Shu Takumi

Shu Takumi
Takumi in January, 2011.
Native name	巧 舟
Born	(1971-05-02) May 2, 1971 (age 45) Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation	Video game designer, game director, game producer
Years active	1994-present

Shu Takumi (巧 舟 Takumi Shū) (born May 2, 1971) is a Japanese video game developer working at Capcom who is the main developer of the core Ace Attorney series, serving as director and scriptwriter for each game. In addition, he provided the Japanese voice for Phoenix Wright throughout the series and composed the song "Guitar's Serenade," for the video game Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

Shu Takumi joined Capcom in 1994 along with Hideki Kamiya. His first game was Gakkou no Kowai Uwasa: Hanako-san ga Kita!! (), a 1995 video game adaptation of an anime of the same name. He was designated as a planner, and because the director was busy with multiple projects, Takumi had some freedom in his role. In the years that followed, Takumi came up with an idea for a detective game, though nothing came out of it at first.

Takumi was later picked up by Shinji Mikami to work on Dino Crisis. However, in early 1997, the Dino Crisis team was temporarily redirected to help work on the ill-fated original version of Resident Evil 2. Takumi was then made director of the Dino Crisis project before being demoted to planner, being responsible for the first half of the game. He was then made director of Dino Crisis 2, and was able to maintain his position throughout the game's development.

After the release of Dino Crisis 2, Takumi was given an opportunity to make whatever game he wanted with a small team of seven. He conceived of a detective-themed visual novel that would allow the player to input his or her deductions in some way. He thought of two ways to achieve this, one being a "joint reasoning" system in which the player would correct the deductions of a detective, and a court system in which the player, as a lawyer, would point out contradictions between witness testimony and evidence. His team began work on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, a realization of the latter concept.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was originally intended for the Game Boy Color, but after being shown a demo of Mega Man Battle Network on a prototype Game Boy Advance, development moved enthusiastically to the then-upcoming handheld. Despite being such a small project with only two programmers and two graphical asset developers, with Takumi taking on the roles of planner, director and scenario writer, the team managed to finish the game in ten months. The producer liked the game so much that he requested that it be made into a trilogy. Thus, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations were produced in 2002 and 2004, respectively, followed by Nintendo DS ports of the three games, which were released internationally.