Lance Amano

"Lance Amano"

- I really don't remember much anymore... Honest... But if I don't tell you at least something, you won't believe me at all, will you?

Lance Amano was the son of Ernest Amano and the "victim" of a faked kidnapping.

"Kidnap" victim

 * Main article: The Kidnapped Turnabout

Although Lance came from a well-off family, he still spent more than he should have and incurred a large debt with Tender Lender, a loan company. To solve his money problems, he planned a fake kidnapping of himself for his father's money, along with his girlfriend Lauren Paups and his butler Oliver Deacon. Paups was hopelessly devoted to Lance, and so was more than happy to help. In order to get Deacon on board, Lance had discovered that he was actually Colin Devorae, the father of Lauren Paups who had escaped from prison and come to work for the Amanos in order to look after his daughter. Lance threatened to reveal his secret, blackmailing Devorae into helping him.

Ernest arranged for Miles Edgeworth, a family friend, to deliver a $1 million ransom to the haunted house in Gatewater Land, and the "kidnappers" disguised themselves in Badger costumes, Devorae in the Bad Badger, Paups in the Blue Badger and Lance in the Proto Badger. However, Devorae suddenly attacked Lance with a gun, forcing Lance to shoot him dead.

Lance changed his plan. As Edgeworth was leaving the house, Lance knocked him unconscious with a prop sword. He then took Edgeworth to the Wild, Wild West area of the park, where he placed a Bad Badger head over Edgeworth's head. When Paups caught up with Lance, he fooled her into believing that he had caught "Deacon", who was trying to betray them. Lance then set up Paups by making her think "Deacon" had escaped and was heading for the stadium. Lance then disguised himself by dressing up as the Bad Badger and met Paups there. Paups panicked and shot the figure with a gun Lance had given her earlier. However, unbeknownst to her, the gun was only a prop and the man she thought she had killed was only Lance acting. Lance later appeared in front of the police having only just "escaped".

Although Lance tried to frame Paups for the murder and his father tried to cover for him, Edgeworth eventually figured him out and he was taken away after being named as Colin Devorae's killer. Ernest Amano was also arrested for tampering with evidence to protect his son.

Name

 * "Amanogawa" (天の川, lit. "heavenly river") is the Japanese word for the "Milky Way".


 * "Hikaru" may come from Hikoboshi (彦星 Cow Herder Star), the Japanese name for the star Altair. According to the story of Tanabata, the Japanese star festival, Hikoboshi and Orihime (織姫 Weaving Princess, the Japanese name for the star Vega) are lovers only allowed to meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. They are separated by the Milky Way for the rest of the year. The Japanese name of Lauren Paups is "Himeko Orito". When written in the Asian format of family name first, it becomes "Orito Himeko", likely meant to be a play on "Orihime".


 * His English surname is a shortened version of his Japanese counterpart's.


 * His full English name may be a play on "lost man".
 * His full English name might also be a play on the phrase "Lend some money".

Development

 * Lance is the only killer in the game who is not directly involved with the smuggling ring. However, his father is closely associated with its leader.


 * Assuming that Lance was telling the truth about killing Devorae in self-defense, this makes him only the second person in the Ace Attorney series (the first being Dee Vasquez) to have committed murder in self-defense.


 * Lance taking advantage of Lauren Paups' infatuation with him in order to get her to help with a fake kidnapping plot bears some resemblance to Dahlia Hawthorne's manipulation of Terry Fawles in her "kidnapping".