father's path to follow in the footsteps of the man who stood against what he believed in.
A shaky reunion
- Main article: The Imprisoned Turnabout
Miwa and Shigaraki hugging.
Eighteen years after Gregory's murder, Shigaraki took on the case of Manosuke Naitō, who was accused of attempting to assassinate his employer, President Teikun Ō of Zheng Fa. However, upon visiting the detention center, Naitō was discovered to be missing. Shigaraki entered the prison only to find his client dead, and Gregory's son Miles examining the crime scene with Dick Gumshoe and Kay Faraday. Shigaraki reacted in a sarcastic and disdainful manner to Edgeworth (and even initially pretending to recognize him as Manfred von Karma), saying that the prosecutor had betrayed his father to follow the "von Karma way".
Eventually, Miles was removed from the investigation by Hakari Mikagami and replaced by Yumihiko Ichiyanagi, who went on to try to indict Sōta Sarushiro for Naitō's murder. Shigaraki agreed to defend Sarushiro and headed to the detention center again. To his surprise, he encountered Miles in the hallway. Miles asked to act as Shigaraki's assistant in order to continue investigating. Shigaraki replied that he did not take on assistants, and that he did not trust Miles. However, he agreed to Miles's offer after Gumshoe and Faraday vouched for him, saying that he had forsaken his old ways that had been influenced by von Karma.
Upon meeting him, Sarushiro turned out to be a timid man who did not reveal much about himself. Because of this, it was not until later on that Shigaraki learned that he was a circus performer who had done a show at the prison. Nonetheless, the "defense team" of Shigaraki, Miles, and Faraday (Gumshoe having been forced to return to his post and work alongside Mikagami and Ichiyanagi) eventually came to expose the true culprit: the prison director, Marī Miwa. Through this process, Shigaraki found that Miles was serious about finding the truth and saving people, and offered the young prosecutor a place in the Edgeworth Law Offices as a defense attorney. It would be some time before Miles Edgeworth came upon a decision.
IS-7 resolution
- Main article: The Inherited Turnabout
Shigaraki muses on the IS-7 Incident.
A few days later, Shigaraki found that Oyashiki had bought Tenkai's mansion and was converting it into the 12 Constellations Art Gallery, with the intention of featuring various works by Paul Holic, including alleged replicas of his sherbet sculptures from the IS-7 Incident. Wondering what this all meant, Shigaraki took advantage of this opportunity to take Miles with him to Gregory's last crime scene to talk about the IS-7 Incident. However, during his retelling of events, Yutaka Kazami, who had also come to visit, succumbed to a poison gas trap inside one of the sculptures. Even more dramatically, the body of Isaku Hyōdō, missing for all those years, suddenly turned up in the gallery's fountain.
Shigaraki began to suspect that these events had been part of a plan by Oyashiki to expose the truth behind the IS-7 Incident and find the real culprit. It was eventually discovered that the body had been hidden inside one of the sherbet sculptures, and that Oyashiki had stolen them, not knowing until buying the mansion that the body was hidden inside. Shigaraki and Miles eventually proved that Kazami was indeed the killer and that the statute of limitations on the incident had not expired for him. Thus, the IS-7 Incident was finally solved. Shigaraki went on to ask Oyashiki if he could defend her in court, to which she tearfully agreed.
Murder at the Big Tower
- Main article: The Forgotten Turnabout
On April 5, 2019, news quickly spread of a murder at the Big Tower. Shigaraki knew that Miles was due to have a hearing with the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee there, and hurried to Edgeworth's office, where he found him looking for Faraday. Faraday was currently suffering from amnesia and was being blamed for the murder of Tsubasa Kagome, and Miles had relinquished his badge trying to protect her. The two decided to investigate the murder and the cause of Faraday's amnesia, which led to the discovery of a secret black market auction of police evidence.
The Chair of the P.I.C., Bansai Ichiyanagi, tried to twist the truth, and even had Miles imprisoned, but during the latter's hearing, everything came to light. Bansai was the auction conductor and had killed Kagome to prevent her from taking revenge on him for a past crime. As a result of this, Yumihiko, Bansai's son, ran away. As Yumihiko was supposed to prosecute Miwa's trial and Kagome was supposed to be her defense attorney, Shigaraki agreed to take over the defense, while Franziska von Karma acted as the prosecutor.
