Franziska von Karma: Profoundly Misunderstood [Analysis & Retrospective]

Holy shit you’ve made me completely flip my view of turnabout big top on its head. I actually think I need to replay that episode immediately

really good video! i've always loved franziska ever since i was a kid, really. i became a fan of ace attorney when i was like maybe 10 or 11? anyway, she really stood out to me and i admired how strong she was and the way she dressed. i even went as her for halloween once. as i got older i was able to appreciate the nuances of her and her story. (of course, in the early days of the fandom she was nearly as loved and respected as she is now, which sucked. classic case of fandom misogyny of 'unlikable female characters'.) anyway, great analysis and i have your franmaya video in my watch later so looking forward to that!

Just so you know, I very much enjoy your videos and how much you analyze Ace Attorney. I would love more videos from you ❤

I liked Franziska's character before, but this video gave me a whole new understanding of her. Thank you, she's probably my favorite prosector in the series. I hope she comes back in Ace Attorney 7.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOUUUUU FOR ARTICULATING ALL THE THINGS ABOUT HER AND ALSO GIVING ME EVEN MORE DETAILS TO BE INSANE ABOUT this is the single best thing I've ever watched, I'm so abnormal about her and I am so glad someone else gets it and is way better at explaining it than I am so I can give this to my friends

Thats a very funny way to get into aa xD i got into it cause a lifetime online friend loved it. Somehow i wasnt spoiled on 99% of plot events i knew frans appearance didnt know she was a von karma when she first showed up i was instantly like “I SMELL INFERIORITY COMPLEX” she quickly grew to become a favorute of mine especially during the circus case where me and her are both like WTF IS GOIN ON. Definitely will watchthrough the rest of the video for your immaculate character analysis of frannny

the way you completely recontextualised that literal clown show case for me. the way that, because i never actually played the game, i will now have a unique experience with it, one that elevates the case into something much greater than itself. oh my fucking god, the fact that i was always a franziska lover but jesus fucking christ what do you mean theyre allegories to phoenix, miles and franziska??? what do you mean?????

This video was amazing. The personal stories were lovely to hear the character analysis was just forgive the pun perfectlion loved that image of edgewroth taking fran to the hospital and addressing that shit miles did love the guy but god damn that was messed up. As an autistic person myself i Felt that story near the end . ESPESCIALLY BOUT THEM SOCIAL CUES bro i am blunt to even higher position people when i feel like theyre being lazy. An amazing video made me love the whip lady even more

I don’t think I've ever been more engaged with a video about a character I haven’t thought about in years, you've started my third month or longer obsession with AA, thank you

"Franziska asking for a justified self defense verdict is different from von karma trying to end every trial ASAP without looking at the details"

I agree and tell people this whenever they play 2-2 the first time! The justified self defense is what makes the most possible sense in the story. I 100% believed it to be the case at the time. I couldn't understand why Phoenix was going for a full acquittal. Franziska, as is later proven with her knowledge on spirit channeling, has done her research and came to the same conclusion as I did. She was fighting for her truth

You know, I do think there’s an element of fandom blindness to Franziska. Most people enter ace attorney with a pre-determined view of her decided by things they’ve already seen because AA is just that popular. I introduced a friend who’s never really seen much outside my rambles and the occasional Tumblr fanart to AA, and they immediately clocked the whole “Franziska’s whip is an equivalent to MvK’s finger snapping” thing, which I was surprised over because that took me 2 playthroughs to dig out lol. Maybe it’s because predominantly women characters get overlooked even though their theming and personality are right there, who knows

This video is well appreciated by me. Also when you said how youre kind of a woman who likes to be called sir (Which I might relate), it just reminded me of how Gumshoe calls Franziska "Sir". I mean she never corrects him or anything so she seems okay with it. I don't know if that was part of why you liked it but when I first saw that I thought it was neat.

Anyways yes good video, Franziska is my second favourite character. Bye!!!!!

This channel is like crack for my autism

This video has definitely changed my mind on her.

wait drop the “top ace attorney characters” vid i wanna know who’s three two and one if not fran!!

I NEED to know your AO3 account now you're too good with words 😭

whip sales up by 2000% and it's all me they're all mine I will make the Überwhip

wait... whoooo?! Who are your other favourite characters???? I need to know aaah

Holy shit I never noticed Edgeworth being soft on that kid was because of his trauma. That's an amazing detail I'd never thought of before thanks for pointing that out lol it's so cool.

I find it funny how you focused on Vriska when it came to that kin question.

