Maya Fey

When she was brought back for Spirit of Justice, she was at first written the same way as in her first appearances, but was then changed to be more mature at some points, to show that she had grown during the nine years that had passed within the games' story.Ace Attorney series creator and director Shu Takumi created Maya as a partner for Phoenix in order to make cases more fun to investigate by offering advice.[19] She is given yet another alternative design for part of the third game, Trials and Tribulations, where she wears a waitress uniform, replacing all of her regular clothes and accessories save for the beads in her hair.[21] For Maya's reappearance in Spirit of Justice, she was given a renewed design; before settling on the final version, the development team considered using her mother, Misty Fey, as a motif and base for the redesign.As a result, Fuse illustrated Maya from the first game era himself, and then tand started revisiting each part of the design to decide little by little which fits more and avoid drastic changes.During a trip with Phoenix and Pearl to a mountain retreat, she is nearly killed as part of another plot by Morgan, only to be saved by Godot and her mother, Misty Fey, who had disappeared many years prior.[41] However, Kotaku wrote that her portrayal and casting in the Ace Attorney film did not fare as well, where she appeared "emotionally unstable" rather than retaining her childlike innocence from the video games.[45][46][47][48] Anime News Network felt that Maya was not that strong in the adaptation due to Phoenix's skills contrast to the video games where the player is relying on her advices.[49] Game Informer claimed that Spirit of Justice has the best storyline in the franchise due to the depth given by the two player characters, with the original dynamic between Phoenix and Maya being surpassed by the new lead.[43] Similarly, John Walker of Eurogamer questioned the series' move to a new cast with Apollo Justice, saying that Maya's character arc had not yet been completed in Trials and Tribulations.[47] Alexa Ray Corriea at GameSpot also liked her reappearance, and said that after playing one of the episodes set in the United States, she was "itching to get back to Khura'in" and spend time with Maya.Due to the need of a localization to Western regions, Ellison further elaborated how Takumi used tricks in order to keep Maya's traits intact, thus allowing Kurain Village to exist in the translated version.[51] In The Girl at the Center of the World: Gender, Genre, and Remediation in Bishōjo Media Works, Forrest Greenwood from University of Minnesota Press claims that Maya is in charge of providing comic relief in the narrative helping to balance the state of the premise.