If you're a fan of the Ace Attorney series then you may be aware of the clown girl. For those who aren't aware it's probably helpful if I bring you up to speed.Geiru Toneido is a villain from the 2016 3DS title Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice. To simplifly: She's the daughter of a famous performer but an instructor tells her she's not cut out to follow in her father's footsteps. So she becomes a balloon artist instead, obviously. This instructor is murdered and Geiru is called to the dock as a suspect.In her balloon artist persona Geiru behaves like the performer she was born to be, with cutesy mannerisms all day long and sporting a red clown nose. This homocidal clown lady also has curves and a rather sexy outfit, it must be said. But a meme created for her character, known as the clussy meme, has upset fans. This meme is a brief animated clip which shows Geiru taking her suspenders and snapping them back into place, which causes her bust to jiggle.
Criticisms of the animation have gone viral. One commentor said: "I love how everyone outside the ace attorney fandom seems to like that one animation but everyone INSIDE the ace attorney fandom fucking hates it. You take our game and corrupt it into something unrecognisable. shame on you". This Tweet has gotten 3,394 likes at the time of writing and retweeted many hundreds of times.
Another said: "that animation is probably an act of vandalism to the ace attorney fandom". This Tweet has over 14,000 likes.
Ace Attorney fans have called the damage this animation has done to the community "irreversible" and find how filthy casuals think Geiru is hot objectionable. But these outraged fans do not speak for the whole Ace Attorney community, and others have pointed this out. "The fact that Ace Attorney fans are genuinely upset that people find the clown lady hot is so funny", one Tweeted. Others note that the famous Japanese courtroom game series has been widely parodied, by the likes of cartoon creators on Newgrounds for example.
It has gotten rather heated, and perhaps shows the mirthless chaos a clown can cause. Especially if this clown is a hottie (I think we just have to admit it at this point) and a villain. But perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that a clown can inspire this love/hate dynamic, because isn't there another famous clown villain who does that?