This was an eye-opening video. Before this video I liked Franziska a lot more than I feel the average AA fan does, but I could never verbalize why. When I originally played the game, I thought she was kind of a boring prosecutor until I got to the post credits scene, which made me tear up and I literally couldn't figure out why in the moment. After a lot of thought and then this video I think the thing I love about her is how much she goes against the grain for AA characters.
I feel like all the main characters are incredibly emotionally open (Phoenix keeps his emotions super close to his chest but we can still see his thoughts), and then when their emotions are too painful to verbalize they leave the rest to barely disguised implication. Franziska is the opposite, ALL of her actual emotions are left to incredibly vague implication with the one exception of the post credits scene, which you then need to use like a cipher to decode her emotions throughout the rest of the game.

Also, I realize that the story is probably better with Miles returning as the prosecutor for the final case of JFA but oh my god she gets so little screen time man. She needed another case.

guten.... fucking.... morgen....

Today I cosplayed Franziska at a con as part of an 7 person group for the entire case of AA. We had a Phoenix, edgeworth, gumshoe, Larry, Maya, judge, and myself. We won the category in the cosplay contest for best video game.
I just wanted to formally thank you for this video, it catapulted me into loving Franziska so deeply and I really think it is what solidified AA as a special interest. It means so so much to me and I’m so happy I’ve gotten so many friends to get into it as well. Every day I count down until I can show my best friend this and the Manfred video because she will understand my Franziska obsession, but I’m waiting for her to finish most of the investigations games. I appreciate you and your very correct opinions so much. This video is so important to me

I actually love the retrospectives from NezumiVA

hey, they could be sisters AND romantically entangled!

this video has me INCENSED istg. idk how to say this in a clean, articulate sort of way, but the style of this is so deeply familiar to me.

I saw the runtime and I felt the tone of voice in my bones like “ohhh yeah, it’s one of these “ (and I mean that in the best way possible). It scratches the same part of my brain that’s compelled to fill my notes app with rambling paragraphs of analysis because I cannot justify posting them, but they also NEED to exist, I NEED to make my case because THEY DON’T HAVE THE BRAINWORMS. THEY DON’T GET IT.

just a very particular emotion that I, weirdly, don’t get from a lot of video essays.
like, I’ve seen my fair share of “here’s a show that’s cool” or “here’s why this character is interesting”, but I feel like this captures the sheer manic energy of “I will go *crazy* if you guys don’t witness my pattern recognition in action, I’ve had this take brewing for years and none of you are seeing it. Yes it takes this long. Yes we will go off track. Let the artist work, please and thank you.”

the being autistic and overworking yourself until you break is so real, though for me no one ever warned or told me to stop, in fact it felt almost encouraged because I overworked myself to try and get my diploma and I felt so much pressure to succeed that I tried to push through it and have been in burnout for several years since without a diploma on top of that because I crashed right before exams

As a fellow autistic person, but one who sides mainly on the masculine side, this has deeply moved and made me really consider autism in the women around me. It hasn't been something I have deeply considered before as autism in women is immensely ignored and so I followed suit as the malleable culture golem I am, but yet after this, it made me really internalize the traits I have in other women that I greatly respect. Just a powerful and strong video essay that entirely made me a more understanding individual. Thank you.

you extended my horizons about her

thank you

lowkey teared up while you were talking about the post credits scene 😭

My favorite ace attorney character is Emma Sky, I really love her
BUT
When I tell you I saw this whole video, I saw it
And I might be autistic (do not have a diagnosis and might not have it any soon) and seeing all this depth in Fransiska character it’s just amazing
Thank you so much for this video and stay healthy ^^

you've given me a new perspective on turnabout bigtop, Like I had just never considered the parallels between the main cast and the three from that case. I still don't know if I'd say that I like the case but I think that in mind definitely changes some of how I look at it.

on a different note, I almost wonder how recipe for turnabout would have connected to some the central themes/ideas presented by the game if it had been in JFA as it was initially planned to be. Like as far as the final product goes The familial theme doesn't really have an easy place to slot in with that case.

I am extremely late to this video but thank you for defending Franny, AA2 and 2-3 in particular. Love all 3 to death and having that opinion in the ye old days was rough stuff.

