| Victor Kudo |
Image Gallery | Sprite Gallery |
- "Victor" redirects here. You may be looking for "Victor Boulay", the French localization name for Winston Payne.
| Judge |
| Sigh... Thank you, Mr. Kudo. You've certainly earned your Kudos for the day. |
Victor Kudo is an old man who comes from a long line of kimono embroiderers and was a witness in the murder of Glen Elg. He is the only regular at Trés Bien, but he only goes there to look at the waitresses in their uniforms.
A loyal customer
| Victor Kudo |
| Yes! The uniform! It's a disgrace! You can see all the way to their... their... YES! It's a disgrace! |
Kudo was an unemployed old man who went to Trés Bien only to look at the uniformed waitresses there. The expensive coffee that he was forced to buy to stay at the restaurant took a toll on his financial well-being, which was compounded by his unemployment. Kudo thus felt that he was useless to his family, and he tried to compensate for this by being angry at everyone around him and looking at the waitresses even more.
A grumpy witness
- Main article: Recipe for Turnabout
| Phoenix Wright |
| He's gotta be using some sort of infinite ammo code with that box of seeds... |
Throwing seeds.
One day in late 2018, Kudo witnessed the murder of Glen Elg inside the restaurant. He watched as a waitress slipped a white powder into Elg's coffee, with the man dying soon after that. In a panic, the restaurant owner, Jean Armstrong, ordered Kudo to call the police, and Kudo spent about five minutes looking for a public phone to do so. Later on, Maggey Byrde, the only waitress at the restaurant at the time, was charged with the murder. Kudo and Armstrong were subsequently both called to court to give witness testimony. The testimony of the two men seemed overwhelming, thus allowing the judge to hand down a guilty verdict. Strangely, it seemed as though Byrde's defense attorney, "Phoenix Wright", wasn't making much of an effort to defend his client.
A month later, Kudo was throwing seeds at pigeons in Vitamin Square, as was his habit, when Phoenix Wright arrived to ask him about what he had witnessed. Kudo decided to be uncooperative and refused to tell Wright anything useful, complaining about the youth of today instead. However, Wright later broke Kudo's three Psyche-Locks and learned Kudo's perverted secret. Seeking to take advantage of this, he fetched Maya Fey, who was working temporarily at Trés Bien. Kudo was unimpressed until Maya channeled her deceased older sister Mia Fey. Enamored with the girl's sudden change into a curvaceous woman, the old man happily spilled his information to Mia, revealing Armstrong's habit of stealing.
While talking to Mia Fey.
Kudo was once again called as the primary witness in a trial appeal for Byrde. However, Wright was much more competent this time, pointing out many inconsistencies between Kudo's testimony and court record evidence, rendering the testimony unreliable. He hadn't seen the waitress's face, didn't remember where he was sitting at that time, claimed that the victim was wearing his HMD and the radio on his left ear - which was deaf and undergoing medication - and testified that the victim had broken a vase on his table as he died before realizing that he had done that himself. Kudo stubbornly tried to keep testifying, but eventually the judge had enough and dismissed him. Kudo did, however, manage to give Wright a copy of his testimony, insisting that it was the truth.
After the trial, Kudo met Wright again and said that he had important information that he had been unable to mention, namely that Armstrong had told him to call the police. This eventually led to the revelation that Armstrong had, in fact, helped to set up a fake crime for Kudo to witness, after the real murder had been committed hours earlier. The killer had, in fact, even posed as Wright in Byrde's last trial. Kudo's testimony allowed Wright to expose Armstrong's poorly constructed lies the next day in court, when the effeminate chef stood as a witness.
Some time later, on his 69th birthday, Kudo's grandchildren threw a birthday party for him. Finally feeling appreciated, he "cried like a baby with a dirty diaper".
Personality
| Phoenix Wright |
| (Congratulations. You have earned the title of Battiest Man To Grace A Courtroom.) |
Victor Kudo's mugshot.
Due to his age and unemployment, Kudo felt useless to everyone and channeled his frustration out on other people instead. His obsession with the waitresses in their uniforms at Trés Bien contributed heavily to his financial troubles. When others asked him to do things for them, they were generally small errands, making him feel even more useless. He always carries bird seeds and used every opportunity to throw them at pigeons and people as a way of venting his anger, although he eats the seeds himself when he gets really angry or when he was defeated by Wright in court. Kudo also liked to use archaic language and loathed young people and technology.
Name
- His Japanese surname means "fifty" and his given name "Shouhei" contains the kanji for "a storm"/"a difficult problem" (嵐) and "officers and soldiers" (将兵). His full name could therefore be read as "fifty officers and soldiers storm".
- "Victor" is a given name that comes from the Latin for conqueror/vanquisher/victor, which fits with his surname.
- "Kudo" is a Japanese surname, perhaps an indication that the English version of this character is meant to be Japanese. Many aspects of Kudo's character refer to Japanese culture, and he even states that he was "born and bred in the Land of the Rising Sun". Alternatively, "Kudo" may come from "kudos", a word meaning "fame and renown resulting from an act or achievement"; this meaning is even referenced in-game, with the judge stating that he "earned [his] Kudos for the day" when he appeared in court.
- His name may also be a reference to Victor Hugo, a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist, and exponent of the Romantic movement in France.
Development
- Kudo's white headband and rigid haircut were intended to make him seem like an old-fashioned Japanese laborer. Only his big red nose softens his otherwise harsh exterior.[1]
- The design on his shirt is a hiragana "nu" (ぬ) inside a circle.
- He is one of only two named characters in the Ace Attorney series who is known to have had a birthday during the timeline of an Ace Attorney game (the other being Dustin Prince), although the actual date of Kudo's birthday is not known. Darklaw's birthday also happens during a game, but only in the Special Episodes of Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
- Kudo is one of two characters, the other being Cody Hackins, for whom Mia Fey's wiles are used to get them to talk.
- Victor Kudo was the oldest character with a known age to make a physical appearance until Turnabout Ablaze introduced Quercus Alba, and he was for a short time the oldest known character before Bruto Cadaverini was introduced later in the same case Kudo debuted.
- Kudo's character theme, "Victor Kudo ~ How Sad, the Melody of This War Song", also plays during Bridge to the Turnabout when Detective Dick Gumshoe is investigating the courtyard for the murder weapon. The music plays while Gumshoe sings his own song about investigations. Although the music itself is far more of a march in style, Phoenix Wright identifies Gumshoe's song as reggae. This is a reference to the fact that the lyrics Gumshoe uses are a parody of the reggae song "No Woman, No Cry" by Bob Marley & The Wailers.
References to other media
- During one of his cross-examinations, Kudo claims to be "More Savage than a Macho Man". This is a reference to the late professional wrestler, "Macho Man" Randy Savage.
References
- ↑ (2009). "The Art of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney". UDON. ISBN 1-897376-19-7.