Characters / Ace Attorney: Wright Anything Agency

aka: Ace Attorney Apollo Justice

Ace Attorney | Main Character Sheet
Wright Anything Agency | Defense Attorneys & Assistants | Main Prosecutors | Prosecutors & Judges | Law Enforcement | The Fey Clan | Troupe Gramarye | Kingdom of Khura'in
Witnesses and Other Characters (Original Game | JFA | T&T | AJ | DD | SoJ | Manga | Anime | Novels | Theater) | Victims
Investigations (AAI | AAI2) | TGAA (Major | Minor)
PL vs. PWAA

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The main ace attorneys and assistants of the Ace Attorney series, consisting of Phoenix Wright and his close circle. For other defense attorneys and assistants, see here.

The agency started out as the Fey & Co. Law Offices when Mia Fey left Marvin Grossberg's firm to start her own. She defended Phoenix Wright when he was accused of murder in college, and later took him on as an apprentice. Phoenix inherited the firm after her death, turning it into the Wright & Co. Law Offices with Mia's sister Maya and later her cousin Pearl as his assistants. Upon his disbarment and adoption of Trucy, it was renamed the Wright Talent Agency. The firm was finally renamed the Wright Anything Agency upon hiring Apollo Justice as a rookie lawyer. Athena Cykes joined the firm in the interim between Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies. The place is also Trucy's talent agency, which is the reason it's not a law firm exclusively.

Lawyers

General Tropes

• Always Murder: All the cases they take are murders, except two of them (a grand larceny case and a civil case about ownership over an item). Even the cases that don't start as murders end up involving murder charges somehow. This trope becomes so prevalent, Athena is surprised when Apollo takes the civil one.
  Athena: ...A civil case?
  Apollo: You act like I'm speaking Swahili here.
  Athena: It's just, the Wright Anything Agency specializes in criminal law, or so I thought.
• Catchphrase: They all share the series signature ones across all of their appearances, specifically:
  • OBJECTION! for when they spot a contradiction.
  • HOLD IT! for when pressing for information.
  • TAKE THAT! for proving a point with evidence.
  • "The worst of times are when lawyers have to force their biggest smiles" is a creed shared among all the lawyers in the Agency, and it stems back from the days Mia was at the Grossberg Law Offices.
• Chromatic Arrangement: Blue for Phoenix, red for Apollo, and yellow for Athena. One could also include black for Mia Fey.
• Crusading Lawyer: An agency policy. All three attorneys believe in their clients' innocence and put their all into hunting down the truth of any case.
• Double Meaning: The firm's name as the "Wright Anything Agency" can come off as they'll right anything that went wrong while the Anything part covers both the legal and entertainment areas.
• Everyone Is Related: Downplayed, but Trucy being Phoenix's adopted daughter and Apollo having been adopted himself are only the start of it. Factor in the following — Trucy and Apollo being half-siblings, Apollo's adoptive family being directly related to the Khura'in Royal Family, and that very same royal family sharing ancestry with Kurain village — and the only member of the WAA who doesn't end up related to anyone else is Athena.
• First-Person Smartass: Everyone- except maybe Athena, who just says whatever she's thinking.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: All three attorneys do this. In "Turnabout for Tomorrow", all three of them give the phantom the pointer finger together.
• Living Lie Detector: All three have some kind of power to let them pick up on lies and inconsistencies: Phoenix's magatama, Apollo's perception, and Athena's ability to hear others' hearts.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: Grossberg trained Mia, who trained Phoenix, who is training Apollo and Athena.
• Monkey Morality Pose: Not only do they have color coordination, but monkey coordination through their unique abilities. "See No Evil" is handled by Apollo with his perceive system letting him spot tells. Athena is the "Hear No Evil" role with her ability to hear emotions. And finally, Phoenix and his magatama talking someone into revealing the truth fulfills the "Speak No Evil" of the pattern.
• Nice Guy: While their treatment of their clients may vary depending on how obnoxious they are (or, in the case of Apollo, how dumb he thinks the whole thing is), deep inside they genuinely care for them, and they'll believe in their clients until the very end.
• Primary-Color Champion: Each member of the trio has their own take on the color scheme.
  • Phoenix wears a blue suit and red tie with his gold attorney's badge, and later adds a yellow locket with Trucy's picture inside.
  • Apollo wears a red vest and pants, a blue tie, and has his signature yellow bracelet to match his own badge.
  • Athena wears a yellow suit (overshadowing her own badge), a blue tie and ribbon, and has red hair.
• Stepford Smiler: One rare positive version of this trope. The motto of the Wright Anything Agency is "The worst of times are when lawyers have to force their biggest smiles" since the days of its predecessor, the Fey & Co. Law Offices. And they enforce it almost religiously. It's worth noticing that they never lie to their clients by doing this, but instead is the biggest proof of how much faith they have on their innocence.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Phoenix, Apollo, and Athena make a non-romantic three in Dual Destinies. It becomes a duo in Spirit of Justice, where Phoenix goes abroad while Apollo and Athena take cases in the U.S.

Phoenix Wright (Ryuichi Naruhodo)

Phoenix Wright (Ryuichi Naruhodo)

Voiced by (Japanese): Shu Takumi (OT, AJ), Kosuke Toriumi (MvC3), Takayuki Kondō (DD, SoJ, PXZ2, Teppen), Hiroki Narimiya (PLvAA), Yūki Kaji (anime)

Voiced by (English): Ben Judd (OT, AJ^note Original versions), Sam Riegel (MvC3, DD, SoJ, Teppen, AJ^note Apollo Justice Trilogy version), Trevor White (PLvAA), Eric Vale (anime), Jill Harris (child - anime)

Played by: Hiroki Narimiya (film), Takeru Shibuya (child - film)

Debut: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

^{Click here to see him in the original trilogy}

^{Click here to see him in college}

^{Click here to see him in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney}

"My past is like my logic, straight and true. Nothing's changed. All I did was point the finger of justice in the proper direction."

Known as The Comeback King and The Turnabout Terror. Phoenix Wright is an easy-going, good-natured, and intelligent defense attorney. Despite that last part, he usually ends up using bluffs, manipulation and general making things up in court. The scary thing is that he usually turns out to be spot-on. He is the owner of the "Wright Anything Agency", where he and his two protégés work and take cases to defend in court.

Phoenix's early career was heavily intertwined with the Fey family. Mia Fey defending him after he was accused of murder reignited his desire to be a lawyer, and he later trained under her until her murder. After this, he worked with Mia's sister Maya and their cousin Pearl. However, after a few successful years as a lawyer, he lost his license and was disbarred from practicing law for seven years. During this time, he raised his daughter Trucy and prepared to expose the real criminal behind his disbarment and clear his name, which he eventually accomplished with Apollo Justice's help. After that, he retook the bar exam and the legendary ace attorney rose from the ashes once more.

His power resides in an amulet Maya gave him called the Magatama. With it he is able to see if a person is keeping secrets from him in the form of big locks, known as Psyche-Locks, and then force the person in question to reveal these secrets by presenting evidence. In other words, he will always know if you are lying because the sudden appearance of these locks (your heart and soul) will give you away. This makes it highly unlikely for him to take on guilty clients (no one can deceive the Magatama. There is one catch, however — if Nick makes them feel like they have nothing to hide by asking the wrong questions, no lock will appear and he can be deceived).

Also has an, well, objectionable description of himself.

