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Victor Kudo
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"Victor" redirects here. You may be looking for "Victor Boulay", the French localization name for Winston Payne.

Judge
Sigh... Thank you, Mr. Kudo. You've certainly earned your Kudos for the day.

Victor Kudo is an old man who comes from a long line of kimono embroiderers and was a witness in the murder of Glen Elg. He is the only regular at Trés Bien, but he only goes there to look at the waitresses in their uniforms.

A loyal customer[]

Victor Kudo
Yes! The uniform! It's a disgrace! You can see all the way to their... their... YES! It's a disgrace!

Kudo was an unemployed old man who went to Trés Bien only to look at the uniformed waitresses there. The expensive coffee that he was forced to buy to stay at the restaurant took a toll on his financial well-being, which was compounded by his unemployment. Kudo thus felt that he was useless to his family, and he tried to compensate for this by being angry at everyone around him and looking at the waitresses even more.

A grumpy witness[]

Main article: Recipe for Turnabout
Phoenix Wright
He's gotta be using some sort of infinite ammo code with that box of seeds...
Seed throw

Throwing seeds.

One day in late 2018, Kudo witnessed the murder of Glen Elg inside the restaurant. He watched as a waitress slipped a white powder into Elg's coffee, with the man dying soon after that. In a panic, the restaurant owner, Jean Armstrong, ordered Kudo to call the police, and Kudo spent about five minutes looking for a public phone to do so. Later on, Maggey Byrde, the only waitress at the restaurant at the time, was charged with the murder. Kudo and Armstrong were subsequently both called to court to give witness testimony. The testimony of the two men seemed overwhelming, thus allowing the judge to hand down a guilty verdict. Strangely, it seemed as though Byrde's defense attorney, "Phoenix Wright", wasn't making much of an effort to defend his client.

A month later, Kudo was throwing seeds at pigeons in Vitamin Square, as was his habit, when Phoenix Wright arrived to ask him about what he had witnessed. Kudo decided to be uncooperative and refused to tell Wright anything useful, complaining about the youth of today instead. However, Wright later broke Kudo's three Psyche-Locks and learned Kudo's perverted secret. Seeking to take advantage of this, he fetched Maya Fey, who was working temporarily at Trés Bien. Kudo was unimpressed until Maya channeled her deceased older sister Mia Fey. Enamored with the girl's sudden change into a curvaceous woman, the old man happily spilled his information to Mia, revealing Armstrong's habit of stealing.

Kudo Embarrassed 1

While talking to Mia Fey.

Kudo was once again called as the primary witness in a trial appeal for Byrde. However, Wright was much more competent this time, pointing out many inconsistencies between Kudo's testimony and court record evidence, rendering the testimony unreliable. He hadn't seen the waitress's face, didn't remember where he was sitting at that time, claimed that the victim was wearing his HMD and the radio on his left ear - which was deaf and undergoing medication - and testified that the victim had broken a vase on his table as he died before realizing that he had done that himself. Kudo stubbornly tried to keep testifying, but eventually the judge had enough and dismissed him. Kudo did, however, manage to give Wright a copy of his testimony, insisting that it was the truth.

After the trial, Kudo met Wright again and said that he had important information that he had been unable to mention, namely that Armstrong had told him to call the police. This eventually led to the revelation that Armstrong had, in fact, helped to set up a fake crime for Kudo to witness, after the real murder had been committed hours earlier. The killer had, in fact, even posed as Wright in Byrde's last trial. Kudo's testimony allowed Wright to expose Armstrong's poorly constructed lies the next day in court, when the effeminate chef stood as a witness.

Some time later, on his 69th birthday, Kudo's grandchildren threw a birthday party for him. Finally feeling appreciated, he "cried like a baby with a dirty diaper".

Personality[]

Phoenix Wright
(Congratulations. You have earned the title of Battiest Man To Grace A Courtroom.)
Victor Kudo Mugshot

Mugshot.

Due to his age and unemployment, Kudo felt useless to everyone and channeled his frustration out on other people instead. His obsession with the waitresses in their uniforms at Trés Bien contributed heavily to his financial troubles. When others asked him to do things for them, they were generally small errands, making him feel even more useless. He always carries bird seeds and used every opportunity to throw them at pigeons and people as a way of venting his anger, although he eats the seeds himself when he gets really angry or when he was defeated by Wright in court. He later revealed that his children ordered him out of the house to feed the birds, and he was only ever feeding them out of resentment. Kudo also liked to use archaic language and loathed young people and technology.

Name[]

  • Japanese - Shōhei Igarashi (五十嵐将兵):
    • "Shōhei" contains the kanji for "officers and soldiers" (将兵).
    • "Igarashi" means "fifty" (五十) and "storm"/"a difficult problem" (嵐).
    • His full name could therefore be read as "fifty storms of officers and soldiers".
  • English - Victor Kudo:
    • "Victor" is a given name that comes from the Latin word for conqueror/vanquisher/victor, which fits with his surname.
    • "Kudo" is a Japanese surname, perhaps an indication that the English version of this character is meant to be Japanese. Many aspects of Kudo's character refer to Japanese culture, and he even states that he was "born and bred in the Land of the Rising Sun". Alternatively, "Kudo" may come from "kudos", a word meaning "fame and renown resulting from an act or achievement"; this meaning is even referenced in-game, with the judge stating that he "earned [his] Kudos for the day" when he appeared in court.
    • His name may also be a reference to Victor Hugo, a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist, and exponent of the Romantic movement in France.

Unofficial[]

  • Brazilian Portuguese - Olavo Páruma: [1]
    • "Olavo" comes from the Germanic Olafr and means "inheritance of the ancestors". Just as Victor may be a reference to Victor Hugo, his name is a reference to Olavo de Carvalho, a stubborn conservative just like him.
    • "Páruma" is a spelling of "palma" (palm) that respects Japanese phonetics, following the idea of "kudos" in the western name.

Development[]

  • Kudo has a light tan complexion, a big red round nose, short gray eyes and bushy eyebrows, and brown eyes. He wears a blue kimono with two white decals on the front a big one on the back, a black shirt with a white hiragana "nu" (ぬ) inside a white circle, and a white headband. He carries a brown box filled with bird seed.
  • Kudo's white headband and rigid haircut were intended to make him seem like an old-fashioned Japanese laborer. Only his big red nose softens his otherwise harsh exterior.[2]
  • The design on his shirt is a hiragana "nu" (ぬ) inside a circle.
  • Kudo's character theme, "Victor Kudo - Martial Anthem of Misery", also plays during Bridge to the Turnabout when Detective Dick Gumshoe is investigating the courtyard for the murder weapon. The music plays while Gumshoe sings his own song about investigations. Although the music itself is far more of a march in style, Phoenix Wright identifies Gumshoe's song as reggae. This is a reference to the fact that the lyrics Gumshoe uses are a parody of the reggae song "No Woman, No Cry" by Bob Marley & The Wailers.

References[]

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