I've always seen ace attorney in memes and heard Ash GTLive talk about it. For some reason, a month or two ago,I decided I wanted to be in the know because I'd seen RTGame reference it in other series so i watched his series and now I'm hooked

I've also been developing an OC ever since I got hooked and he started as a nobody who would befriend Franzisca because I found myself drawn to her,intrigued by her,however now he's her older brother who watched their mother die. One thing that didn't change is his obsession with truth. He's considered the worst prosecutor in Japan because he gives evidence to the defence in advance. He hardly considers himself a Von Karma so you can imagine the drama. The final case of a potential fan game with him would be him going full "Von Karma mode" ,forgoing his ethics and morals in order to prove his sister and the country wrong. Also he has a Bo staff. He likes knowing where his strike will go,control. I've got such a cool Pheonix costume design in mind for him and during the final trial,his flames would turn light blue,like the Von Karma's hair.

Can someone go back in time and force shu takumi to not write the predator love triangle into Big Top? Please? That would make it so much easier to see the case's good points

Amazing video!!!

How the hell do you keep dropping hard lines, your writing is impeccable

Franziska is running case 2-4 on so many painkillers and determination

I am also seeing myself in Franziska in a way that I probably recognised but never really put into words. And not just because I had a skipping rope with one broken handle that I used to use as a whip. (It is a great stim toy, I'd totally still have it except my dog has zero self-preservation instinct and I would crack her on her little baby snoot.)

Particularly the way she is very frank about her trauma in a way that seems weirdly dispassionate, because that's kind of how you survive. You're put in situations where you had to talk about it (in my case, to get necessary accomadations as a young carer), but you don't have room to actually break down or anything. My mask is not the same as hers, but the core is pretty similar.

Investigations 2 revealing that Von Karma wasn't always evil and instead was pushed into insanity by Excelsior is so telling for Franziska's character.

She would've been a little girl like 6 years old at most when IS-7 happened and she would've been at home watching her once-noble father freaking out about the missing body in private and ruminating over Edgeworth. Her entire world started rotting from the inside and she had no idea why, for an entire year, which would've been a good chunk of her entire life at the time.

And then the man he was ruminating over for a year dies in mysterious circumstances, her Dad starts spending way more time at home than he ever had in his life with a scary shoulder wound, and Gregory's child is adopted as her brother. Only Franziska sees the guilt on her father's face but she's too young to understand it or what her father has done.

So people think Phoenix and Franziska are cute together. What are your thoughts?

im not particulairly good at comment essays but ima try anyways

your videos about the two von karma's have really opened my eyes a lot about how thease two charicters are written
i have kinda always sorta known about the deeper complexities of both that i also agree most of the fandom misses, but i never really analized them that deeply like you have by this point
like, when i think of ,Franziska von karma before watching this video, i was in the same camp of just thinking her whip was a bit of a gimmiq and nothing more, when watching this i finally realized its importance to her charicter of trying to take control, not just as a means to mirror manfred but as a means to show how she has to go out of her way to get one to be able to have any control, its verry interesting and ill probibally be processing this over the comming months as i do with a lot of video essays before haveing my full toughts, but in general i just wanna say
thank you
im a bit of a person who like, is really interested in charicters in fiction and lore n stories n whatnot, but whom is... kinda bad at it? (you would not believe how oblivious i am to some things like- like in case 3-4 it took me a solid 30 or so minites to go "OH WAIT HE'S GODOT") so i usually binge watch a bunsh of video essays about what i enjoy because other people are way better at analizing story elements and charicters than i am
and witch just how much kinda... sometimes wrong info this fanbae produces its nice to have thease videos that really go all in on analizing and truely show how thease charicters are meant to (probibally) be interperted as
idk if this is a comprehansable read or if im makeing any sence or if this is just my scrambled toughts put on a plate that are hard to understand
i just wanan say, good videos, opened my eyes to a lot of the deeper charicteristics and explained a lot to me cuz i sure cant figure it out myself, thank you

IM HALFWAY THROUGT THE VIDEO (IN KNE SITTING BTW) AND IM CRYING AND GOSH DANGIT YHE *CHILLS* MAN THE CHILLS

Okay but LITERALLY YOU ARTICULATE PERFECTLY WHY I LIVE FOR THESE SIBLINGS. Edgey’s my favorite still (I’m a kinnie haha) BUT Franziska… gosh I love her sm. She’s far, far deeper than people give her credit for.

I know this is one of your older videos haha, but I just wanted to I guess put out there that I do enjoy your videos and analysis. In short, i suppose I find your content insightful, funny, and utterly refreshing. So i often listen to these when doing any sort of project.

thanks,
from just another queer with an AA hyperfixtation

Is Franziska being treated like some kind of princess?

Do you respect Phoenix Wright?

This is the best ad for a bullwhip Ive ever seen