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• The Ace: Even if he is bluffing and grasping for straws most of the time he goes on from being an inexperienced rookie with no cases under his belt to becoming a living legend in the courtroom, all the while maintaining a near perfect victory streak that was earned fairly and began with his very first case.
• Affectionate Nickname: "Nick" to Maya and Larry, "Feenie" to his ex-girlfriend, "Mr. Nick" to Pearl. Meanwhile, Edgeworth just calls him "Wright".
• Aggressive Categorism: In Justice for All Phoenix goes through a phase in which he believes all prosecutors, without exception, are out to get the defendants without any regard for truth. This certainly isn't helped by the first prosecutor he encounters after his hiatus being Franziska von Karma, who shares her father's attitude and is even more aggressive, to the point of assaulting Phoenix in court. This is partially due to his feelings over Edgeworth's departure, though, and he reconsiders this idea when he ends up having to defend the guilty Matt Engarde in order to save Maya's life; Edgeworth and even Franziska help him in this situation.
• Almighty Janitor: Defense attorneys in Japan's type of legal system tend to be given less respect than prosecutors. Despite that, he's one of the best attorneys around (counting both types). In the sixth game, a defense attorney is basically scum of the earth in Khura'in.
• Amateur Sleuth: Although sometimes he has Gumshoe's assistance.
• Ambiguously Bi: He has had a girlfriend before, but he also has a lot of romantic subtext with Edgeworth. His sexuality has been deliberately left ambiguous by the developers, and has led to many a fan speculation about whether his fondness for Edgeworth is more than platonic.
• Amoral Attorney:
  • Far from it; however, he's accused of being this by onlookers in the courtroom over the course of "Farewell, My Turnabout", when everyone becomes increasingly convinced that his client is guilty. Which is not only true, but Phoenix was also being outright coerced into defending him.
  • To the public he became this after the Magnifi Gramarye case since he attempted to introduce fraudulent evidence. However, in this case he was tricked into it by a third party and clears his name with Apollo's help.
  • He does certain actions that would normally get most attorneys arrested or disbarred, like taking personal property from people's rooms or personal affects. The best example is in the case against the Police Chief Damon Gant where the culprit notes that Wright taking his personal possessions by breaking into his office and safe to get them is against the law, and even Edgeworth agrees with the culprit and states he'd see to it that Phoenix was punished for it.
• Anime Hair: And proud of it. It is even shaped like his namesake! ^note it is either a pair of phoenix's wings or a Chinese dragon's mane Though being the Butt-Monkey he is, he often gets ridiculed for it by his enemies and some witnesses; even some of his friends occasionally tease him about it!
  Phoenix: Is it my hair? Is it too spiky? Not spiky enough?
• Animal Theme Naming: In Trials and Tribulations, his Japanese name (with the character for "Dragon") is given minor symbolism with Furio Tigre (AKA Toranosuke ["Tiger Boy/Man"] Shibakuzo).
• Anti-Hero: He's an Unscrupulous Hero in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney after realizing that it would require an upheaval of the country's entire legal system just to catch a killer.
• Apparently Powerless Puppetmaster: In Apollo Justice, he has the appearance of a homeless guy who's stuck with a piano playing job with zero skill and resorts to gambling (and cheating) to keep supporting his daughter financially. Despite this, he still has enough power and know-how to joyride his own murder trial in order to bring the true culprit to the court so he can indict him, and despite being shunned from the legal world, was able to get a jury system test run in the court.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In 3-4, where he remarks that Sister Bikini, the head nun of Hazakura Temple, "must have just gotten off the trolley from the land of make-believe". This is despite witnessing his assistant channel spirits of the dead and using mystic powers himself to tell when people are lying.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Partially guided by the player, but Phoenix can piece together convoluted plots and conspiracies just by observing a few clues. Then there is his trademark ability to find contradictions in witness testimonies and wrangle the truth out of lies.
• Badass Pacifist: Phoenix rarely raises a hand to physically fight (and in fact gets beat down quite a lot), but once he gets you in that courtroom, you better pray he doesn't find a contradiction in your testimony otherwise he is going to OWN your ass. In canon, he never physically fights, but he has broken down a few doors in his time, one of which had a specially reinforced iron lock on it.
• Bash Brothers:
  • With Miles Edgeworth. Plenty of criminals can vouch for just how much you should tremble in raw terror when they see these two standing on opposite sides of the courtroom. The truth will be exposed, and oh, it will hurt.
  • Towards the end of the final case in Dual Destinies has him standing side-by-side with Apollo for the first time since Phoenix reclaimed his attorney's badge. Both accomplished lawyers in their own right, seeing them work together to bring down the phantom is a sight to behold.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Miles Edgeworth stood up for Phoenix once in grade school and then moved away a few months later. Because of that, Phoenix changed his major from art to law partway through college after seeing news stories about the new "Demon Prosecutor", becoming a defense lawyer purely to "save" Edgeworth from what he had turned into.
• Big Good: In Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies now that his firm, the "Wright Anything Agency", actually has more than one attorney in it. They defend cases.
• Big Damn Heroes: In Case 1 of Dual Destinies, he arrives just in time at the start of the trial to snap Athena out of her Heroic BSoD.
• Boring, but Practical: When you go up against him in Spirit of Justice, he's the only opponent who never mocks you or do weird stuff, but will turn the case around completely in three seconds flat if he spots an opening.
• Born Lucky: It's one thing that Phoenix mostly ends up successfully getting through his trials using bluffs that end up being spot-on, but in "Turnabout Corner", he's struck by a speeding car, flung thirty feet into the air, and hits his head on a telephone pole, yet only manages to get a sprained ankle out of the ordeal.
• Brain Bleach: Upon seeing Norma DePlume's breakdown in "Turnabout Reclaimed", Phoenix goes into to his despair animation. With good reason.
• Break the Cutie: A more-protracted variant than most, but definitely there. Compare how he acts in Case 3-1 to how he acts after Mia's death, and especially after Edgeworth's disappearance in PW2. He undergoes another, even more severe one after being disbarred, becoming noticeably more cynical and jaded, and no longer keeping his barbed comments about others to himself.
• Bring My Brown Pants: In Case 3 of Trials and Tribulations, when Phoenix has to confront his "Evil Twin", Furio Tigre in court. He's not alone either.
  Phoenix: *gulp* Maybe I should have brought a diaper with me today.
• Broken Win/Loss Streak: Suffered his first Guilty verdict after representing Matt Engarde in Farewell, My Turnabout.
• Bullying a Dragon: In Case 2-2, Phoenix gets so aggravated at Franziska Von Karma that, once he has defeated her at the end of the trial, he gloats about how her perfect record has been destroyed to her face. She whips him into unconsciousness in response.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Phoenix is a sweet-natured man who commonly commits theft, stuffs the strangest items into his pockets, comes up with the most remarkable arguments/evidence in court, and celebrates even the slightest victories in an enthusiastic tone. But if there is a single lie or error in your testimony, he will find it and he will shred it to bits.
• Busman's Vocabulary: In Apollo Justice, it's revealed he uses "Objection!" outside of court, even years after losing his badge, the two known instances being Shadi Smith accusing him of cheating, and being on the highest part of a roller coaster. Lampshaded by Winston Payne in that game's first case.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Phoenix is ridiculed and mocked by almost everyone and is never in favor of the Judge on a regular basis, no matter if he's mocked, verbally abused, or even physically attacked. The saddest part is that, at 33, with a legendary reputation, and probably considered the best defense attorney in the present, he's still treated like trash while defending in a court of law.
  Phoenix: Why is it that lately, all I want to do is cry?
  • Gets toned down from Apollo Justice onward, especially in Dual Destinies when he becomes the Big Good, though even then he still suffers a few moments of humiliation and egging by the prosecution, witnesses, and the judge.
  • Gets ramped up in Spirit of Justice, since he's being a lawyer in a country where being a lawyer is viewed in the same light as being a conman.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: In-universe. Maya and Moe were not impressed in the slightest.
  Phoenix: Do you know why I, Phoenix Wright, am a great lawyer? Because I'm Wright all the time!
• Catchphrase: Surprisingly, unlike other major characters, he does not have a consistently used unique speech bubble.^note Compare "GOTCHA!", "NOT SO FAST!", "SILENCE!", etc. The closest example would be "HANG ON!", used when a witness disagrees with what another witness said, from Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.^note Only in the English version. He shares this speech bubble with his ancestor, Ryunosuke Naruhodo, in the Japanese version of The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. The English release of the latter game gave Ryunosuke "'SCUSE ME!" instead.
• Character Development: He goes from being a bumbling fool to an intelligent and savvy (but still a little bumbling) attorney at law, to being a downright brilliant and respected owner of his own law firm. By the time Dual Destinies rolls around, he's Legendary in the Sequel.
• Character Tics:
  • He has a tendency to show or present things he's especially proud of to strangers. Whenever he's playable, that usually means his attorney's badge, but this habit comes to bite him back during 3-1, where his constant presentation of Dahlia's poison vial makes him a target to her.
  • He has several character poses unique to him (or shared with a few others close to him, such as Mia); he rubs his chin when thinking, slams his desk with both palms, puts his hands on his hips and smirks when confident, holds the back of his head with his hand when bashful, hunching over and sweating when nervous, and slumping forward holding his head with both hands when in despair. In Apollo Justice, he picks up the habit of keeping his hands in his sweatshirt's pockets, though he drops it when he's back to wearing a suit in Dual Destinies.
• The Chessmaster:
  • The role he takes in Apollo Justice. doing everything he can to help Apollo take down the villain for good.
  • Shades of this turned up as early as 1-5, where Phoenix had an entire plan in motion to draw out the truth behind the SL-9 Incident.
• The Chew Toy: "Why it is that, lately, the only thing I want to do is cry...?" And he's in his sweaty face animation so much that it may as well be his default expression.
  Phoenix: Nobody loves me...
• Clear My Name: Since losing his badge after presenting forged evidence, he spent seven years from that point onwards uncovering the culprit responsible for his disbarment. He succeeds with Apollo's help and would eventually retake the bar exam to reclaim his badge.
• Close-Call Haircut: Simon manages to cut a strand of Wright's hair when they face each other.
• The Comically Serious: To a lesser extent than Apollo or Edgeworth, in part due to having very noticeable quirks of his own, but he's constantly doing his best to keep things professional despite all the quirky, outlandish and eccentric prosecutors, judges, witnesses and defendants he has to work with throughout cases. The only game he averts this in is Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, where he adopts a more laid-back attitude and acts as a Trickster Mentor (which causes Apollo to become this trope in his stead), and the serious moments he does have are fully Played for Drama.
• Compressed Hair: Somehow, he can fit a beanie over his hair without ruining its shape.
• Cow Tipping: A throwaway gag in "Rise From the Ashes" has him claim that he did this before when accused of not being gutsy enough to plant evidence.
  Phoenix: What!? I'll have you know, back in the day I once broke into a cattle ranch, and tipped-
  The Judge: M-Mr. Wright! What are you saying!?
• *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": He's started having problems with his back in Spirit of Justice. One instance of it was so painful that he went unconscious for an entire day. At the age of 35, no less.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's like a legal idiot savant; he's always flustered and it seems like he has no clue what he's doing, but he's brought down some legendary prosecutors, including Manfred von Karma. Furthermore, Defense Attorneys in his type of legal system rarely tend to win even a single case. He has a (nearly) spotless record: Technically, he's only been "defeated" two times. In Case 2-4 he loses because his client is guilty and in Case 6-5 he's acting as an attorney due to threats against Maya, and resigns once the opposing lawyer - Apollo - is able to guarantee Maya's safety. Apollo even says he wouldn't be able to beat Phoenix in a "real" trial. He also essentially loses a case to Klavier because he's tricked into presenting falsified evidence, which results in the loss of his badge, although an official verdict was never reached due to the defendant escaping.
• Crusading Lawyer:
  • Wright's goal is to pursue the truth. If he knows his client is innocent (and he will), he'll move Heaven and Earth to save them.
  • That being said, don't think you can use him to get a "Not Guilty" verdict and get away with your crimes either, he will still find a way to bring the guilty to justice. Matt Engarde learned that the hard way.
• Darkest Hour: As a boy, having to endure an entire classroom's worth of false accusations with no way of fending them off. As an adult, the moment when his attempt to pin the crime on a witness (as he always does) turns into a false lead, which he believed would seal Maya's fate.
• Deadpan Snarker: Phoenix tends to be pretty snide, but he typically keeps it to himself. Until the fourth game, where he vocalises most of his snarkiness. Seven long years after being disbarred can do that to a person.
• Death Glare: Butt-Monkey status aside, several characters comment that Phoenix has a pretty intimidating glare when he's sufficiently motivated.
• Decoy Protagonist: In Spirit of Justice. Despite his name being in the title and having the most cases in the game where he is the player character, Phoenix ends up playing support after a brief stint as an adversary to Apollo, who has a much more personal stake in the events of the final case.
• Defeating the Undefeatable:
  • One of his biggest achievements was delivering Manfred von Karma his first two losses in forty years. He also did the same to Manfred's daughter Franziska, who had been undefeated in her five-year prosecuting career (keep in mind, she started at thirteen) until she came to kick Phoenix's butt and failed subsequently.
  • By Apollo Justice, his reputation as a poker player has elevated to this status, attracting numerous challengers to the Hydeout in order to best him and coming away bested. This is what attracts Shadi Smith (aside from more pressing matters that require him to visit Phoenix) to the Borscht Bowl Club and wraps Phoenix into the present-day plot of the game.
  • In Spirit of Justice, he fought against the anti-attorney justice system of the Kingdom of Kurain by successfully winning several trials and restoring the kingdom's faith in lawyers. To wit, his first victory made the headlines in Japanifornia due to it being the first in 23 years.
  • His entire career is this with loads of Serial Escalation. He's not only ended the undefeated streaks of three very reputable prosecutors, but just in terms of who he's managed to put behind bars, his hit list includes: one of those very prosecutors (with a noted habit of covering his tracks with manipulated evidence), the chief of police, a celebrity who hired one of the world's deadliest hitmen as insurance, the vengeful spirit of his ex-girfriend with unfinished business, his former friend — a defense attorney whose record is close to his own, an international assassin, and the head of state of a country that has outlawed lawyers. Needless to say, he's amassed one of the wackiest records put together for a defense attorney in all of fiction.
  • It's rather telling of his own skill as an attorney that out of all the cases he's ever seen in, he rarely loses them himself. He does lose 2-4, the flashback case seen in 4-4 and the first trial in 6-5, but all had pretty extraordinary circumstances that sort of necessitated them, like being blackmailed into representing guilty clients, or getting tricked into using forged evidence. Outside of those cases, if he's defending a truly innocent person and with nothing holding him back, you can expect him to pull out a win by the skin of his teeth.
• Determinator:
  • Phoenix sometimes gets down on the dumps when a case is not going his way, but he never gives up on it. He is SO determined in doing what's right that he went through an entire trial, and won while suffering from amnesia. Perhaps a more fitting example would be how he spent seven years gathering evidence and revamping the entire court system to catch the one who cost him his badge.
  • He's a lawyer in the first place because he kept trying to get in contact with Edgeworth after reading about the "Demon Prosecutor," but Edgeworth would never respond. Phoenix was so determined to talk to the guy that he changed his entire intended career path.
• Disappointed by the Motive: In Trials and Tribulations, Phoenix is equal parts disheartened and bemused to learn to learn that Godot chose to prosecute against, and regularly antagonize, him because he blamed him for not being around to protect Mia, even though he had no idea she was in danger and helped capture her killer.
• Does Not Drive: Phoenix does not drive any vehicles whatsoever. He walks or takes public transit, and rides a bicycle in the anime.
• Doting Parent: To Trucy. Considering that Trucy practically provided the only income for her and Phoenix (before Apollo arrived), and that Trucy seemed to be the one in charge of the Wright Anything Agency, he has his reasons.
• The Dreaded: The criminals who have heard of Phoenix Wright take him very seriously after a while. The prosecutors, even more so (except maybe the Payne brothers). Even the prosecutors who hated his guts eventually came to recognize just how good Phoenix is at turning a case around.
• Dreadful Musician: He is absolutely horrible at playing the piano. How the Hydeout got him to do it is a riddle for the ages, even if it's only a cover for him being a poker player.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Almost never gets any long-term acclaim for his accomplishments. It's utterly remarkable how arrogant and obnoxious his opponents can be towards him, especially since Phoenix has rarely lost.
  • Subverted in Apollo Justice, where multiple characters treat him affably and with appropriate respect. Which is ironic, because now he's been disbarred for presenting forged evidence (and, in fact, resorts to Damon-Gant-like methods (albeit without being ruthless like him) to catch the one responsible). That said, Kristoph decides to trick him into presenting forged evidence after Zak chooses Phoenix instead of Kristoph, simply because Kristoph regards Phoenix as "A second rate attorney who relies on luck and bluffs!"
  • In Dual Destinies he does have a reputation as a "legendary lawyer", albeit one who "bluffs his way to victory". He's back to being abused by everyone in that game and Spirit of Justice, though in the latter game this comes from defense attorneys being seen as heretics in Ku'rain than anything about Phoenix himself.
• Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help: He will lose cases on purpose if it means doing what's morally right.
• Easily Forgiven: Zigzagged. Apollo is understandably furious and untrusting towards Phoenix for making him unknowingly present forged evidence at his first ever trial, only goes to work for the Wright Anything Agency (as oppposed to a proper law office) because he has no other choice, and it's heavily implied that one of the reasons he temporarily leaves the agency in the fifth game is because he still has unresolved trust issues with Phoenix, but Apollo is pretty quick to get back to idolizing him, despite how Phoenix treats him.
• Endearingly Dorky: His college self. "Feenie" spends most of the time with his eyes closed, open adorably wide, or crying. Iris, who was posing as his college girlfriend, was head over heels in love with him for it, though.
• Exact Words: In "Rise from the Ashes", his gambit to get the true culprit to implicate himself involved a combination of this, with a dash of straight-up lying. It didn't work, but he had a back-up plan just in case.
• Excellent Judge of Character: He generally has a really good handle on whether or not someone is innocent. The one time he felt worried enough to double-check with the magatama, it turned out that his original instinct was correct and his client was guilty. Even his Horrible Judge of Character moment with Dahlia in college was actually this; He was absolutely correct that his girlfriend loved him and that the person in court wasn't her, he just didn't know that he hadn't been dating the real Dahlia Hawthorne.
• Eyepatch of Power: His Date Masamune-inspired Downloadable Content costume in Spirit of Justice.
