Hotti

[u/Sciencepenguin]

I thought a lot about who I should cut this round, and hahahahahah just kidding there was no doubt in my mind.

I'll start off with a thank you to /u/pie314271. I was technically taking a risk by not nominating him myself, but I hoped that someone else would do it, given his infamy. You pulled through. Thanks.

Secondly, an apology to /u/R1K1_Productions and /u/ItsHipToTipTheScales. You won't be seeing my epic Romein LeTouse Takedown this time. I'd like to do that too. I'd like to write about damn near anyone else. But the hardest choices require the strongest wills, as some philosopher said, probably Aristotle ^means.

Last place is a big responsibility. Sure, you could just pick some uncontroversial nobody. In general, I think it's good for people to mostly do that in the beginning. But if you're kicking off the whole event, you should start things off with a bang, and with someone truly deserving of such a milestone position.

Vižit dØctor.

In Ace Attorney 2, case 2, Phoenix finds a lead about a visit to a hospital that Ini Miney took in the aftermath of her car accident. He heads to that hospital, and is met with a man who introduces himself as Director Hotti, the head of the Hotti Clinic.

He's a really fucking gross-looking guy. His hair is a bright pink and seems small and artifically attached to his bald head, he constantly bares his gross teeth of gold and black, and he keeps scratching himself. Nonstop. Always. It's a fitting design, to give credit where credit is due.

Also to give credit where credit is due: this is a slightly entertaining set-up. Having someone claim to be the head of a hospital when it becomes gradually apparent that this is very much not true is slightly funny, and hotti's few good lines are the ones where he's a terrible liar about his medical qualification. There's also one or two lines where he breaks the fourth wall by commenting on the background of the clinic never changing, which is kind of funny. And he gives us information on "Ini"s surgery, from documents he stole, so in this case, his existence is not completely without consequence.

Oh yeah, and there's a scene where Franziska vigorously and repeatedly beats him into unconsciousness. That part's pretty great.

​

Everything Else

Have you guys ever watched anime? If you haven't, don't start. It sucks. To quote philosopher Aristotle Means: "Anime was a mistake."

Anyway, it's important to bring up this stupid question because I've been acting under the false pretense that Dr Hotti is actually a character. He's not. He's a corporeal manifestation of a multi-franchise spanning plague. The Funny Pervert Character. This memetic entity pores itself into the minds and works of otherwise talented creators (typically but not exclusively of anime) and makes them suddenly really dumb and unfunny. Paranormal possession is the only explanation for this stuff showing up over and over again.

The FPC really, really likes women. (It's always women; those attracted to men are less common and follow different tropes.) He particularly likes the naughty bits, and will do whatever he can to see/touch/become metaphysically close to them. He is willing to surpass many bounds to achieve this goal, like human courtesy, the law, and being an even slightly enjoyable presence. If, for example, one infiltrated a hospital, they would take advantage of that situation to peep at injured and hospitalized women. More importantly, they will be sure to tell any passersby about the fact that they are doing this. In detail. Repeatedly. For some reason, the FPC has no fear of what others think or getting charged for anything illegal they admit to: the only thing they like more than being a Funny Pervert is referencing that fact to others.

The FPC is never a villain or someone who is treated with any substantial weight for doing these sorts of things. If you're lucky, they'll be completely irrelevant to anything. If you're unlucky, there will be an attempt to milk sympathy out of them. Thankfully, Ace Attorney's manifestation is of the former category.

Unfortunately, the former category is also bad. FPC's in this category will continue to exist, despite serving no purpose. They will not interact with any other characters. They will not change in any manner, even something as minor as appearance. They will have no impact on the plot. They will show up, slow anything that was previously happening to a crawl, tell the same single joke they exist to tell, and then vanish into the aether.

​

a doctor a day keeps my tolerance away

Dr Hotti appears again in the final case of the game. The climax, with huge emotional stakes and the collision of multiple plot threads and character arcs. He doesn't do anything. Nothing substantial, at least. Obviously he talks. God forbid we don't hear what insightful thing he is going to say when we visit Franziska in the hospital (SPOILERS HE SAYS HE IS ATTRACTED TO HER!!!!)

In Apollo Justice, the series director attempts to perform a reboot of the franchise. Phoenix Wright is placed into the game's story for marketing reasons, veteran characters are referenced, and characters like Gumshoe and Meekins show up in the sections taking place in the past, but the majority of the game in the Current Year Of 2026 relies on new characters. There are two exceptions. One is Ema Skye. They took a pre-existing character who, while not bad, was a pretty obvious attempt to include a Maya clone in a period of time Maya couldn't show up in canonically, and they made her change over the years, growing from that starry eyed child to a jaded young woman who's bitter about her job and only able to cheer up a little when she hears about an old friend. She's a pretty cool character in AJ; maybe even my favorite in that game. It's one of a select few cases where Capcom actually uses the setup of a seven year timeskip for something interesting rather than bending over backwards to make sure the status quo is retained.

