Dee Vasquez

"Dee Vasquez"

- And here I was worrying that today would be as boring as all the rest.... Very well. Let us have a battle of wits, you and I.

Dee Vasquez was the high-ranking producer of The Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo as well as other shows produced by Global Studios. She had ties to the local mob, which she used from time to time to get rid of people. She was a witness in the murder of actor Jack Hammer.

Death of Manuel
In 2011, Dee Vasquez witnessed a fatal accident involving action star Jack Hammer and a fellow actor named Manuel. Vasquez was producing a show starring Jack Hammer, but during a fight scene, Hammer accidentally pushed Manuel onto some sharp fence tips, killing him.

A paparazzi took a photo of the incident, but he was silenced by Vasquez's mob. Vasquez later used the accident to blackmail Hammer into doing what she wanted, including working on kids' TV shows as villains for petty change.

Murder of Hammer

 * Main article: Turnabout Samurai

Five years later, Vasquez produced the TV show The Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo, starring Will Powers as the Steel Samurai and Hammer as the villainous Evil Magistrate. By this time, Hammer was fed up with the blackmail; he donned Powers's Steel Samurai costume and confronted Vasquez in Studio 2 of Global Studios, intending to kill her. However, the ensuing fight ended with his death on the same fence that had killed Manuel; a fanboy witnessed the death from a hidden area.

Vasquez transported Hammer's body by truck, with the help of the director of The Steel Samurai, Sal Manella, to Studio 1. There, she dressed Hammer's body in the Evil Magistrate costume, burned the Steel Samurai costume, and called the police; the police determined that Powers had killed Hammer with the Samurai Spear, which was a part of the Steel Samurai costume.

Phoenix Wright represented Powers in court; during his investigation of Global Studios, he confronted Vasquez in Studio 2 and learned about Manuel's death. Vasquez tried to use her mob to eliminate Wright, but Detective Dick Gumshoe entered the scene in time to rescue Wright.

Wright eventually got Vasquez to testify in court about her alibi. He convinced Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth to force Vasquez to testify further, which resulted in Wright exposing a contradiction in her testimony and implicating her as the real killer.

Vasquez is the only killer in Phoenix Wright's cases whose crime is manslaughter (or even arguably a self-defense killing) rather than murder, which may mean that she did not receive the death penalty. When the judge asked where Vasquez was after she had been revealed as the real killer, Edgeworth replied that she had gone to the waiting room, rather than that she had been arrested. Furthermore, during the next case, Maya Fey stated that "the criminal [Hammer] impersonated the defendant", indicating that Vasquez was considered innocent.

Personality
Vasquez was generally very calm and rarely got angry, even when she was indicted for Hammer's murder. Although she did have a brief lapse in her composure when Wright began to get the better of her, she returned to her usual self when finally beaten and accepted her defeat calmly, being one of the few culprits Wright encountered to accept defeat graciously. The other notable break in her normal demeanor was just after Manuel's death, which left her thoroughly horrified and screaming frantically.

Vasquez treated Manella like dirt, but he didn't seem to mind. She has a low voice.

Name

 * In Japanese, her last name "Himegami" (姫神) means "princess-goddess". Her name can further be broken down as "megami" meaning "goddess", and "Hi", which could refer to a different kanji which is read as "hi", meaning "fire", perhaps as an allusion to her smoking.


 * "Sakura" (サクラ) is traditionally known as the cherry blossom, which is seen as a noble and beautiful flower, and Vasquez is stated as being very beautiful by Wright.


 * Her English given name is possibly derived from the word "diva". This is backed up by Manella accidently referring to her as "Diva" instead of "Dee" at one point. "Dee" is also used as a diminutive form of various male and female given names including Cordelia, Daniel, Dawn, Deidre, Douglas and Mandy.


 * "Vazquez" is a Spanish surname (it can also be spelt "Vázquez", "Vásquez", or "Vásques") which may originate from the Spanish family name/masculine first name "Velasco", which in turn comes from the Basque "bel-" (meaning "raven" or "crow") and the diminutive suffix "-sco". With Dee Vasquez, it may be a play on "vacuous", referring to her apparent lack of attention.


 * Alternatively, the full name "Dee Vasquez" could come from "Diego Velázquez", a 17th century Spanish painter.

Development

 * Originally Vasquez's character was to be male, but was changed when one of the designers pointed out that all the criminals were turning out to be men.


 * In-game, when a character is speaking, the noise used as the text appears on the screen usually differs depending on the gender of the speaker; deeper if male and higher pitched if female. Vasquez is unusual in that she uses the "male" tone, suggesting that she has a low voice. Alternatively, it may be a leftover from the developers initially intending for the character to be male.


 * Her sister, Tanpopo, appears in the Gyakuten Saiban promotional manga (Turnabout Crossover), and is also a producer.


 * She is the first killer in the Ace Attorney series to congratulate Wright on defeating them in court.