• First-Person Smartass: He's outwardly fairly polite, but virtually everyone gets his snarkiness in thought dialogue at some point or another.
• Fixing the Game: He relies on cheating in poker by using Trucy to read his opponents' subtlest emotional tells to make a living while he is disbarred. This was only for very serious games against true professionals, as he had his own skills sufficient against average challengers.
• Foil: He is a huge one to Kristoph Gavin. Both of them are gifted, respected defense attorneys who are driven and hard-working. But Kristoph is a petty, self-centered monster who cares only about winning and his reputation, and will go to horrific lengths to suit his desires. Phoenix meanwhile is a good man who cares about his clients, and actually wants to make sure the truth is revealed and justice is served.
• A Fool for a Client: For the second half of Turnabout Sisters, he defends himself for Mia's murder. Though in this case, it's Justified as Redd White would've made sure that the only lawyer Phoenix could get would be so incompetent it'd be even worse than going pro se. The other two times Phoenix gets framed for murder, he does get a lawyer to defend him- Mia in Turnabout Memories, and Apollo in Turnabout Trump.
• Forced into Evil: Phoenix can be forced into this as seen in the instances below:
  • He is forced to defend a man who wants to be acquitted for murder despite the fact that he hired a Professional Killer in "Farewell, My Turnabout" because Maya Fey is held hostage by the hitman with a threat saying that either the hitman's client gets an acquittal or Maya Fey gets killed.
  • He confronts Apollo in a civil trial in "Turnabout Revolution". While Apollo claims the object they fight over is the Founder's Orb (a Khura'inese national treasure), Phoenix asserts it's the Crystal of Ami Fey, which belongs to the Atishon family in Kurain Village. He only confronts Apollo because Phoenix's client has kidnapped Maya to make sure he gets the orb for him.
• Framing the Guilty Party: He forged evidence in order to start the process of getting Kristoph Gavin convicted of murdering Shadi Smith in "Turnabout Trump", although the other evidence and testimony afterwards proves that Kristoph Gavin did it.
  • Earlier, he also showed phony evidence to Furio Tigre, exposing him when he calls him out.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: A heroic example to any of his opponents. Phoenix was actually an art major in college when he decided to start studying law. His own mentor, while seeing potential in him, thought he was a long way away from being a professional. By the time of the fourth, and especially the fifth game where his reputation is restored, he is known as a legendary attorney and a respected figure in the field (though he still has his moments as a Butt-Monkey).
• Generation Xerox: Taking his events thus far, he's essentially repeated those of his ancestor's via being put on trial for murdering someone in a restaurant, accused of murdering his own mentor, defended in British Court, went against several witnesses at once as well as a Grand Jury (even though he was the chairman) and defending someone who without his knowledge was in fact the guilty party. Taken further in an anime-exclusive episode, where he appears dressed in practically the same uniform as Ryunosuke's, along with the spark-shaped badge on the collar. He also shares most of his ancestor's poses.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: His trademark pose while objecting. When the Judge says that losing his hand would prevent him from using his gavel, Phoenix's Internal Monologue involves him thinking that he would not be able to point at people if that happened.
• Got Volunteered: Several cases begin with Phoenix's assistants - usually Maya or Pearl - agreeing to take the case, without waiting for Phoenix's input.
• Graceful Loser: In the times he has been forced to work for a villain wanting a bad result, he is grateful when either he or his opponent finds a way to make him lose without letting the hostage get harmed.
• Gratuitous French: Oddly, Phoenix speaks French once in trial during case 2-3 as a retort towards Franziska von Karma.
  von Karma: That has nothing to do with the question!
  Phoenix: Au contraire mon frére!^note  (On the contrary, my brother) It does indeed have something to do with the question!
• Guest-Star Party Member:
  • He becomes Apollo's co-counsel in the second half of "Turnabout Trump", wherein he's trying to nail the original co-counsel as the murderer.
  • He acts as Athena's partner for the first part of "Turnabout Academy"'s investigation before turning it over to Apollo.
  • The middle section of the Day 2 Investigation phase of "Turnabout Revolution" is from his perspective with Edgeworth as his partner, while the rest of the case is entirely Apollo's show, with Phoenix being his co-counsel.
• Guile Hero: As a lawyer, he uses his wits, evidence, and knowledge of the events of the crime to best the true villain of each case.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Discounting the years he spent disbarred (during which his hair was messy and under a beanie), his trademark spiky hair has been around since elementary school.
• Hero with Bad Publicity:
  • Has this throughout Apollo Justice since the infamous trial of Shadi Enigmar due to being suspected of forging evidence and being known as the "Forgin' Attorney", as well as losing his badge.
  • After winning a trial in Khu'rain which was the first one in 23 years to end in a "Not Guilty" verdict, he's immediately earned the ire of the general populace due to the stigma against lawyers there.
• Heroic BSoD: Goes in and out of this during Case 2-4, especially after Maya is kidnapped.
• He's Back!: In Dual Destinies's beginning where he's suiting up and ready for court.
• Honorary Uncle: The untimely death of Mia, Phoenix's mentor, led to him becoming close friends with her sister and cousin. Thereon, they have Phoenix accompany them on trips that require a chaperone over the age of 20, and stay at his office whenever they need a break from their lives in Kurain Village. And long before he met any of the characters mentioned above, he dated another member of the Fey Clan in college. It's just his fate to get involved with that family.
  Maya: You're one of us, Nick! Next time, you can train ^note [as a spirit medium] right alongside us!
• Honor Before Reason: Phoenix is not really determined to get his client to go free as much as he's dedicated to the ideal of justice, and this is never more apparent than in his darkest hour: case 2-4. Phoenix has to decide between winning the case or ensure justice was served. Phoenix actually manages to not only get a watertight case in favor of his client, but also to point at Adrian Andrews as the real killer. The Judge then asks what course of action Phoenix wants to pursue, and he has the choice of asking for the Judge to pass a Not Guilty verdict or allow the said person to testify. Phoenix, having already basically won the case, decides he does not want to leave any doubt of his client's innocence nor deny their right to testify. The following testimony not only proves their innocence, but also riddles Phoenix's case full of holes, and the Judge decides to extend the trial one more day. Phoenix breaks down in agony, thinking to himself that, had he done what he wanted to instead of what was right, Maya would not be doomed to death. Note that you can actually take the option to let the Judge pass the Not Guilty verdict. The result is the same; but instead of Phoenix allowing them to testify, Edgeworth cuts in and forces them to.
• Hopeless with Tech: Even in a day and age where the world is thriving with modern technology, Phoenix continues to use an old-fashioned cell phone in his everyday life.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: In Case 4-1, when he shows up next to Apollo as co-counsel, he leads the entire trial, with Apollo merely pointing out what he means.
• Hypocrite: Calls Apollo "unreliable" to Maya, despite Phoenix being the one using Apollo to carry out his plans. Is upset at Apollo for going off on his own to solve Clay's murder, yet in the sixth game, he does the exact same thing in regards to Maya being held hostage.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Forging evidence in "Turnabout Trump" just to find the truth largely because the real incriminating evidence had been removed. He also used phony evidence and caught Furio Tigre, who was such a phony himself he deserved it and could only be caught this way. Though in this case, he never claimed to the court that the ear medication bottle was the poison bottle.
• Idiot Ball: Phoenix had a terrible case of this in the first game, where he would directly confront the real killers with decisive evidence outside of court and without any other witnesses besides Maya, thus ending up being punched, tazed or threatened by The Mafia.
  • After the Time Skip, when he's not the controlled lawyer in an episode, he acts very professional-like around Apollo and Athena. Come the time he's being controlled, and suddenly he becomes goofier in the player's hands.
  • He STILL does this in the sixth game, telling Ga'ran that Apollo is Dhurke's son, nearly getting him kidnapped by the guards.
• Idiot Hair: Not at first, but as of Dual Destinies one of his spikes now droops over his forehead. Lampshaded by Maya when they reunite in Spirit of Justice.
• Idiot Hero: While Phoenix proves time and time again to be a sharp guy who can pick up on subtle things that most would miss, his main strategy in court is to fake it until he makes it. His actual understanding of the law is more or less non-existent, to the point where even the Judge has to explain rather basic legal concepts to him. He was an art major in college, after all!
• I Have Your Wife: On the wrong end of this, twice. In both 2-4 and the first case of 6-5, his clients kidnap Maya Fey to force him to defend them despite their guilt.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: A subversion. Phoenix discovers Mia's body, but he doesn't really blame himself for her death and just wants to live up to her legacy.
• The Illegible: He has bad handwriting. Phoenix admits to himself that he was never good in handwriting if he messes up a connect the dots puzzle that when correctly solved recovers a forged message on a jar in Rise from the Ashes. This trope is also invoked when Phoenix reproduced a letter in Turnabout Succession, when the judge complains about Phoenix's terrible handwriting.
• Indy Ploy: Phoenix Wright's most consistent weapon, and what he's most well known for. If you leave the man with so much as a scrap, he will figure out how to destroy you with it. Virtually the only way to stop him from pulling these sorts of schemes is to stonewall him entirely and make sure he doesn't get his hands on evidence.
  Phoenix: [Y]ou know my strategy... speak first, think later!
• Informed Flaw: In Apollo Justice, his nasty incident seven years ago branded him as "The Forging Attorney" and is partly treated as a disgrace by the Judge, but he's allowed to tip off the bailiff to go get something for him at the crime scene, handle and deliver evidence under supervision, and convinces the court to set up a jury and become the chairman of it, selecting a case to test it under and specifically picks out Thalassa as a Jurist as she technically was unrelated to the current case. Seems to be a justified example, however- Apollo himself states Phoenix was never actually proven to have actually requested the forgery. The only people who seem to wholeheartedly believe he did so are people who have a negative opinion of him already.
• Inner Monologue: Constant, and the main source of his snarky side. For some reason, other people can occasionally hear his thoughts.
• Insult of Endearment: He is given the insulting nickname "Barbed Head" by Rayfa. She later warms up to Phoenix, but still calls him "Barbed Head".
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Pearl, who's not even a preteen in the original trilogy (although she sees him as a future in-law). In Spirit of Justice, the teenage Rayfa slowly warms up to him, although not without ridicule.
• Internal Reformist: He manages to become one as the result of a Batman Gambit after being disbarred.
• Iron Butt Monkey:
  • All sorts of abuse is heaped upon the hapless attorney on a regular basis. He gets punched by Pearl for "being unfaithful" to Maya, whipped by Franziska, and beaned by Godot's (full) coffee mugs. All he has to say about the latter is "Should I be grateful the coffee's only hot enough to give me first-degree burns?"
  • It catches up to him in Spirit of Justice, as his back problems in his middle age from all the abuse have gotten particularly bad.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Most of the time it's not clear whether he's picking up items or photographing them, but every game has at least a few items where it's unambiguous that he's stealing them.
• Knight in Sour Armor: In the fourth game. At the end, he casts off said armor and starts a new life, eventually regains his attorney badge after his good name is cleared by Apollo.
• Last-Name Basis: His friendship with Edgeworth has spanned decades, but they still address each other as "Wright" and "Edgeworth". This is due to Values Dissonance, as this is how they refer to each other in the Japanese version. The dub of the anime occasionally has them use first names, though.
• Large Ham: Even in the World of Ham that is the Ace Attorney franchise, Phoenix still stands at the top of the pork pile. Pounding on his desk, shouting his objections, shamelessly bluffing the court whenever he can.. Courtroom Antics have never been so entertaining. He loses some of this hamminess after the Time Skip, but not all of it.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: He gets his named cleared by the end of Apollo Justice and re-takes the Bar Exam, as of Dual Destinies advertises both Phoenix (with his classic attorney outfit) and Apollo.
• Leitmotif: In each of the first three games, he has a different "Objection!" theme. In Dual Destinies, he uses an orchestral remixed version of his Objection theme from Trials and Tribulations. This carries over to Spirit of Justice (which really could be said as a remix of the Dual Destinies theme) so it seems the Trials and Tribulations "Objection!" main riff is his official theme, with variations being penned for each game.
  • On a smaller note, the original "Objection!" serves as his main theme for his two major crossover appearances in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Project X Zone 2, being lumped together with the "Pursuit" theme from said game.
  • Two separate orchestral remixes of the original "Objection!" theme are also used in his crossover experience in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney; one for the English court and one for the court in Labyrinthia.
• Like an Old Married Couple: By Dual Destinies, he's grown into this relationship with Edgeworth. The two bicker in court as much as they actually argue their cases, and Bobby Fulbright comments at one point that they embody the phrase "close enough to argue".
• Living Legend: By the time of Dual Destinies, his reputation precedes him and everyone knows him as the defense attorney who will find a way to turn a "Not Guilty" verdict from an impossible case (although this goes hand-in-hand with his infamy as a legendary bluffer as well). It's safe to say he'd become the most famous lawyer in the country, given that the contour of how he presents evidence is studied by the top legal academy in the nation. Even prior to this, during Apollo Justice, he gets recognition for his accomplishments despite his disbarment (although it does cast a shadow, especially after he seemingly reinforces the allegations during the first case). This reputation later comes back to haunt him and the legal system, because while he did present forged evidence unknowingly the context for it meant that his entire streak of victories were now called into question and his disbarment was one of the key reasons the dark age of the law came to be in the first place.
• Love Martyr: Subverted. Dahlia is way unlikable but Phoenix was dating Iris, Dahlia's twin sister, who genuinely loved him back.
• Made of Iron:
  • He's surprisingly resilient. On two separate occasions, Maya has hit him hard on the head to test certain theories: once with the shichishito to see how it would bend if used for that purpose, once with a pipe to see if it was possible to hit the back of his head from the front. In both instances, he suffered no ill effects whatsoever. In the third game, he falls 40 feet from a burning bridge into a freezing river known for having a current so fast that nobody who falls in is ever seen again, and only got a cold. He was better after a couple of days. In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney he gets hit by a speeding car, flies several feet through the air, and smacks headfirst into a lamp post. All he got was a sprained ankle.
  • Sadly, all these incredible feats of resistance are finally catching up to poor Phoenix. At 35 years old, his back is so badly damaged that it can render him unconscious for a whole day from the pain.
• Magnetic Hero: His honest drive for truth and justice warrants the admiration of several people, and he tends to be at least partially responsible for Character Development the other major characters undergo. By the sixth game, he's amassed quite a lot of True Companions because of this trait.
• The Magnificent: He's called the Comeback King for a damn good reason.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Phoenix" because he always returns from the brink, and "Wright" as in "right" ("Is that right, Mr. Wright?"). "Ryuichi" is simply a Shout-Out to Ryuichi Sakamoto from Yellow Magic Orchestra (although the "ryu"—dragon—is played on once Furio Tigre shows up), but "Naruhodo" means "I see", used to the same effect as "Wright" ("Naruhodo, Naruhodou.").
  • In-Universe, Phoenix Wright is the name of the omnibus line that was involved in the first case taken by an ancestor of his as a proper lawyer.
• Memento Macguffin: In the anime, he has an aged Signal Blue keyring that was originally part of a Signal Samurai set that Larry won when they were children, but split it up between Phoenix, Edgeworth and himself to symbolise their friendship.
• Mentor: Is this to Apollo and Athena in Dual Destinies, giving them advice on cases and investigations, taking over when they're not able to continue their case, and generally putting up the image of the wise and mature veteran lawyer putting his rookies through the ropes much like Mia would have had she never died. His thoughts when you play as him indicate that he can be as stumped as them (Edgeworth did say that he is still GREEN in some situations), but he tries his best to keep up his veteran image.
• Nerves of Steel: Say what you will, but this guy stood still even when threatened with a bomb in Dual Destinies. Justified, since at one point, it is said that the bomb was too sophisticated to be replicated and that the one in the courtroom was a training prop. Therefore, one completely aware that the real deal has been blown beyond recognition can only assume it was a bluff.
• Nice Guy: Phoenix always believes in his clients and will go the extra mile for anyone who is all alone, with no one else to defend them. He's also rather patient, considering how few times he genuinely loses his temper despite of all the crap he puts up with from everyone.
• No Indoor Voice: All that shouting sure isn't good for his lungs. He's calmed down by the time of Dual Destinies.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • In Justice For All, Acro comments that Phoenix is really not so different from Franziska, as they both approach the world tainted by their own biases. Needless to say, Phoenix is none too pleased with this, although the next case brings into stark contrast just how true it is. And by the end, both Phoenix and Franziska's world view evolved.
  • Come Dual Destinies, let's see... an upstanding young man enters the legal profession. He shows great talent and potential, and receives incredible public acclaim. He has at least one standout physical feature, an unconventional appearance, and a remarkable and unique sense of fashion. He is honorable, good-natured, kind, compassionate, and committed to truth, justice, and helping others, if also fairly snarky. He also has a number of friends and family who adore him and whom he is very devoted to. In particular, he has a younger woman in his life - a relative of his mentor, in fact - whom he is extremely close to and fiercely protective of, to the point where he is willing to risk his job, his reputation, and even his life for her. This man goes through quite a few setbacks. His beloved mentor is murdered, and he is later convicted for a crime he did not commit, which destroys his career and reputation and greatly contributes to the dark age of the law. He suffers immensely for seven years, becoming bitter, jaded, and much more snarky. He ultimately remains true to himself, though, and in the end he is able to get justice for his mentor, clear his good name, and take down the monstrous, murderous sociopath who hurt him and many others with his cunning and intelligence as well as help from his friends. He is now a leading figure in the legal world and huge symbol of hope, inspiration, truth, and justice. Are we talking about Phoenix Wright or Simon Blackquill?
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Despite bluffing being his primary tactic in many situations, he can also pretend to know less than he actually does. In "The Rite of Turnabout," he asks Rayfa for information about the Tome of Secrets, despite having learned about that information already from Maya, since Maya insisted that he keep his knowledge of that secret from her.
• Odd Name, Normal Nickname: "Nick" to his friends.
• Oh, Crap!: In Spirit of Justice, he momentarily panics upon finding out that Trucy's been arrested for murder, but can't do anything since he's in Khu'rain. He then leaves her in Apollo's hands.
• Oh God, with the Verbing!: "Mia, not you too! With the whip... and the pain... and the owww..."
• Older and Wiser: His role in Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice. However, his monologues and actions in Dual Destinies and onward indicate that he's still mostly fibbing and finding contradictions on the spot in true Wright fashion. Examples of this trope played straight:
