Sebastian Debeste

Yumihiko Ichiyanagi is a young rookie prosecutor who was assigned to take over a number of Miles Edgeworth's cases by the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee. Barely competent and with terrible logic, it would often fall to judge and Committee member Hakari Mikagami, who acted as his assistant, to argue Edgeworth's logic.

Early life
Yumihiko Ichiyanagi was raised by his prosecutor father Bansai Ichiyanagi, who constantly verbally abused his son. Yumihiko went to Themis Legal Academy, where he took the prosecutor course and received good grades and many awards.

According to his father, Yumihiko's mother's whereabouts were unknown. However, since Bansai frequently used "disappeared" as a euphemism for having them killed, it is not unlikely that the same thing happened to his wife.

Edgeworth's logic vs. Yumihiko's "logic"

 * Main article: The Imprisoned Turnabout

Yumihiko began his career as a prosecutor shortly before the murder of Manosuke Naitō, with the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee appointing him as the prosecutor in charge of the case, with judge and Committee member Hakari Mikagami acting as his assistant. Despite taking over the case from Miles Edgeworth, the older prosecutor repeatedly and soundly beat Yumihiko's "logic", and eventually revealed Marī Miwa as the killer of Naitō.

An "artistic" murder

 * Main article: The Inherited Turnabout

Tsubasa Kagome's murder

 * Main article: The Forgotten Turnabout

After defense attorney and Committee member Tsubasa Kagome was murdered, Yumihiko accused the amnesiac Kay Faraday as the culprit. Edgeworth disagreed, as Faraday didn't possess the necessary card key to even get into the room the victim was murdered in. Yumihiko later made the mistake of accusing Franziska von Karma of the crime with no evidence, who then whipped the "genius" prosecutor. Edgeworth went on to prove that the murderer was his own father, Bansai Ichiyanagi.

Confronting his father

 * Main article: The Grand Turnabout

Shortly before Marī Miwa's trial, Yumihiko was accidentally kidnapped by his father's lackeys, who were meant to be targeting Shimon Aizawa instead. Edgeworth and Faraday rescued him while searching for Aizawa. Edgeworth then questioned him about his father, only for Yumihiko to admit that he had given the evidence against Miwa to his father, who then threw it in the trash.

Racked with guilt over his actions and feeling useless, Yumihiko went over to the dump and searched through the piles of rubbish for the evidence, but could only find one object - a bell. Luckily, this one item proved sufficient to convict Miwa and prove Bansai's guilt. Although Yumihiko was finally able to stand up to his father, the latter still managed to humiliate him by revealing that all his good grades and awards that he was so proud of were due to Bansai's influence, not Yumihiko's own merits. However, when Bansai was finally defeated and broke down in court screaming his son's name in anger, Yumihiko was still grateful for all that his father had done for him. After thinking deeply and talking to Edgeworth, Yumihiko decided to continue being a prosecutor, but to do so his own way.

Personality
Yumihiko was obsessed with being better than everyone else in the things he did, even attempting to solve his cases faster than anyone else; even mentioning the word "first" was liable to make him want to do whatever was being talked about before anyone else, a fact that was sometimes taken advantage of by other people. While we was often very arrogant and condescending, considering himself the best in all things, would break into tears rather easily when proven wrong.

As an investigator, Yumihiko was not very competent (especially compared to Edgeworth); his logic was full of holes and frequently made no sense, he would sometimes present wrong evidence (or even forget its name) and not even realize it until Mikagami pointed it out to him, he would frequently lag behind everyone else in what was happening in a case (or even a conversation), and he would often use the wrong word in a sentence.

This mix of incompetent meant that it was often left to judge Mikagami to gently push Yumihiko in the correct direction, or even to just combat Edgeworth's logic on her own. It also meant that other people tended to show him little respect, or even outright ignore him. Although Edgeworth and Mikagami usually employed some throat-clearing before ignoring Yumihiko, Franziska von Karma would instead whip him. Even Larry Butz referred to him as an idiot, which is quite the achievement considering Butz's frequent foolish antics in the past.

The one person who showed Yumihiko the least respect, however, is his own father. Bansai frequently called him an idiot, openly lamented having such a foolish son, and later shows great satisfaction in telling Yumihiko the truth about his grades and awards.

Name

 * His compulsive desire to be "first" and "number one" is reflected in his last name, which contains "ichi" (一), meaning "one" in Japanese.


 * The kanji in his surname (柳) can be pronounced as "ryuu", which gives it the alternative pronunciation "Ichiryuu", meaning "first class". When replacing the second kanji with "龍", flipping around the characters will create "Ryuuichi" (龍一), which is Phoenix Wright's Japanese given name.


 * The "Yumi" in his Japanese given name means bow, as in the weapon. This parallels Edgeworth's Japanese surname "Mitsurugi", which is a play on the word for "sword". Also, with his surname it creates the pun "ichiya naki yumi hiku" - "pulling a bow without an arrow" - a reference to his baseless deductions.


 * Yumihiko's full English name in the fan translation of Gyakuten Kenji 2 is "Sebastian Debeste". "Sebastian" is a Greek name which roughly means "adored" or "revered", while "Debeste" is a play on "the Best". "Sebastian" may also be a reference to Saint Sebastian, who is often depicted in art and literature shot with arrows, paralleling the "bow" connotation of his Japanese given name.

Development

 * Yumihiko was apparently by far the most popular new character with the female staff at Capcom. He is also the favorite new character of director Takeshi Yamazaki.


 * Underneath his coat, Yumihiko wears a blue Themis Legal Academy uniform. It was confirmed by the Gyakuten Saiban 5 Official Complete Guidebook that he studied there, and that the blue uniform he wears was previously the uniform for students taking the prosecutor course until it was changed in later years to the red uniform seen in Turnabout Academy.


 * Yumihiko and his father are the only prosecutors to date who actually openly wear their prosecutor's badges.


 * He has a noticeable slim forelock of hair that sticks up from from his head, usually reminiscent of a question mark, but changing to an exclamation mark in some of his reaction sprites. This type of hair is also known as ahoge (lit. "idiot/stupid hair") in Japanese culture, a term that suits his personality well. According to head illustrator Tatsuro Iwamoto, Yumihiko carefully styles it this way every morning.

Sprite gallery
Sebastian Normal.gif|Normal Sebastian Normal Talking.gif|Normal/talking