Miwa's trial
- Main article: The Grand Turnabout
The following day, the trial of Marī Miwa began. However, all of the evidence for the case, including the murder weapon, was missing, and Mikagami hastily tried to end the trial in a not guilty verdict. Miles discovered that Mikagami's adopted son, Shimon Aizawa, had been kidnapped by Bansai's cronies in order to coerce Mikagami into acquitting Miwa. Shigaraki and Franziska stalled the trial as Miles found both Yumihiko and Aizawa, as well as a connection between Bansai and Miwa. Shigaraki called Bansai to the stand and continued to stall until Miles and Yumihiko arrived. Yumihiko took over the prosecutor's bench and confronted his father about his crimes, eventually proving that he had tried to dispose of the evidence against Miwa.
Once the trial was settled, Miles and Shi-Long Lang investigated the murder of President Ō, who had been found dead earlier that day in a Global Studios filming lot beside the Big Tower. Meanwhile, Shigaraki and Franziska investigated the connection between Bansai and Miwa further, and found that Bansai had been in charge of the SS-5 Incident 12 years prior. It was eventually discovered that the president had in fact been killed during the SS-5 Incident, and the one who had just been murdered was a body double who had conspired with Bansai and Miwa to replace the president. This led to Miles confronting and arresting Sarushiro after deducing that he had killed the fake president and orchestrated the murders of Naitō and Kagome.
Two days later, Miles decided to continue as a prosecutor, and to use his position to fight the contradictions and abuses from which the law suffered. Shigaraki saw the same determination in the younger Edgeworth that Gregory had, and wished him well on his new path.
Personality
As a teenager.
As an adult.
As a teenager, Shigaraki stuttered a lot and was easily scared. He was very open about his feelings, particularly his adoration towards Gregory and Tenkai. He had a habit of eating the pages on his notepad to "remember" the notes that he wrote.
The adult Shigaraki is far more playful, confident, and laid-back, and often uses sarcasm and jokes when dealing with others. He has developed the habit of hedging his answers and suggestions, and never quite showing his full hand, as evidenced in a discussion with Miles Edgeworth over chess, in which he lies and claims he isn't capable at the game, to which Miles retorts that he has never been able to defeat him. His paper-eating habit is gone, instead replaced with a desire to ask people (normally women) for hugs, which he claims to have picked up from his time overseas. The only one seen to take him up on his offer was Marī Miwa, who followed up with a kiss as well, much to Shigaraki's shock. He is less easily frightened than he used to be, though the dog Kuro still managed to send him running. Despite his laid-back demeanour, however, Shigaraki has a passion for the truth, a sharp mind, and a fierce loyalty towards his clients.
Shigaraki held great respect towards Gregory, even going so far as to copy his former mentor's way of bowing to others. His initially scornful attitude towards Miles was born out of this respect, as he felt that the younger Edgeworth had abandoned his father's path to follow in the footsteps of the man who had killed him. However, upon getting to know Miles, Shigaraki soon realised that he was far more like Gregory Edgeworth than Manfred von Karma, and began treating him as an ally. Shigaraki gives "reports" to Gregory by talking to an old photo of Gregory and Shigaraki from the IS-7 investigation.
Unlike other defense attorneys such as Phoenix Wright, many of Shigaraki's known and intended clients have been guilty as charged. His reasoning behind defending such individuals is apparently due to having compassion towards their plight and working to help them receive a less harsh verdict.
Name
- His name contains the kanji for "shield" (盾) - this could be a reference to his partnership with Gregory Edgeworth, seeing as Gregory's Japanese surname contains the kanji for "sword". Alternatively, his name could be seen as a reference to his job as a defense attorney.
- Shigaraki shares the first kanji of his surname with the first kanji of Gregory's Japanese given name; "shin" (信), which means "truth".
- Shigaraki's English name in the fan translation is "Raymond Shields". "Raymond" is a given name originating from the Proto-Germanic words for "advice" (ragin) and "protector" (mund), and could be a reference to the actor Raymond Burr, who played defense attorney Perry Mason in the TV adaptation of Erle Stanley Gardner's detective stories about said character. Raymond Shields also refers to himself as just "Ray", which could refer to a "ray of light". "Shields" is likely meant to have the same meaning as his Japanese name.
Development
- Though he acts as an ally for much of Gyakuten Kenji 2, Shigaraki is never formally declared a partner by the game, as he mostly observes the protagonists in action rather than actively following them while they investigate.
- Shigaraki (particularly his younger self) is the favorite character of art director Tatsuro Iwamoto introduced in Gyakuten Kenji 2.[1]
- The hat that Shigaraki wears is the same one once worn by Gregory Edgeworth, which he inherited after his death.