  • He is now a father and has the responsibility of caring for his daughter along with his lawyer duties.
  • He is now a mentor to two younger attorneys, and takes the role very seriously, like his own mentor, Mia Fey. In fact, he often gives clues to Apollo the way Mia was giving to him.
  • He no longer underestimates anyone, going from taunting a Von Karma in JFA to acknowledging and respecting Winston Payne in Apollo Justice. The latter game showcases it by having Phoenix act arrogantly towards the then-novice Klavier in the flashback section of Case 4.
  • As he grows older, he becomes more effective against fake friends and allies. He blindly defends Dahlia while they were a couple and has to be saved by Mia Fey. Later, in Justice for All, he initially trusts and defends Matt Engarde, but eventually unmasks him and, with some trouble and help due to being blackmailed, succeeds at turning the tables on him. When Dahlia returns as a spirit, Phoenix and Mia waste no time in humiliating her, and finally, in Apollo Justice, after Kristoph tricks him once and gets him disbarred, Phoenix outsmarts him twice with little help in retaliation, breaking his pride completely the second time.
• Only Sane Man: Most of the time, as shown by his Deadpan Snarker internal monologue.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • He's typically fairly easily flustered for the most part, but if he suddenly becomes calm, cool and confident, it's a sign that he is going to utterly own somebody.
  • His actions in Apollo Justice are a series of these. There are times when it's almost impossible to tell he's the same protagonist from the previous three games. Thankfully Dual Destinies shows that the old Nick is indeed still under the seemingly-bitter, morally questionable exterior.
• Parental Substitute: It's most obvious in the case of his adopted daughter, Trucy, who he took in after her biological father disappeared before he inevitably adopted her, but it's present even further than that. Before Trucy, he was looking out for Pearl, a fatherless girl about Trucy's age, and he later describes Trucy and Pearl's relationship as being similar to sisters. The game also appears to be pushing for Phoenix to be a father figure towards Apollo, largely due to the fact that Apollo and Trucy are biological siblings. Not to mention that Apollo has lost two different fathers before. Based on fan interpretation, this can extend to just about every younger character he associates with, included Athena, Maya, Ema, and so on.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • What he does to Kristoph in 4-1, through getting him arrested through forged evidence. Lampshaded by this person: "Is... this your idea of revenge, Phoenix Wright?".
  • He often defeats other very nasty people through their own tricks. He turns Shelly de Killer on Engarde and exposes Tigre with fake evidence.
• Perma-Stubble: He sports a couple strands of facial hair in Apollo Justice. He shaves it off after returning to his profession in Dual Destinies.
• Perpetual Poverty: Not nearly as bad as Gumshoe, but Phoenix is frequently complaining about his financial situation despite winning several high profile cases. It is heavily implied that many of his clients don't pay him, while the money he does earn is immediately spent by Maya. Larry even wonders aloud if Nick was better off financially as a piano player, and it's implied that Trucy is the real reason the Wright Anything Agency is able to stay open despite having three good lawyers working there.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Maya. Although they're not a couple, they are very close and rely on each other quite a lot. Phoenix never hesitates to rush to her aid whenever she's in trouble — in the prologue anime of Spirit of Justice he flies all the way around the world because he thought she was in danger from a brief phone call (he in fact also does this in "Turnabout Revolution"). He is also willing to do questionable things in order to keep her safe.
• Positive Friend Influence: He single-handedly kickstarts Edgeworth's Character Development from a lawyer who fights to win to a lawyer who fights to find the truth.
• Prophetic Name: Basically anyone who interacts with him, much like the mythical bird of the same name, gains a 'new life' or 'rebirth' in one way or another. The most obvious being that his clients have a conviction-free life, but also his friends (Maya and Pearl gained an adventurous lifestyle), his opponents (he sets off both Franziska's and Edgeworth's defrost process), and somewhere in between (The Gatewater Hotel gaining publicity after his case, Angel Starr gets a new hit lunch dish, Adrian Andrews gets closure for herself). It even got to the point where his name was prophetic for himself, following the events of Apollo Justice and now Dual Destinies.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Several characters note that he has these, including the Judge, who outright calls them "puppy dog eyes". The audience can see them whenever he's not the player character, and they seem to be one of his default expressions (along with his sweaty face animation).
• Pyrrhic Victory: In the bad ending of 2-4. He won the case, saved Maya and kept his perfect record. The problem? He just helped a very evil criminal get away, got an innocent woman convicted and Maya stopped talking to him. In the good ending, he saves Maya and brings justice, but has essentially lost the case.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • He gives one to Edgeworth in 2-4, denouncing his Amoral Attorney ways, saying that unlike him or Franziska, he would never fight for a false verdict, and accusing Edgeworth of having left for a year due to his record being tarnished.
  • He gives one to Matt Engarde if you select the guilty ending twice.
  • Together with Mia, gives one to Dahlia Hawthorne in "Bridge to the Turnabout".
• Red Baron: As of Spirit of Justice, to people that don't know how he works, he's known as the Turnabout Terror. For those that do, he is known as the guy who bluffs a lot. In Khura'in, he also becomes known as The Fighting Phoenix.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Played with.
  • Inverted in the original trilogy, Phoenix is the red oni to Edgeworth's blue, despite the fact that Phoenix wears blue while Miles wears red. Shows up once again as part of the nostalgia-fest case with Edgeworth in Dual Destinies.
  • Played straight from Apollo Justice onwards, where he's the blue oni to Apollo's red (and later also to Athena the Fiery Redhead Genki Girl), wearing a blue hat and gray sweater, and eventually his classic blue suit compared to Apollo's red vest and pants.
• Rogue Protagonist: He is the opposing lawyer in the first case of Turnabout Revolution in Spirit of Justice. It turns out that he is the victim of Blackmail.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: His dynamic with his assistant Maya. Phoenix is the quick-thinking and put-upon Savvy Guy to Maya's perky and childish Energetic Girl.
• Secret-Keeper: He's one of very few people who know that Apollo and Trucy are half-siblings, and that their mother Thalassa is alive, and keeps this secret throughout Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice. In The Stinger of the latter, he considers letting it out in the open.
• Ship Tease: With Iris at the end of Trials and Tribulations, although this appears to go nowhere, most likely because his entire life fell apart for seven years shortly after their reunion, when he was disbarred.
• Signature Headgear: A cyan beanie with a yellow pin and the letters "PaPa" in pink, worn as part of his outfit in Apollo Justice. He ditches it once he puts his blue suit back on and returns to court in Dual Destinies, though it can still be seen in the Wright Anything Agency in the games that follow Apollo Justice.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Throughout Apollo Justice, following his disbarment, he dresses in a gray hoodie, black pants, sandals and a cyan beanie.
• So Proud of You: By the end of Spirit of Justice, he declares that he's never been prouder of Apollo and how much he's grown and improved.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • Had Phoenix not blissfully showed the bottle given by Dahlia, let alone not returned it to Iris when asked to, Dahlia would have not taken drastic measures, and may have never been caught for her crimes.
  • One of the biggest spanners in Spirit of Justice, in just his first case his victory revealed that the Khura'in National Treasure is stolen and Alhbi wouldn't even be a spanner himself in Case 5 without Wright proving his innocence and it only escalates from there. Without Wright, the revolution would have been lost before it began.
  • In the anime, his radio station request to play the Signal Samurai theme for Edgeworth catches the rude lady attempting to claim the reward money for a lost dog in a lie.
  • The climax of Manfred von Karma's revenge plot hinged on there not being an attorney determined, skilled, or resourceful enough to defend Edgeworth against a slam-dunk murder charge. Not only does Phoenix prove to be von Karma's match in court, he turns the case around and exposes von Karma as the real culprit of a case that went ice-cold years ago, less than a day before it's closed for good.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In Apollo Justice, he is pretty much this. In the first case, he ends up as the one who takes care of it despite that he hands some actions to Apollo and that he's a defendant of that case. And later he takes a main role in a flashback and the one who make Apollo's cases a lot easier than they should be.
• Supporting Leader: In Case 1 and 4 in Apollo Justice and Case 5 in Spirit of Justice.
• Supporting Protagonist: Becomes this in Spirit of Justice, as while he's rather important to the overall plot, and you play as him in the first and third cases, Apollo is actually the focus of the story, and by the final case, this is especially evident since you play as Apollo for almost its entirety (aside from a single investigation segment), as well as the fact that Phoenix is his (VERY helpful) assistant in the last trial.
• Taught by Experience: After being threatened, assaulted, and losing important evidence to the culprit on different occasions by presenting it to them, Phoenix stops doing this by "Turnabout Reclaimed", knowing that Dr. Crab might take away the mysterious capsule found in Orla's stomach findings and instead gives it to Apollo to investigate privately.
• Team Dad: Towards his young assistants and staff. In the DLC case of Dual Destinies he even thinks of his staff as "good kids". There's a moment in Spirit of Justice when someone threatens to curse him alongside his descendants and disciples, and he immediately thinks of Apollo and Athena. At the end of Spirit of Justice, he expresses pride in the next generation when Apollo leaves to form his own office.
• Tempting Fate:
  • In "Turnabout Showtime" in the manga, he's fairly confident in his case, and believes that he has the upper hand on Edgeworth when he proves that Julie Henson couldn't have stabbed Flip Chambers from outside his costume. Edgeworth then reveals that he already knew that, and calls in Raymond Spume to provide a possible way she could have done it.
  • He taunts Franziska von Karma, a woman armed with a whip, after defeating her in court the first time. She loses it and whips Mimi Miney, The Judge, and then lashes out at Phoenix until he goes unconscious.
  • In the first game, Phoenix had a notably bad habit of confronting criminals outside of court with damning evidence and expecting things to go well for him, though he wises up after he gets tased for his trouble.
• That Came Out Wrong: "I'll get to this woman's bottom! Wait... I mean... you know what I mean."
• Theme Naming: Has a mythology-based given name like his fellow Wright Anything Agency attorneys: see Meaningful Name entry.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: It's implied that him forging evidence against Kristoph in "Turnabout Trump" stems from Phoenix deciding that he might as well take advantage of having nothing left to lose after already getting disbarred for (unknowingly) presenting similar evidence 7 years prior. Apollo introduces him to his fist for this.
• Thinking Tic: Phoenix holds his chin in one hand when thinking.
• This Is Unforgivable!:
  • He states "This is inexcusable!" when he finds out that one of his cases involved not only poison, but also betrayal- specifically, the betrayer manipulating someone who has feelings for them. Poison and betrayal reminds him of his ex-girlfriend Dahlia, who first betrayed him, then tried to poison him, then betrayed him again in court.
  • He's also quite angry when Franziska withholds evidence while prosecuting Maya, thinking that she's as bad as her father.
  • Threatening Trucy is also a way to earn this, despite understanding why Aura kidnapped Trucy and other visitors he finds her actions to be without question unforgivable in his eyes and it's left ambiguous if he accepts Simon's case for Aura.
• This Loser Is You: Phoenix is put-upon and unappreciated by most of the public, which helps you identify with all the struggles he has to go through to win.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Phoenix has a bad habit of confronting the true culprits in person. Sure! Let's confront the culprits in person, it's not like they can do anything to me anyway! Predictably, it ends badly for him each time.
  • He once taunted Franziska of all people after winning his first trial against her. Not surprisingly, he gets whipped into unconsciousness for his troubles.
  • In the third game, he had the great idea of crossing a burning bridge. Unsurprisingly, the old bridge broke under his weight and he fell into the Eagle River, ending up in hospital.
  • In the sixth game, he nearly gets Apollo kidnapped by telling Ga'ran to her face that Apollo is Dhurke's son.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • During his college years Phoenix bore a more than passing resemblance to Larry Butz such as crying when being scolded and repeatedly saying and doing things that make him look guilty during his trial. By the time he's finally become a Defense Attorney he's matured greatly, albeit still being somewhat easily flustered, so much that you'd be surprised that they're the same person.
  • It's subtle but Phoenix slowly comes into his own as an Attorney throughout the original trilogy such that by the end of the final case of Trials and Tribulations Mia admits that there's nothing left for her to teach him and all but says that he's surpassed her as a Defense Attorney.
  • After getting disbarred, Phoenix has become much more cynical and jaded about his life. However, in exchange, he's more collected and Crazy-Prepared, to the point where he almost-easily Out-Gambits the Big Bad himself. Twice. In a way he only dealt with a minor villain in the third game beforehand the first time. But he — you guessed it — mostly reverts to his original, Hot-Blooded, Butt-Monkey persona in Dual Destinies; so much so that Edgeworth rakes him over the coals in the DLC case from Spirit of Justice for "sweating like a rookie".
  • Hell, the creators of the series has acknowledged this as well. One of the reasons for Spirit of Justice being set in a completely different court system is because they felt that Phoenix has grown so much that there are simply no more challenges for him in his regular court anymore.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: When he was disbarred, he was absolutely at the top of his game. When he got the badge back, he can be taken off-guard with demeaning comments (unlike his hobo self), and things just get worse when he is in the player's hands.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • A minor case in Justice for All, when he has much less patience with Franziska than he does for his other prosecutorial rivals, due in part to his bitterness over Edgeworth's disappearance. Possibly because she also physically assaults him.
  • In Apollo Justice, he's more irritable and impatient due to the events that have transpired. In his final case, he arrogantly looks down on Klavier for being inexperienced. He gets over it by the end of the game, and acts more like his old self in Dual Destinies.
• Trauma Button: Since Mia's death, he has an aversion for clocks shaped like other objects after she was killed with one.
• Trickster Mentor: To Apollo in the fourth game. This is dialed back several notches when Phoenix returns to the profession.
• The Unchosen One: Looking into Phoenix's past and overall comparison to other defence attorneys and rivals in the lawyer profession reveals him to be this, bordering on The Generic Guy. He has no overall traumatic backstory deeply tied to a case or miscarriage of justice save him being relatively uninvolved as a minor Unwitting Pawn of Dahlia Hawthorne's compared to the others she manipulated and opposed in court prior to him becoming a lawyer. The class trial incident that galvanised his sense of justice was forgotten about by both Miles and Larry until Phoenix reminded them of it. Phoenix has no bloodline-related power or unique special ability to aid him in court cases (His magmata does provide a special advantage, but it's tied to the object and the power is transferable if he hands it to another, as seen with Edgeworth). Compared to his students, colleagues and daughter, all of whom have special ties to past tragedies that motivate them in different ways, Phoenix stands out as being as close to normal as you can get....which makes it all the more awesome that he's still The Hero of the franchise who either resolves or has a hand in resolving so many of these past misdeeds, just because there's somebody in need of help.
• Unconventional Courtroom Tactics: All of his legal tactics are unconventional except one, and he uses Indy Ploys (which most of his cases boil down to).
• Unluckily Lucky: Not only do his cases hit rock bottom several times before finding just the clue or lead he needs to continue pressing on, but outside investigations he's still at odds with Lady Luck. Phoenix has the tendency to end up in life threatening situations, but come out of them largely unscathed through bizarre twists of fate. Reaches absurd levels by the fourth game: he gets hit full-on by a speeding car, causing him to fly through the air and slam head-first into a telephone pole. His only injury from this? A sprained ankle. He's also fallen from a burning bridge into a raging river known to be deadly, and all he came home with was a cold. Franziska may have put it best in the third game when she said, "As always, it's hard to say whether he should be called lucky or unlucky..."
• Unusual Eyebrows: The kinked eyebrows variation to be exact. They're not as iconic as the hair spikes, but still recognizable.
• The Watson: Phoenix is invariably left in the dark regarding the whole Kurain Channeling Technique thing as well as all these TV shows aimed to kids that Maya always happens to be a fan of.
• Waistcoat of Style: Gains one in Dual Destinies.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • In "Rise From the Ashes", he chews out Lana Skye for being absolutely no help to him since the beginning. Justified on her part, as Damon Gant was blackmailing her.
  • In "Turnabout Big Top," he calls out Max for lying to him about his reasons for meeting with the ringmaster (the murder victim), saying that lawyers and clients need to trust each other.
  • He's on the receiving end when Apollo punches him for giving him fake evidence to use in his first trial.
• Whole Costume Reference: His bonus outfit in Spirit of Justice is a Furio Tigre getup, which references the fact that Tigre had impersonated him at one time.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Trucy reveals in Apollo Justice that he's afraid of heights (likely due to falling off a bridge in "Bridge to the Turnabout"), which flared up on a Ferris wheel ride with her, causing him to go green and mutter "objection" several times under his breath.
• Worf Had the Flu: He's only lost three trials in his entire career and of those three, two times were because he was being blackmailed into defending a guilty client and the third loss was due to being tricked into using forged evidence.
• World's Best Warrior: He's the best acting Defense Attorney in the series so far, with a nigh-spotless record (with the only failed client being Matt Engarde, the culprit of his case, so he was happy to lose that time), and who has outwitted many a manipulative criminal, and schooled many a skilled Prosecutor.
• Worthy Opponent: Phoenix has one true equal on the Prosecution's bench in all the series, and that's one Miles Edgeworth. The two of them have a bond of trust based on a mutual understanding: they will stop at nothing to see justice done, and the unspoken demand that the other can take everything they can dish out and fire back just as hard. Put the two across from one another in the courtroom, and watch the fireworks. Between testimony and evidence, they'll both thoroughly demolish everything in the crossfire of their logistic duel until only the single truth remains.
• Xanatos Gambit:
  • Producing the metal detector to prove that Manfred von Karma was shot in 1-4. von Karma refuses to have the metal detector ran over him? Good — he implicitly acknowledges that the bullet is still inside him. He allows or is forced to let Phoenix run him over? Also good — Phoenix likely finds the missing second DL-6 bullet.
  • Forging the "Bloody Ace" in 4-1. Kristoph reveals the forgery? Good — he also self-implicates as the killer. He keeps quiet? Also good — the fake likely convicts him the usual way.
  • The Jurist System in 4-4 comes across as this, too. Even if Kristoph beats the evidence, he can still lose via reasonable doubt among the new jury (which is exactly what happens).
• Xanatos Speed Chess: While he usually relies on Indy Ploys, he upgrades to this during 4-1. He endures attempted Frame-Ups from both Shadi/Zak and Kristoph, neither of which he saw coming. Nevertheless, he quickly adjusts and turns both around upon their respective instigators. In particular, his retaliation against Kristoph even overlaps with Xanatos Gambit (see above).