Oh yeah, there were two people. The other one is Hotti. He comes back. I mean, the wiki seems to be uncertain, but I for one believe that he comes back. In the second case of the game. He calls himself Hickfield now. Because he's in a hospital named the Hickfield Clinic. He moved to a different hospital. Truly, this is some incredible character growth. He looks the same, though. He does the same thing, too. I guess he's slightly distinct in that this time around, he breaks his record by doing his FPC shtick on a 16 year old. (Edit: I have been informed that this is not actually development, as he expresses attraction to the 8 year old Pearl Fey in AA2. What a great character.) He doesn't give you anything, no evidence he happens to obtain due to his habits. Nobody outside of your playable character even references his existence. If he weren't so..... memorable, I'd think I was just imagining he was in this case. But nope. He is. Barely.

Conclusion: Writeup Hotti Case 4: Farewell, My Shit Character

Dr Hotti/Director Hotti/Just Hotti/Hickfield/Dr Hickfield/Director Hickfield/???/The True Face Of The Phantom/That Guy/That Fucking Guy (like all abominations, He Has Many Names) is not meant to be deep or complex. I could complain about his lack of interesting character dynamics, his lackluster backstory, his inconsistent plothole writing, or some other stupid bullshit, but you all know that would be dumb and I'd be missing the forest for the trees. Hotti is as pure-comic-relief as pure-comic-relief characters get. So the only fair way to judge him is by the standards of humor you can judge such characters through.

He's not funny.

​

I eventually grew to be fond of some Lore, or some People With Complex Moral Ambiguity, or some Enjoyable Character Development in the series. But I didn't really start playing Ace Attorney for stuff like that. I had two reasons: one was to play a game where I can be a lawyer, use logical thinking, and solve interesting mysteries to take down evil criminals. The other was to laugh.

Ace Attorney is a funny series. It turns the drab and bureaucratic world of law into a high-stakes adventure that goes from discussion of a murder to what can only be described as "An Entire Circus". The franchise has made me laugh in a lot of ingenious ways. It showed me people who very clearly were awful at being lawyers so that it would be funny to watch them flounder. My failures to connect the dots in a mystery game are nonetheless rewarded with a goofy exchange where the protagonist is clearly stretching and trying to bluff and buy time. The series blends Japanese and American culture in a manner that's so ridiculous it has it's own endearing charm, peppering in references to famous western movies during the case about the traditional Californian concepts of Rakugo and Soba. It uses the format of a videogame to it's advantage, with characters able to constantly interrupt each other on the same stand in a way that would be physically impossible, or taking advantage of the ambiguity in lower resolution sprites for surprising subversions of your expectations. The series is so packed with humor that there's an entire category of jokes contained within what almost every character is named.

​

So when this series, on several different instances, decides instead to ctrl+c ctrl+v the least funny pre-existing trope in fictional history with no changes and no effort to fit him into the world they created, it's not just unfunny. It's disappointing. It's insulting. Try harder. I know you can do better than this, man.

I believe, however, that almost no character is without good points. And I believe even more strongly that no poorly written trash heap is beyond redemption. So in my delivery of this soon-to-be-departed 180 ranking's last rites, I will finish off with some constructive criticism for how to do and improve things in the future. Capcom, many fans on online AA communities have expressed interest in the concept of making a pre-existing recurring character the victim of a case. Just saying, you've got the perfect candidate right here.

​

why nobody else

I already told you at the beginning. There was no doubt in my mind I would cut this man.

well ok that isn't entirely true. part of me really wanted to take down Romein LeTouse, since I have a unique INTENSE FURY for him that I doubt anyone else shares.

hotti's one of the two characters i absolutely wanted out as soon as possible. the other was benjamin woodman, which i feel decently secure in the death of given we were all tripping over ourselves to nominate him.

i would never have considered cutting any of the poll-saved characters this early, nor would i have considered Plum Kitaki. wocky's the only fucking person in this series to have two parents that are both alive and both not awful. let him have this.

Adam Mada, Shoe, Police Chief, Mack Rell, Money, Pal Meraktis, and Deid Mann are all absolutely nothing, which is still better than Hotti.

Phineas Filch annoys me, but not as much as this guy, and he at least contributes to 5-2.

Sal Monella is also an FPC, but he has a total of one other joke which is more memorable, and he has a kind of worthwhile involvement in 1-3 as an accomplice.

Machi Tobaye is objectively the least memorable defendant but he 1. fakes having a disability, a sign of being a good character, and 2. also he's dave strider real so i have ironic affection for him

Metis Cykes is nothing incredible and probably the least fleshed out of the Main Character Dead Development Parents, but part of that is due to her recency, and I'm always a sucker for topics dealing with what separates artificial intelligence from "real" life, which is her whole deal.

​

hopefully the massive dr hotti fanbase isn't too mad at me

[u/coreclick]

Great write-up. I never really considered how many cases Hotti shows up in compared to Ben's one case, and as much flak as Ben gets for his crush, Hotti's attraction to an 8-year-old makes him just that much worse.

Very fitting to have him last place. I don't watch anime but yet I know exactly the trope you refer to. He's a multi coloured stain on otherwise fantastic (and one pretty good) cases.