Paul Atishon

Paul Atishon

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"Paul" redirects here. For other characters referred to as "Paul", please see Paul (disambiguation). "Atishon" also redirects here; for the family itself, see Atishon (family).

Paul Atishon-Wimperson V · T · F
Occupation	Politician ( - May 17, 2028)
Biological information
Reckoned birth year(s) (this is for age comparison purposes, and so may look odd; click on the question mark for details)?	2002-2003
Deduced birthday range	July 11, 2002
Documented age range (as recorded in court record profiles & case files)	25* (Turnabout Revolution)
Last known status	Arrested (May 17, 2028)
Eye color	Gray
Hair color	Black
Height (the metric (cm) values are sourced from official guidebooks and may not reflect the relative sizes of characters as depicted in-game or in other official media)	5'4"; 165 cm
Associates
Family	Abraham Atishon (grandfather) An unnamed father
Friends	An unnamed dog
Affiliates	Inga Karkhuul Khura'in (benefactor; deceased) Archie Buff (Kurain Village archaeologist & murder victim; deceased) Phoenix Wright (blackmail victim & former plaintiff attorney) Ives Shineto (neighbor)
One-off nicknames
Lord of Plebs* (by Apollo Justice) Little snot* (by Dhurke Sahdmadhi)
Names in other languages
Japanese (romanization written with the given name first)	清木 まさはる (Masaharu Kiyoki)
Miscellaneous
Debut episode	Turnabout Revolution
Musical theme	"Paul Atishon ~ A Vote for Atishon!"

Paul Atishon

In short, I'm the chosen one, the golden boy, the powerhouse of politics!

Trucy Wright

...And rider-of-his-grandfather's-coattails.

— Turnabout Revolution

Paul Atishon-Wimperson (typically referred to simply as Paul Atishon) was a politician running for the position of local assemblyman of Kurain Village. He was the plaintiff in a civil lawsuit against Dhurke Sahdmadhi, in which he was represented by the attorney Phoenix Wright.

A politician's ambition

Main article: Turnabout Revolution

The treasure, the suitcase, and the murder

E-mail sent by Dr. Buff to Atishon regarding the Founder's Orb.

While running for a seat on the local council of Kurain Village, Atishon was tasked by a benefactor of his – the Khura'inese Minister of Justice, Inga Karkhuul Khura'in – with retrieving a Khura'inese relic called the Founder's Orb from Dr. Archie Buff, an archaeologist living in the village to whom the orb had been sent to be studied. At some point, Buff realized that the orb had been stolen from its rightful place in Khura'in's Tehm'pul Temple, after which he refused to hand it over to Atishon.

Intending to give the orb to his benefactor at all costs, Atishon went into Buff's study at night with the aim of killing the archaeologist with a heavy suitcase that Datz Are'bal had left at the house; as the suitcase was too heavy for Atishon to lift, his plan was to push it from the second floor landing so it would land onto the doctor's head while he was sitting at his coffee bar below. However, Archie Buff's daughter Armie had fallen asleep in her wheelchair in the spot from which Atishon intended to push the suitcase. Although he was able to move her wheelchair out of the way, in doing so woke the girl, who quickly wheeled herself to her room and shut herself in after being frightened by the presence of a stranger in her home.

Atishon proceeded to drop the suitcase onto Archie's head, killing him. He then wiped his fingerprints and the doctor's blood off the suitcase, moved the body to the foot of a bookshelf across the room, and covered it in a large amount of books, making it appear as if Archie had been knocked off of the bookcase ladder by an avalanche of books. Although Atishon's plan to make the death look accidental initially succeeded, the Founder's Orb was no longer in the doctor's home and thus he was unable to retrieve it.

In his palanquin.

The following day, Atishon met the leader of the Defiant Dragons, Dhurke Sahdmadhi, who was visiting Kurain Village with the defense attorney Apollo Justice. Upon learning that they were after the orb as well, Atishon secretly followed the duo as they try to find it. The hunt for the orb eventually lead into the dark caverns of Mt. Mitama, where Atishon pushed them down a ledge, trapping them inside. With the help of a local fisherman, Dhurke and Apollo managed to escape the caverns together with the orb.