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"And so my story ends. Time to turn a new page... and say goodbye to the novice defense attorney that I once was... Now a new story begins... With the same old crazy cast of characters..."

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Apollo Justice (Hosuke Odoroki)

Apollo Justice (Hosuke Odoroki)

Voiced by (Japanese): Koutarou Ogiwara (AJ), KENN (DD, SoJ)

Voiced by (English): JP Kellams (AJ), Orion Acaba (DD, SoJ)

Debut: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

^{Click here to see him bandaged}

"I'm fine! The Chords of Steel are ready for battle!"

Known as The Clarion of Revelations and The Truth Bringer. Apollo is passionate and somewhat headstrong, but relies much less on courtroom antics than Phoenix does.

After the death of his father and the disappearance of his mother, Apollo spent the early years of his life abroad under the care of a foster father who instilled in him an appreciation for law. However, one day Apollo was sent back to America by his foster father with not much explanation as to why, devastating him and causing him to resent the man. He spent his adolescent years in orphanages, eventually finding renewed inspiration to become a lawyer in the form of Phoenix Wright, who became his hero. He eventually passed the bar exam and trained under Kristoph Gavin. Sometime after his first trial, Apollo got an offer to work for Phoenix Wright himself. He was the only attorney available at the Agency (during which when he took on cases along with his partner Trucy) until Phoenix was reinstated as a lawyer and Athena joined the team.

His power is the ability to "Perceive", meaning he can focus and use his eyes to scan a person and determine if they are being subversive through body language. In other words, he will always know if you are lying because your body will give you away. This makes it unlikely for him to take on guilty clients (his ability is genetic; however it's possible to incapacitate him by disabling his bracelet or by lying constantly so his eyes remain alert all the time, enough to not let him function properly).

