Pierre Hoquet


 * "Paul" redirects here. For additional meanings of "Paul", please see Paul (disambiguation).

Paul Holic, also known as Isaku Hyōdō, was a renowned French sculptor. Despite having poor cookery skills, he entered a dessert-making competition. During the competition, Holic was murdered in what became known as the IS-7 Incident.

The IS-7 Incident

 * Main article: IS-7 Incident

Holic heard about a confectionery competition hosted by the famous TV chef Issei Tenkai at his mansion, and decided to sign up for it under the pseudonym "Isaku Hyōdō" despite having no cookery skills. He wanted to sell the prize, Tenkai's "Angel's Recipe", for a lot of money. In order to increase his chances, he collaborated with Yutaka Kazami, an actual pastry chef who had terrible design abilities. Holic would handle all the design work while Kazami would do all the actual confectionery creation. The two men knew each other from having sons, Manosuke Naitō and Sōta Sarushiro, who went to the same elementary school and were the best of friends.

With the pair cooperating, they both made it to the finals, but Holic began plotting against his confectionery partner, wanting the valuable Angel's Recipe all to himself. After Kazami made the two batches of sherbet for Holic to sculpt, the latter betrayed him by ending their collaboration before sculpting Kazami's submission. Holic now had everything he needed for his creation while Kazami was left with only his own ingredients and terrible aesthetic abilities. Additionally, Holic forced his son Naitō to capture and tie up Sarushiro, knowing that Sarushiro was helping his father by taste-testing his creations.

Holic later entered Tenkai's room, where the Angel's Recipe was, and caught Kazami trying to take pictures of the recipe. Holic glanced at the page that Kazami was photographing, and found instructions for a cure to hypogeusia, a taste disorder. Holic mercilessly mocked Kazami, a chef who could not taste! Kazami flew into a rage and tried to hit Holic, but the sculptor landed the first blow and the chef struck his head on one of the two rock salt lamps in the room. Holic then offered to keep this little secret between them, for a hefty fee, of course. A desperate Kazami responded by killing Holic with a blow to the head from the other rock salt lamp.

Kazami then hid the body inside the chocolate treasure chest sculpture in Tenkai's room and hid the lamps inside the room of fellow competitor Delicy Scone. However, the body was found by Tenkai's assistant Tsukasa Oyashiki before Kazami could finish covering up his crime, and thus Tenkai himself was accused of the murder. Kazami managed to move the body and place it inside one of Holic's confectionery sculptures, but Oyashiki - who had figured out that "Isaku Hyōdō" was actually Paul Holic - was afraid that the police would damage Holic's work during their investigation. She therefore moved all of the dead sculptor's creations and hid them in the building's cellar, not knowing until much later that the body was inside.

Since the body was missing, an autopsy was therefore unable to be carried out. However, the corrupt Chief Prosecutor Bansai Ichiyanagi had coroner Otome Itami forge an autopsy report. The confrontation between prosecutor Manfred von Karma and defense attorney Gregory Edgeworth over this forged evidence would ultimately lead to the DL-6 Incident, while Tenkai was wrongfully convicted as an accomplice to the crime. Meanwhile, Naitō and Sarushiro almost died inside Holic's car after the doors froze shut, but the timely intervention of a passerby and his dog saved their lives. The two boys lost their memory due to the trauma of their ordeal and were raised in an orphanage. The police eventually found Naitō and gave him Holic's signet ring as an inheritance.



It would not be until 18 years later, when Oyashiki set a trap for Kazami, that the body of Paul Holic would be found and the mystery over his death solved.

Personality
Holic was known just as much for his greed and vanity as he was known for his sculptures. He would charge customers hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single sculpture. He would often work in secret as Isaku Hyōdō, but he always branded his works with his signet ring, so that fans of his art would unmistakably recognize his handiwork. His greed led him to betray Yutaka Kazami, to the point of forcing his own son to bind and gag his best friend.

Judging from his art, it would appear that he had something of an inferiority complex regarding women. Works dedicated to the relationship between himself and his wife, as well as between his father and mother, always depicted the woman as the dominant party. Despite this, he seemed to have a very high opinion of himself, judging from a self portrait of himself in Napoleonic garb. Holic also designed tea sets.

Name

 * His full name is a play on "asking for trouble" or "digging [one's] own grave" (墓穴を掘る) - a reference to how he tried to blackmail Kazami. It may be a play on the surname of the influential American artist Jackson Pollock (whose birth name, incidentally, was also "Paul").


 * His first name in Japanese can also be read as "pole", a possible reference to his career as a sculptor.


 * His surname may be a tribute to the renowned artist Jackson Pollock.


 * His Japanese pseudonym is a play on "ice hall" or "ice sculpture", which is where his corpse was hidden.


 * Holic's English name in the fan translation of Gyakuten Kenji 2 is "Pierre Hoquet", while his pseudonym is "Isaac Dover," which is likely a play on "iced over," referring to where his corpse was hidden.