The civil trial

With the two now in possession of the orb, Atishon confronted them and demanded they hand over the orb, but Dhurke angrily refused. Atishon, who is determined to have the orb, arranged for Phoenix Wright to represent him in a civil lawsuit against Sahdmadhi. As Wright's friend Maya Fey was being held hostage by Inga, he had no choice but to follow through with the lawsuit.

During the subsequent trial to determine the orb's rightful owner, Atishon claimed that the object in question was actually the "Crystal of Ami Fey", which had been stolen from his family's residence a year before. Justice, who was representing Sahdmadhi, maintained that the relic was the Founder's Orb, and thus the rightful property of the Defiant Dragons, as Archie had signed an agreement stating that he would hand the orb over to them. Atishon's claims about the Crystal of Ami Fey proved not to be enough to convince the presiding judge, so he instead testified that Are'bal had killed Archie, thereby rendering the transfer agreement void, as Are'bal was a member of the Defiant Dragons. Despite Atishon's attempts to pin the murder on Are'bal, Justice was able to deduce that Atishon was the real killer. However, despite the overwhelming evidence, Wright refused to accept the evidence due to Atishon and Inga's seizure of Fey. However, after Justice deduced that Fey needed to be kept alive in order to use the Founder's Orb, Wright immediately resigned his position as Atishon's attorney.

Losing his imagined "election".

Atishon wouldn't give up though until Justice proved that he had left conclusive evidence behind. His fingerprints were on Armie's wheelchair and unlike the ones on the suitcase, he had been unable to wipe them off. After indulging in an imagined electoral win, which he then lost, Paul Atishon screamed for his grandfather before collapsing on the witness stand. He was subsequently placed under arrest for his crimes.

Personality

Paul Atishon

I believe the youth of this country are our very future. Too long have they been looked down on and given the cold shoulder! So, to them I say! Ask not what you can do for your country! Ask what you can do for me!

— Turnabout Revolution

Mugshot.

Atishon was the embodiment of the archetypal "sleazy politician", in that he was very evasive when questioned (instead preferring to promote his political campaign or simply walking away). His ego was inflated to the point that he would refer to others as "peasants", preferred to have others carry him around in his personal palanquin, and was oblivious to the fact that the locals of Kurain Village wished that he would stop canvassing via megaphone and were tearing his political posters down in disgust, instead believing that they were crying tears of joy when they saw him and that "fangirls" were taking the posters for themselves. Atishon was not afraid to flaunt his political power, knowing that a normal person would be unable to fight back against his family's influence. Atishon claimed that he finds "discrimination against minorities" to be despicable, and that one of his political goals was to root out all forms of discrimination, although the sincerity of such remarks is dubious.

Atishon also stated that if people voted him into power they had his guarantee that there would be no more murders at all in America as he would somehow prevent them all from occurring, a "promise" that was openly mocked by others as completely ludicrous. This is also ironic, given his murder of Archie Buff.

In actuality, Atishon was a very pitiful person; he was willing to blackmail Wright to work for him and had seemingly no qualms with murdering Archie Buff simply because he would not give him the Founder's Orb. When backed into a corner on the witness stand, he would whine and beg for things to go back in his favor.

Name

• His Japanese family name "Kiyoki" (清き) means "proper" or "clean", which is an ironic reference to his personality.
• His Japanese given name "Masaharu" (まさはる) can also be read as "seiji" (政治), which means "politics", referring to his profession.
• "Paul Atishon-Wimperson", his full English name, is a play on the word "politician" (referencing his profession) and both "wimp", "whimper" or "whimpers on" (in reference to his personality).

Notes

• To date, Atishon is one of only six characters in the Ace Attorney games to have a known birth date, with the others being Dustin Prince, an unseen and unnamed relative of one of Shi-Long Lang's subordinates (mentioned in The Kidnapped Turnabout), Rayfa Padma Khura'in, and real life individuals Sōseki Natsume and Queen Victoria.
• Atishon is Wright's second known client to be guilty of murder, with the first being Matt Engarde in Farewell, My Turnabout. Incidentally, Wright was blackmailed into defending the guilty party in both instances when they held Maya Fey hostage.