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• Affectionate Nickname: He gets nicknamed "Polly" by Trucy, although she doesn't use it quite so much as Maya used "Nick" for Phoenix. Likewise, Klavier refers to him as "Herr Forehead", initially as an Embarrassing Nickname, but eventually as a term of endearment by the time of Dual Destinies. In Spirit of Justice, we find out that Datz calls him "AJ".
• Amateur Sleuth: Although sometimes he has Ema's assistance.
• Amplifier Artifact: His bracelet is essentially this. Without it, he would have a very hard time noticing the effects of his hyper-empathy and not know when to go into perceive mode. Trucy shows that it can be done to an extent, but to use the perceive ability effectively without a bracelet would require ridiculous amounts of self-awareness and concentration. Trucy even notes at one point that Apollo is seeing witness tics that she can't pick up. So it's clear that without the external tool his ability is basically useless but it also makes him much more sensitive in the end so it goes both ways.
• Animal Motifs: Minor example, and also brought about due to localization. In both Spanish and Italian, Justice's nickname "Pollo" means "chicken", since his hair could look like a chicken's comb. One of his goofy pouts also makes his mouth look like a beak.
• Anime Hair: Though it's not natural and Apollo notes that he uses hair gel. Like Phoenix, it's used for a few gags; Jinxie Tenma believes he's a yokai because his hair looks like horns, Rayfa calls him "Horn Head", and Queen Ga'ran calls him "Horned Devil".
• Ascended Fanboy: Who else stays up at night training themselves to bellow Objection!? And then there's his extreme excitement at meeting Phoenix for the first time...as a defendant.
• Badass Boast: During "Turnabout Revolution", he says some pretty daring statements towards Sergeant Buff.
  Apollo: Sorry, but I'm afraid lawyers are missile-proof.^note Keep in mind, he was saying this to a drone that has a habit of firing bullets at him and just loaded missiles at Datz just a few minutes ago.
  • He then follows up with another one of these not even a minute afterwards!
    Apollo: Courtroom warriors don't use guns or missiles, because evidence is our weapon of choice! And the evidence has exposed your bald-faced lie! My truth bomb, Sarge...has stripped your defenses bare!
  • As if that wasn't daring enough, once he reveals that Nayna is secretly Queen Amara, Apollo indicts her!
    Apollo: If you commit the crime, you'd better be ready to do the time. Be you a priest, saint, queen, or god!
• Badass Longcoat: Gets one in in Dual Destinies during his Conflicting Loyalty stage. It was his best friend Clay's, and he wears it in honor of him while he tracks down his killer.
• Bash Brothers: With Klavier. Unlike any of the other prosecutor-and-defense teams in the series, Apollo and Klavier pull this act straight out of the starting gate, and keep it up for the entire game. It's even more impressive given that before 4-2 they'd never even met and they still pull this off. On the defense lawyer side, he becomes this with Athena and Phoenix in Dual Destinies.
• Being Personal Isn't Professional:
  • In his introduction, he's extremely tight-lipped about himself, his past, and his emotions with the people he works with, to the point it's actually brought up twice over two different games, and only talks about himself when he's given no choice in the matter (and even then, is vague at best, dodging questions to avoid giving any details except what's absolutely necessary).
  • Part of his Character Development in Spirit of Justice is getting over this. He finally does reveal parts of his history to his allies; namely, that he was adopted and grew up in Khura'in. At first, this was only because he had no choice but to visit Khura'in at the time. But in Case 5, where it gets more personal for Apollo, he opens up much more.
• Big Brother Instinct: He's quite protective of Trucy. Who, as it turns out, is his half-sister. Neither of them know that, though.
• Big "NO!": While these are common occurences, he gets an especially big one in Spirit of Justice when he realizes his adoptive father Dhurke was Dead All Along.
• Blindfolded Vision: Partial; Apollo has a bandage over one of his eyes in Dual Destinies, presumably from his injuries following the courtroom blast. It was there long before the incident. It's meant to be a self-imposed Power Limiter on his Perception ability, to stop perceiving Athena who was (unknowingly) lying to him every time they talked about the case.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Apollo enters his first case absolutely idolizing Phoenix Wright, claiming that no one in his generation hadn't heard of him and his office, and attempting to defend him in court using such logic as "that is a contradiction because there's no way Phoenix Wright would cheat at cards!" By the end of the case, Phoenix has tricked him into using forged evidence and Apollo is so furious he decks him. Although he doesn't seem to hate Phoenix, it definitely shook him out his case of hero-worship, and he often thinks mildly disparaging things about his former idol.
  • This also applies to his former boss Kristoph Gavin, whom he helps get into jail in the course of his first case, which he was originally defending with him as co-counsel. It gets worse when it's revealed that Kristoph has been responsible for many terrible things, including Phoenix's disbarment and multiple murders that form the basis of the game's closing case. It's even sadder for Apollo that he was unable to conventionally prove Kristoph's motive of the crime for both Zak and Vera because his decisive evidence was a replica and not the real deal and would've gotten Vera guilty had Phoenix not intervened with the Jurist System.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: While we, as the player, always see the Perceive system in action from Apollo's perspective, staring down the witness, saying "You're hiding something", and having the witness admit it must look pretty odd from the sidelines. When he Perceives, people tend to look at him in shock and say that he was staring so hard his eyes bugged out.
• Butt-Monkey: Although all three main lawyers become this when they're playable, he gets the least respect overall. Even Athena's employment in the Agency lessened his Butt-Monkey status a little. Exemplified in "Turnabout Reclaimed" (the DLC case for Dual Destinies), Phoenix and Athena rush off to the Shipshape Aquarium to get justice for Sasha's friend... and Apollo has to stay behind and watch the office like some secretary. Throughout the case he's even pleading with Phoenix to give him some case-related work to do.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Here comes Justice!" He also adds Gotcha! to the set of catch phrases to shout in big red letters.
  • In Dual Destines, another one of his catchphrases ("I'm fine!"), receives a new meaning: it was a phrase he and his old middle school friend used for confidence boosting.
• Chromatic Superiority: Seems to believe that red is the best color from a few of his thoughts. He may be joking, though.
• Closet Geek: He keeps manga on his desk. It's totally useful for research purposes.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: He has Ship Tease with Vera, Athena, Juniper, and Aura Blackquill. On top of that, a female watching the first trial of the second case calls his forehead attractive during one of the times he has the advantage (though the way she phrases it suggests it turned her off until he started being an impressive lawyer). In spite of all of this, Apollo hasn't seemed to notice a single one of these girls' attraction to him.
• Coat Cape: Sports one in Dual Destinies. It actually belongs to his best friend, who is the victim of case 4.
• Color Motif: Red, contrasting/ complimenting Phoenix's blue and Athena's yellow in Dual Destinies. He's often described as being eager and dedicated, with a "passionate heart burning red".
• The Comically Serious: Apollo tries so very hard to maintain professionalism when dealing with other people, but when you work daily with ridiculous witnesses, an assistant with magic panties, eccentric prosecutors, and trickster mentors, you can't help but become this trope.
  Apollo: Believe me, any comic relief I may provide is entirely unintentional.
• Conflicting Loyalty:
  • In "Turnabout Trump", Apollo's loyalties start to conflict with one another. Does he stay loyal to his mentor Kristoph, or seek out the truth? Does he listen to Kristoph's warnings, or follow his client's advice? He eventually decides to pursue the truth instead of being loyal to anyone.
    Apollo: This isn't about loyalty... This is about the truth!
  • In "Turnabout for Tomorrow", he faces a similar problem when Athena looks like she could be his best friend's murderer. He once again puts the truth over everything and goes off to figure things out by himself.
  • The first part of "Turnabout Revolution" has him clashing with Phoenix in civil court, which causes some strife among himself and the other Wright Anything Agency staff members. Though this turns out to be covering for something that none of them knew about.
• Contrived Coincidence: His family history. How coincidental is it that he ends up being mentored by the man who adopted his half-sister, and together with said sister, he cross-examines their long-lost mother in court?
• Consummate Professional: Apollo is actively the most professional person to work for the Agency, and one of the most professional characters in the series (making him The Comically Serious). One interpretation of his dislike of Klavier is not jealousy, but outright disdain for how Klavier is far from professional in court, considering Apollo is annoyed that Klavier acts serious in "Turnabout Serenade" backstage but not in court.
• Daddy Didn't Show: When Dhurke left him in America as a child, he promised Apollo he would come back for him. However he never showed up until years later, after Apollo had become a lawyer himself, and after Dhurke had died.
• Darkest Hour: Apollo's moment that he is right in finding out that Dhurke is murdered.
• A Day in the Limelight: Becomes the main character in Spirit of Justice, especially in "Turnabout Revolution".
• Deadpan Snarker: Taking up his mentor's mantle as the game's First-Person Smartass. Although unlike his mentor, Apollo is a lot less internal about his snark, and is far more likely to point out how ridiculous or stupid a situation is rather bluntly. It goes with his Only Sane Man status.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: He manages to beat the legendary Phoenix Wright in a civil case, though granted he had been blackmailed into defending a guilty party and even Apollo is dubious of his chances of beating Phoenix in a fair trial, it's still an impressive feat considering that Phoenix assured Apollo that he wouldn't be holding back. In the same case, and even more to his credit, he defeated Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in, a queen who changed the law on the spot to suit her needs and threatened to have him and Phoenix gunned down where they stand. Moreover, he did it all on his own, without resorting to asking Phoenix for help, even though he was at his side. He's come a long way since his debut game.
• Detective Patsy: In "Turnabout Corner", he was hired by the real killer in order to represent the defendant, firmly convinced that he would lose.
• Deuteragonist: He shares this role with Athena in Dual Destinies. He appears to be this to Phoenix in Spirit of Justice, until Apollo takes center stage for almost the entirety of "Turnabout Revolution".
• The Empath: Part of how he is aware that a person is lying is his own innate ability to tense up with them whenever they're not entirely confident about their statement, expressed through a feeling of tightness in his bracelet. However he wrongfully attributes it as a mystical power from the bracelet itself rather than himself.
• Establishing Character Moment: From his first case, Apollo makes it clear he seeks the truth at whatever cost by convicting his boss of murder. He would go on to make a habit of opposing his colleagues in court.
• Evil Costume Switch: Is prominently shown in several promotional art for Dual Destinies and its first case with an Eyepatch of Power, Coat Cape, and his hands wrapped in bandages. Soon after being introduced, he takes a leave of absence from the Agency, with Phoenix and Athena. We find out in "Turnabout for Tomorrow" that the bandages are from him being caught in a bomb blast, the coat is his dead best friend Clay's, and the eyepatch is actually a self-imposed Restraining Bolt to stop his perception abilities from triggering around Athena (and thus believing she could be responsible for Clay's murder). He wears them all during his brief bout of Conflicting Loyalty, and removes all of them as soon as his doubts are put to rest.
• Expressive Hair: It flops forward when he's surprised or disheartened. During his Heroic BSoD in case 6-5, it goes completely limp.
• Eyepatch of Power: Gets a temporary one during "The Cosmic Turnabout" and "Turnabout for Tomorrow" due to the explosion incident. Then it turns out it was for a different reason.
• First-Person Peripheral Narrator: In his own game he's the POV character and does a lot of the investigating but ultimately the story is about Phoenix's fall from grace and eventual rise back up.
• Fanservice: Some have taken his Sengoku Basara-inspired Downloadable Content cosplay of Sanada Yukimura from Spirit of Justice to be this as Yukimura doesn't wear anything under his red jacket, so neither does Apollo, giving us a nice look at his pecs.
• First-Person Smartass: Unlike Phoenix, he's somewhat less polite up front and lets more of his snark leave his brain.
• Fist Pump: Apollo does a version of this with both his hands in Dual Destinies, the animation showing up when he resolves to get something done. It becomes even funnier with an added "slap" sound effect and screen shake, meaning he was extra resolute about what he was saying.
• A Fool for a Client: A justified trope where he started representing himself and Phoenix as additional accused persons when Ga'ran usurped the judge's job and handed down a false guilty verdict to Dhurke Sahdmadhi, Apollo's client, because the Defense Culpability Act automatically convicts lawyers of clients who are declared guilty and sentences the lawyers of such clients to the same sentence as that of which was handed to the convicted client. Fortunately, Apollo manages to get that false verdict overturned, and was able to have the Defense Culpability Act declared null and void.
• Forehead of Doom: Klavier even begins calling him "Herr Forehead" partway through the second case, though this may be partly due to him insisting which part of the forehead the victim was shot was very important at the moment. Ironically, when looking at artwork of him in game and in official art, his forehead... really isn't that big. His hairstyle does draw attention to it though.
• The Ghost: He is completely absent in "Turnabout Time Traveler" and only gets a single mention as Trucy's former magic assistant, unless examining his stuff at the office. Justified, as he is at Khura'in working hard to reestablish law order, and the extra case takes place after the finale of the main story of Spirit of Justice.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Just like his mentor and his mentor before him. In his case, though, this is a sign of him being a fanboy of his mentor rather than an unconsciously mimicked habit. During the final case of Spirit of Justice, the might of Apollo's righteous anger, channeled through his demand that Ga'ran end her insane & illegal rein as monarch as he points at her, is able to send out a force that's strong enough to cause the Royal Guard to be blown away and for Ga'ran to recoil as if she was physically struck.
• Giver of Lame Names: His name for a runaway calico cat he finds in an audio drama? Callie. Athena and Trucy are quick to make fun of his extremely lame naming sense.
• Green-Eyed Monster: One interpretation of his dislike of Klavier is really just jealousy that Klavier is a talented prosecutor AND rock star.
• Hairstyle Inertia: If photographs seen in Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice are any indication, Apollo's had his dual-antenna hairstyle since he was a very young boy. And according to his father's Divination Seance, those antennae have been there since he was a baby.
• Has a Type: Seems to have a thing for meek, soft-spoken girls with artsy streaks, going by his interactions with Vera Misham and Juniper Woods. Klavier even tells him that someone like Athena Cykes doesn’t seem like Apollo’s type.
• Hates Small Talk: He'll do anything to avoid talking about his past until it's eventually dragged out into the open.
• Head Desk: Upon The Reveal that Dhurke has been dead all this time and was being channeled by Maya and (later) Amara, he lifts his head up and slams it onto the desk in despair. This is absolutely not Played for Laughs.
• Hereditary Hairstyle: It comes from his Dad's side, except Apollo's horns are pointed up instead of down like his father, Jove.
  • Although they have different fathers, his half-sister Trucy also has small hair spikes on the top of her head which resemble Apollo's.
• Heroic BSoD: Briefly in Case 6-5, when he finds out Dhurke has been Dead All Along. Similar to Phoenix in Case 2-4, he gets a unique "utter despair" animation for the first time ever.
• He's Back!: In Dual Destinies, the game seems to be bent on break him in cases 4 and 5, but when he manages to shake off his funk and trust both Athena and Phoenix completely, he drops his bandages, Eyepatch of Power and Coat Cape and stands in court with Phoenix for the first time since Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.
• Hollywood Healing: In case 1 of Dual Destinies, Apollo is so battered that his attempt to defend Juniper Woods has to be passed to Athena because he is physically unable to do so (and then after the case he gets conked on the head). After case 4, he takes his "leave of absence" and does some investigation but he's still wearing all his bandages. Come the climax of case 5 he unwraps his bandages and is right as rain, able enough to help Phoenix with his defense of Athena. All of this happens...maybe over the span of two or three days at most, at a time when the other characters seemed to think he would be in bed recuperating for a while.
• Hot-Blooded: A phrase used over and over to describe Apollo is his "passionate heart burning red". This is even more obvious in "Turnabout Serenade", when Apollo and Daryan Crescend would almost duke it out if it weren't for Klavier's intervention.
• Hyper-Awareness: An explicit ability of his due to his Gramarye ancestry, and heightened by his Bracelet. Percieving involves noticing even the most minor of nervous tics and using them to have witnesses reveal information they are trying to hide.
• I Choose to Stay: Decides to stay and open his own law office in the now liberated Khura'in at the end of "Turnabout Revolution".
• Idiot Hair: His two..."horns", which helps endear him during his formative years and go on to become a defining physical characteristic in his later appearances. The fact Trucy also has a set of these, albeit smaller, under her top hat connects the pair before their true relationship is actually confirmed.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: He refuses to compromise his morals in any way, shape, or form in his pursuit of justice.
• Insult of Endearment: He is given the insulting nickname "Horn Head" by Rayfa. She later warms up to Apollo, but still calls him "Horn Head".
• Ironic Echo: At one point during his Conflicting Loyalty in "Turnabout for Tomorrow", Apollo becomes something of a shadow of his old mentor, Kristoph, mimicking some of his animations and lines. The following quote was even highlighted in-game, drawing further attention to its significance.
  Apollo: Evidence is everything in court.
• Irony: At the beginning of Apollo Justice, where Trucy is revealed to be Phoenix's "daughter", Apollo is somewhat shocked upon realizing that would mean Phoenix would've had a kid at just 18 or so. Doing the math reveals that Apollo's mother would also have been 18 when he was born.
