Florent L'Belle

"Apollo Justice"

- (Beau divine? More like yokai grotesque. This place is crawling with monsters.)

Florent L'Belle was the flamboyant and narcissistic personal aide of Damian Tenma, mayor of Tenma Town. L'Belle had his own private line of beauty products called "Je suis L'Belle!", which were for his private use only, despite putting adverts for them on television. The epaulettes on his shoulders were actually cell phones used to answer calls from his business partners.

The plan

 * Main article: The Monstrous Turnabout

L'Belle started his own line of beauty products and borrowed money in order to advertise them on television. However, his extreme narcissism caused him to refuse to actually sell his products, which meant that L'Belle soon found himself deeply in debt.

L'Belle's work as Damian Tenma's personal aide eventually led to him discovering the truth behind the feared Tenma Taro of Nine-Tails Vale mythology; it was not a bird-like yokai at all, but a large gold ingot hidden away in the Forbidden Chamber of alderman Rex Kyubi's manor due to the infighting it caused amongst the early Japanese settlers of the village. Seeing an opportunity to repay his debts, L'Belle began scheming to obtain the ingot for himself by forcing a merger between Tenma Town and Nine-Tails Vale so that he would have easy access. In order to create such a union, L'Belle began anonymously blackmailing Mayor Tenma by threatening to harm his daughter Jinxie Tenma if he failed to merge the two villages. Unfortunately for L'Belle, the mayor refused to make things easy for his blackmailer; although he publicly pushed for the merger, he secretly took on the persona of the masked wrestler known as "the Amazing Nine-Tails" and rallied the inhabitants of Nine-Tails Vale against L'Belle's scheme.

The alderman's murder
"Florent L'Belle"

- Night night, alderman... Sweet dreams!

With his initial plan foiled, L'Belle decided to take a different approach. Knowing that the mayor and alderman were due to hold a private meeting in Kyubi Manor's Fox Chamber, L'Belle plotted to murder Alderman Kyubi then break into the Forbidden chamber. The meeting took place on the day of a festival held in Nine-Tails Vale, and L'Belle drugged the coffee of the two men. As the two men lay sleeping, L'Belle took a spear and stabbed the alderman through the chest with it, killing him. He then opened the Forbidden Chamber, only to discover that the ingot was not inside. However, he still needed to cover up his crime, and so he hid Mayor Tenma in the Forbidden Chamber, planted a blackmail letter in the alderman's pocket, and disguised himself as Damian by changing into his clothes and putting on the Amazing Nine-Tails mask. He then sat in a chair and screamed to attract attention. As planned, Jinxie came running in and mistook L'Belle for her father, as removing the mask of a wrestler is seen as deeply dishonorable, and "Damian" confessed to having killed the alderman to "his" daughter.

After Jinxie left the scene to call the police, L'Belle returned to the Forbidden Chamber to return the mayor to his seat. Unexpectedly however, a Tenma Taro-costumed Phineas Filch, the manor's caretaker, had snuck into the chamber in the meantime in his own attempt to steal the gold ingot. Blinded by the sudden light caused by the chamber doors opening, Filch darted past L'Belle and out into the hallway past Jinxie. L'Belle knew that the figure had been Filch, but first continued with his preparation of the crime scene by moving Mayor Tenma back to his seat and throwing the Amazing Nine-Tails mask out the window into the river below. L'Belle then searched out Filch and confronted him about his actions. The two men agreed to create a mutual alibi by saying that they had been in the manor's foyer during the murder.

Despite his best efforts, however, Damian Tenma's defense attorney Apollo Justice (along with his investigative assistant Athena Cykes) was able to piece together what had happened and expose the truth in court. Finding himself cornered, L'Belle broke down on the witness stand by repeatedly spraying himself with cologne until a cloud of it had formed around his head. In doing so, his hair dye was removed, revealing his naturally white hair. To add insult to injury, he was then inundated with cell phone calls telling him that people were cancelling projects, sponsors were withdrawing, that he was fired from his job as an aide, and that he was being sued for damages totalling at $100 million. L'Belle then yelled to the silent courtroom that he was done, and began quietly laughing to himself while his cell phones continued to ring. He was subsequently taken into custody for his crimes.

Personality
L'Belle was an incredibly vain, self-centered, and flamboyant individual. Most of his personality revolved around an obsession with external beauty; he wore garish designer clothes, heavy make-up, and dyed his naturally white hair in a variety of different vivid colors. He believed that his products should be known to the world, although he wouldn't release them to the general public. He spent far more money than he had actual access to, racking up millions of dollars in debt. L'Belle also had the habit of emphasizing particular words when he spoke.

Name

 * "Biyouin" (美葉院), his Japanese surname, means "beauty parlor".


 * His Japanese given name consists of the kanji for "refined/elegant/graceful" (秀) and "one" (一).


 * "Florent" is a name of Old French origin and means "in flower", which fits with his floral perfume and the rose on his lapel.


 * His English last name "L'Belle" comes from "la belle", which is French for "the beautiful". Normally, the masculine "beau" would be used to describe a man (being equivalent to "handsome" in English), with the choice of the feminine "belle" likely meant to be a reference to L'Belle's effeminate demeanour. The surname also sounds phonetically similar to "label", tying into his cosmetics line and high fashion sense.

Development

 * His product line is named "Je suis L'Belle", which is French for "I am the beauty".


 * Judging from some of his concept art, it appears that L'Belle was at some point intended to be a female.

References to popular culture

 * On the third trial day, L'Belle's green hair, purple suit, and pale complexion is reminiscent of the Joker, the archenemy of DC Comics' superhero Batman.