• It's Personal: Becomes so dead-set on indicting the person who killed his best friend Clay that he decides to leave the Wright Anything Agency to act on his own. Turns out the main reason for his actions was due to his perceiving ability and evidence piling up against Athena.
• Keet: He's eccentric and loud, while managing to smile a goofy smile quite often in Dual Destinies. When he's not being broken that is.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: He is Phoenix's student, after all.
• Kubrick Stare: Apparently this is how he looks like when he's using Perceive.
• Last-Name Basis: In the Japanese version he always refers to people by their last name (with "-san" added to the end), except for Trucy (which makes sense since he reserves "Naruhodou" to Phoenix) and Clay. In the English version, he tends to call people "Mr./Ms. [Name]" in court, even if he's quite familiar with them.
• Leitmotif: "A New Chapter of Trials!", his Objection theme, which gets remixes in the following games. Dual Destinies also gives him a calmer variation, "I'm Fine!", used as his proper character theme.
• Living Lie Detector: He can use either evidence or his perception ability to expose lies.
• Made of Iron: While he hasn't been through quite as much crap as Phoenix has, he still manages to body-block a large piece of debris with relatively minor injuries and he quickly recovers from a Tap on the Head shortly afterwards without any lasting trauma.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Apollo" because he exposes the truth; "Justice" because... well... "Hosuke" means "law boy" and "Odoroki" means surprise; it would roughly mean 'A surprising man of law'. Also, the god "Apollo" was not only the god of truth, but also of the sun and is sometimes attributed with reviving the sun every morning, giving Apollo yet another connection to Phoenix. The god Apollo was also attributed with establishing the legal system of 12 jury members to decide guilt, according to Aeschylus's play "The Eumenides", which describes the god essentially being the first attorney who defends a client accused of matricide, of all things. This one gets lampshaded by Phoenix when Juniper compares Apollo to the sun:
    Phoenix: (The way she makes him sound... you'd think Apollo was some ancient god...)
    Phoenix: (Oh, wait...)
  • Apollo was also the Greek god of music, foreshadowing the fact that, albeit at different times, both of Apollo's parents have been musicians.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Near the end of case 5 in Dual Destinies, he realizes how the phantom tricked him into thinking Athena was Clay Terran's killer. This causes Apollo to feel incredibly foolish for turning against them.
  Apollo: The scumbag even made me turn on Athena! Damn it! How the hell did I fall for that?!
• Mysterious Past: Other than the fact that he was abandoned when he was a year old, nothing was known about Apollo's past or motivations for becoming a lawyer until Dual Destinies and especially Spirit of Justice revealed his backstory. This is lampshaded, with other characters calling him out for not telling them until they become relevant to the story.
• The Napoleon: A more downplayed one compared Franziska (whom he is three centimetres taller than). He's loud, brash, Hot-Blooded, and possesses the "big personality" trait of the Napoleon. The one time his lack of stature has attention drawn to it, he immediately points out that the person calling him short is shorter than he is.
• Neat Freak: According to Spirit of Justice, Apollo instinctively cleans when he sees a mess because he's the only one who ever cleans up at the agency.
• Nerves of Steel:
  • It takes some nerve to be willing to not move an inch when the building you're in is about to blow up only to see to it that justice gets carried out. And then taking things a step farther after the place actually blows up with him in it, selflessly using his own body to shield another person from dangerous, falling rubble.
  • Pulls it off again in Spirit of Justice, where he manages to puzzle out a way to overthrow Queen Gar'an while her royal guards are pointing assault rifles at him.
• Nice Guy: He's definitely a little overexuberant, but his heart is absolutely in the right place.
• No Indoor Voice: Chords of Steel! He's called out several times for being loud by other characters.
• Oblivious to Love: Towards Juniper Woods in Dual Destinies: she literally starts knitting heart-patterned scarfs when the conversation so much as refers to him, and he doesn’t seem to notice. Subverted once you get inside his head in case 4, where it’s revealed he worries about putting her off if he doesn’t play it cool and act natural.
• Older Than They Look: Kid still gets mistaken for a high-schooler.
• Only Sane Man: Apollo is usually the one hanging a giant lampshade over how ridiculous some of the stuff he and the others at the agency get put through is. Although he's certainly Not So Above It All.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After the death of his best friend Clay, Apollo becomes much more serious and quiet as he deals with his doubt and tries to find the truth of what happened.
  Trucy: I'm really worried about him. He's not himself at all. He's usually not so cool and dark and mysterious like that!
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: Apollo's bracelet, one of a pair that belonged to his mother and left with him before he was abandoned. It ended up being very important to his Living Lie Detector powers.
• Out of Focus: Underwent this during the 6-year gap between the releases of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies. While Edgeworth got two spin-offs and Phoenix got two crossover appearances, and both got additional media like films and musicals, Apollo was nowhere to be seen, even eventually being dropped off the 10th anniversary site. Dual Destinies brings him back as a Deuteragonist, however. And in Spirit of Justice, he becomes the main character, which is especially obvious in the last case.
• Parental Abandonment: He spent all his life without his parents because his father died while trying to save him from a fire, and his mother returned to her troupe because she thought Apollo also died in the fire.
• The Perry Mason Method: Like Phoenix, he operates in court following this trope.
• Power Incontinence: Since his first case, Apollo's Perceive ability was shown to not be in his control, but his inability to stop perceiving others when they're tense or lying to him becomes a plot point in Dual Destinies.
• Power Limiter: His Eyepatch of Power is actually this, as it disables one of his eyes used to perceive people's thoughts.
• Primal Fear: Is scared of heights. Trucy and Athena make fun of this every chance they get.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: Though it's never really returned to the level it was when Apollo first met Phoenix, by Dual Destinies, it's become clear that Apollo has more or less returned to respecting Phoenix as a mentor and Defense Attorney. He trusts him enough that when his private investigation all seems to point to Athena being the murderer of Clay, he confronts Phoenix in court due to believing that he was the one person who could prove his conclusion wrong. In the first Bad Ending of Turnabout Revolution, this unfortunately stays collapsed.
• Red Hot Masculinity: Apollo is passionate and headstrong, with a "passionate heart burning red". Red is also his favorite color and is featured prominently in his outfits.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Phoenix's Blue, being more excitable, hot-blooded, and prone to anger than Phoenix is. Jinxie Tenma even mistakes him for a literal Red Oni. A shining example comes in their responses to Athena asking if she can assault someone annoying her, Gaspen Payne for Phoenix, and Florent L'Belle for Apollo. Phoenix vehemently tells her not to, while Apollo simply tells her to get in line because he wants to do it first. Compared to Athena he's slightly less excitable, however.
• Refusal of the Call: At the end of 4-1, Phoenix asks Apollo to join his firm. But being that he just let Apollo unknowingly use forged evidence to win a case, Apollo adamantly refuses even though it had been his dream to work at Wright & Co. Law Offices. After two months of unemployment and a (false) emergency call from Wright, he finally ends up joining the agency.
• The Reliable One: Out of all the employees of Wright Anything Agency, Apollo is the most likely to be doing the extra work no one else wants to do, such as cleaning the toilet, dealing with paperwork or running errands.
• Restraining Bolt: What his Eyepatch of Power actually is; he uses it to stop his bracelet from triggering his perception abilities every time Athena lies about what she was doing during Clay's murder. He uses it partially so he can function without his abilities from going off, but mostly because he doesn't want to believe Athena is actually guilty for killing his best friend.
• Revenge Before Reason: In a trial, a bomb is about to go off in the courtroom, yet Apollo still wants to continue with the trial. This is a direct side-effect of the below trope.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Kickstarted by Clay Terran's death. He gets into a conflict of interest with himself when the prime suspect for the murder turns out to be Athena Cykes.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl:
  • Has this dynamic with Trucy in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, being the dry, snarky, and down-to-earth Straight Man to her more cheery and vividly imaginative nature.
  • Also shares this dynamic heavily with Athena in Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice, as she presents herself as having a more tomboyish, openly active, and energetic nature to contrast his more calm and rational approach.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: This is Apollo's reaction when Klavier assumes he's dating Athena.
• Ship Tease:
  • Between him and Athena. Klavier even thinks Athena is Apollo's girlfriend, and Bonny mistakenly assumes that Apollo and Athena are a comedy duo performing their old married couple routine when they're really just behaving like they usually do around each other.
  • Juniper has a huge crush on Apollo, knitting scarves with hearts in them when anyone so much as mentions Apollo. Somehow, he hasn't noticed.
  • With Aura Blackquill, who seems to have a soft spot for Apollo. Be it because she sympathized with his loss, hoped his investigation would lead to Athena's conviction, or both.
  • Seems to get a lot with Trucy, although if that ever looked like it was going to happen, Phoenix would put a stop to it by revealing that they're half-siblings.
  • He seems to get some with Vera Misham in "Turnabout Succession". His awkward attempts to get her to open up, not to mention him actually crying when he learns she'll be okay after both her trial and her poisoning, practically ooze this.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • Blackquill constantly interrupts Apollo as he makes various explanations of his defense in 5-2. Eventually, Apollo has enough and proceeds to tell Blackquill to put a sock in it and listen to his case for once.
  • In 6-2, Nahyuta claims that Apollo and Trucy, the defense and the defendant, are going to hell near the end of the trial, just before Apollo proves the true culprit's guilt. Apollo then says Nahyuta is going to hell for trying to get an innocent girl convicted of murder.
• Sincerest Form of Flattery: Why his mannerisms are so similar to Phoenix's, his idol.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: This is likely why he attracts the attention of so many women, he's straight forward, honest, and an extremely affable guy.
• Straight Man: Taking over this role from Phoenix in the original trilogy, but cranked up a few notches due to his tendency to try to be as professional as possible no matter how ridiculous the situations or people around him get.
• Strong Family Resemblance: As revealed in Spirit of Justice, he's the spitting image of his biological father, Jove Justice. Subverted with Dhurke, though, who also kind of looks like him but is simply his foster father.
• Super Drowning Skills: Spirit of Justice reveals that he doesn't know how to swim. Gets Played for Drama when Apollo is trapped in an underground lake near Kurain Village that is rapidly filling up with water and nearly drowns.
• Super-Senses: Has a highly attuned sense of visual perception even without his bracelet.
• Super Wrist-Gadget: His bracelet lets him know when a person is nervous.
  • This bears some explanation, pieced together from his debut game. His bracelet is made of a heat-reactive alloy, unique from his birthplace country, which is used to make jewelry that expands together with its wearer as they age and grow up. It just so happens to help Apollo pick up on his own subconscious reactions to Perceive, those hinted to be very small muscular contractions, because the expansion process of the bracelet is as slow as you'd expect from a metal to do that. In short, his self-adjusting bracelet doesn't adjust as quick as the spasms that happens when his vision subconsciously picks up a tell on someone else, so he feels this piece of jewelry tightening weakly around his wrist at those moments.
• Supporting Protagonist: Phoenix is still the one driving the larger metaplot, even in his game. However, this is inverted in Spirit of Justice as the game has Phoenix in the name while the story is actually about Apollo.
• Survival Mantra: His "I'm fine!" yelling is always meant to encourage himself. He also gives this encouragement to others with an equally loud "You'll be fine!"
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Looked like he was one for Phoenix before he diverged into his own character (though he still retains a lot of Phoenix's traits).
• Tears of Fear: In case 4-2, Apollo starts crying when he finds Trucy after he thought she was abducted in the court room. Turns out it was her stalling for time.
• Tears of Joy: In the aftermath of case 4-4, Apollo cries when it turns out that Vera was going to be alright.
• Taking the Bullet: Taking the gigantic chunk of debris, actually, for Juniper. This is how he got his injuries.
• Tap on the Head: At one point, Apollo is attacked and knocked out with a pointed piece of rubble. Even though it was apparently bad enough to cause bleeding, he was just fine after a night in the hospital.
• 10-Minute Retirement: In Dual Destinies, Apollo leaves The Wright Anything Agency to search for the true murderer of his friend Clay saying that the truth Phoenix searches for is probably different from his own. It only lasts less than a day.
• Theme Naming: Has a mythology-based given name like his fellow Wright Anything Agency attorneys: see Meaningful Name entry.
• Thinking Tic: Apollo pushes his left index finger in the center of his forehead while resting his right arm in the crook of his left arm during his thinking animation.
• This Loser Is You: Wanted to be exactly like Phoenix... and gets called out for being needlessly loud and showy in court.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Between the fourth and fifth game. He comes across as a lot more composed and in control of both his attitude in court, and also his perceiving abilities. Although he's still perfectly capable of bluffing his way to the truth if he has to...
  • He takes several levels in badass in the sixth game. By the end, he has defeated Phoenix in court, overthrown a queen by convicting her of murder, and opened his own law firm in Khura'in.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Temporarily in Dual Destinies when he begins to suspect Athena might be responsible for Clay's murder.
• Tragic Keepsake:
  • The jacket he wears in Dual Destinies was owned by his deceased friend Clay Terran.
  • His bracelet could be seen as this, as it was the only thing he had left from his biological parents after he was abandoned.
  • The former Sahdmadhi law firm becomes this in "Turnabout Revolution" as he inherits it following Khura'in's liberation.
• Trauma Conga Line:
  • Experiences one in Dual Destinies. It begins when Clay, his best friend since middle school, gets murdered right before finally accomplishing his life's dream. Clay's mentor and Apollo's acquaintance gets accused for the murder. When going to investigate the crime with his partner Athena, she lies about having seen the murder weapon and sends Apollo into an existential dilemma when she keeps causing his bracelet to react whenever she talks about the case. Because of this, he handicaps himself with an eyepatch so he can't perceive Athena's tells. During the trial, a bomb goes off, which he is caught in and then gets injured further while saving Junie from falling rubble. Junie is accused of the bombing and murder of a third party, and Apollo volunteers to defend her, only to succumb to his injuries right before the trial and has to pass it on to Athena. Not long after, while doing a bit of investigation on the side, he's assaulted in the ruins of Courtroom #4 and sent back to the hospital. After coming to, he takes a leave of absence from the Wright Anything Agency so that he could sort out his suspicions on Athena. But when he resumes his investigation of Clay's murder, he comes to the only logical conclusion, based on the decisive evidence found by both him and Detective Fulbright, that Athena may be the killer. He interrupts the final verdict in case 5-5 in hopes that Wright can find a hole in his reasoning and clear up his doubt.
  • Spirit of Justice isn't really kind to him either. First, his friend and assistant Trucy is arrested for murder. Then the office he works in nearly gets repossessed because of somebody copying Trucy's signature on a shady contract. He meets his foster brother again after 10 years in the middle of defending her, who has not only changed dramatically, but tells Apollo that he's going to hell for defending criminals. He meets his foster father again after 10+ years, where later on the two of them are thrown deep into a cave where he nearly drowns. When the two of them end up in Khura'in, he defends him in court against suspicions of murder, only to find out that he's been Dead All Along. This revelation is so devastating that Apollo suffers a Heroic BSoD as he questions his own motivations for becoming a lawyer. And after he recovers from that shock, he eventually has to call for a seance to see the final moments of his biological father, Jove Justice, who he never got to know since Jove was killed when Apollo was a baby. Note that this happens roughly four to five months after the events of "The Cosmic Turnabout"/"Turnabout for Tomorrow".
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • Ends up as one of these for Chessmaster Phoenix. Later on when he helps the aforementioned out, at least he's doing it willingly.
  • He was also one for the phantom in Dual Destinies. The lighter presented as evidence is used to cast suspicion on Athena, not knowing that the person who gave the evidence was the one responsible for Clay Terran's death.
• Waistcoat of Style: His signature outfit, in bright red. Dual Destinies establishes that he has a red jacket to match, which can be seen draped over one of the couches at the agency.
• The Watson: Like Phoenix to the Kurain Channeling Technique, he's the one asking all the relevant questions about all the magic acts he sees. In Dual Destinies, he has this role again for all the Japanese folklore he encounters.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Has this dynamic with Ema with them throwing snarky banters to each other, though it depends on her mood. It's more consistent with Athena once she is introduced.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • Apollo is adverse to heights. In "The Magical Turnabout", he and Athena have to climb up to a stage catwalk. Athena notes that Apollo's white as a sheet and mentally he keeps reminding himself not to look down.
  • One witness in another case wears a giant cardboard box and shuffles around in it to spy on people, sometimes making a hissing sound. When Apollo first meets them he says "Don't let it be a SNAAAAAKKKEE!!"
• You Can Always Tell a Liar: He is able to read and expose even the subtlest tell to expose lies by someone he is interrogating or cross-examining with his perception ability unless the prosecutor does something to interfere with this ability.

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"I'll never forget everything you've done for me, Mr. Wright! I don't know how I'll ever repay you! Here's to seeing you back in the U.S. again someday! Until then... you know where to find me!"

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Athena Cykes (Kokone Kizuki)

Athena Cykes (Kokone Kizuki)

Voiced by (Japanese): Megumi Han (DD, SoJ)

Voiced by (English): Wendee Lee (DD, SoJ)

Debut: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies

"Mr. Wright? Can I go and give that prosecutor a smack?!"

Known as The Courtroom Révolutionnaire and The Healing Attorney. Athena is very confident, cheerful and has a strong sense of justice. However, her inexperience and her extreme desire for competition, combined with the attributes stated before, sometimes get her in trouble in court and outside as well. She's much closer to being a true successor of the Phoenix Wright school than Apollo is, as her reliance in courtroom antics is noticeable (although not completely as she much more prefers the use of technology and psychology than bluffs).

Born with a special sense of hearing which greatly troubled her as a child, Athena was a shy kid with few friends. After a certain tragic event she was forced to leave America and went to live in Europe for the rest of her childhood. Fueled by her personal objective, she acquired a lawyer's badge by the age of 18, as well as a background in psychology. While in Europe, she met Phoenix and soon he hired her for his Agency. Since then, she has been working with her partner and co-worker Apollo Justice. Despite still being green, she has proven time and time again her worth as an attorney and her usefulness as an assistant, establishing herself as a valuable member of the Agency.

Her power is a special sense of hearing so heightened that it can discover a person's true feelings just by listening to his/her words. She can input this information on her computer and analyze it by using the "Mood Matrix", a holographic program with an interface that shows all the emotions felt by a person while speaking, making it useful for searching contradicting emotions. In other words, she will know if you are lying because your voice will give you away. This makes it virtually impossible for her to take on guilty clients. This is also a great way for her to find the root of a person's emotional turmoil and cure it, hence her secondary nickname of "Healing Attorney".

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• Ambiguously Absent Parent: No mention has ever been made as to who and where her father is.
• Affectionate Nickname: "Thena" to Juniper.
• Alliterative Name: In Japanese, Kokone Kizuki.
• Amplifier Artifact: Similar to how Apollo needs his bracelet to make any use of his ability to pick up deception, Athena can hear slight fluctuations in a subject's heart rhythm when their emotional state is concealing information but she requires Widget to actually parse out the real meaning of the fluctuations and turn it into meaningful data (so she knows when she's on the right track when probing for more info).
• Animal Motifs: Simon Blackquill describes her as a canary: loud, jumpy, and bright yellow. Canaries are also well known for their history of saving people, which they could do because they were sensitive to problems humans couldn't see.
• Anime Hair: Nothing all that odd about the ponytail on the left side of her head, but that cowlick on the other side can only be this trope. A few guards in Spirit of Justice compare it to a spider's leg.
• Badass Adorable: Martial artist, lawyer, and empath all in one cute package. She even ran a whole marathon without stopping when she was only 17.
• Badass Bookworm: Studying law and psychology all in the span of seven years is pretty impressive... and yet she can also give you a mean judo flip.
• Berserk Button: One way to really get under her skin is to not take her seriously as a lawyer.
• Big Fancy House: Turns out her childhood home was the GYAXA Space Center!
• The Big Girl: While not remarkably tall or muscular, she can wreck anyone who pisses her off (as a Jerkass police officer finds out the hard way) with utter ease, unlike Phoenix and Apollo who are just good at law. In true Show, Don't Tell fashion, we see an anime cutscene where she very easily defeats a police officer in Yokai Lane. We even get several replays of the judo flip.
• Big "NO!": She does this three times as a plot point. The first time is when Phoenix witnesses her black Psyche-Locks, the second is when after Simon Blackquill reveals the UR-1 truth, then the third is when Phoenix breaks her black Psyche-Locks.
• Blessed with Suck: Her ability to hear is actually so advanced and refined that, as a child, she would always hear the cacophony of emotions of everyone around her, overwhelming her. Her mother fixed this by giving her special headphones to wear that would suppress the power to just enough.
• Boisterous Bruiser: A rare female example. She's hyper, dramatic, ready to make fun of any mundane thing, has an active imagination, and has a liking to hit her fists together before doing anything that she finds interesting. Not to mention she knows martial arts, so she fills the bill in the strength department as well.
• Broken Ace: She's a prodigy, able to meld law practice with emotional psychology, but good lord, the trauma on that girl. Her beloved mother was killed when she was young, someone she considered her brother was blamed for it, and she actually saw her mother die but is repressing the memories. She still has trouble in courtrooms because it's relatively easy to press her Trauma Button and send her into a Heroic BSoD, needing her co-counsel to snap her out of it.
• Break the Cutie: Payne does this to her in case 5-1, while Blackquill does this in 5-2, 5-6 and 5-5.
• Butt-Monkey: Her role in "Turnabout Time Traveler" is being pursued by Trucy for a life-threatening magic trick. She can't catch a break. And when she does, it isn't long until Trucy reappears.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Initially a very morose, passive child, Athena started taking an active role in events when her mother was murdered. She began by stabbing the guy who did it.
• Canon Immigrant: Her use of holograms originated in the film adaptation of the first game.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Auf geht's! Let's do this!". The latter phrase is said in English even in the Japanese version.
  • "GOT IT!", used during Mood Matrix segments when she or the other attorneys notice a contradiction.
• Character Tics: She tends to fiddle with her earring when she's in thought. She also strokes her ponytail when flustered, and punches her fists when she's ready to expose the truth.
• Chekhov's Gun: Her earring may not seem like an important clue in "Turnabout for Tomorrow", however it became the hope that ended the Dark Age of the Law when Phoenix used it to take down the real criminal.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: She's an expert in analytic psychology, but she's severely hampered by her own emotional trauma.
• Color-Coded Emotions: The emotions displayed by the mood matrix which also reflect her emotions when not in use. Light blue is neutral, green is happiness/joy, dark blue is sadness/fear, yellow is surprise/confusion, red is anger/frustration, and black is for a Heroic BSoD.
• Color Motif: Yellow.
• Condescending Compassion: In over five years of work to save Simon, she never once considered the possibility that he might have had a reason for Taking the Heat. (Although Simon's reticence about the situation did not help)
• Cop Hater: In her first encounter with a police officer, she calls him pig-headed for assuming her to be a high school ditcher pretending to be a lawyer, and outright suplexes the cop (onto Apollo, no less) when he grabs her wrist.
• Creepy Child: How she appears in "Turnabout for Tomorrow" during the flashback of how she tried to 'fix' her mom.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Her Establishing Character Moment is her showing off her advanced tech, proudly marching up the courtroom stairs, then tripping and tumbling down to the bottom.
• Cuteness Proximity: In "Turnabout Revolution", she can't help but gush over how cute Armie Buff is.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Her mother Metis was brutally murdered in front of her when she was just a child and she suffers from PTSD as a result. Talking about her past with her in "Turnabout for Tomorrow" actually brings up black Psyche-Locks!◊
• A Day in the Limelight: Her role in Spirit of Justice isn't as important as in Dual Destinies, but she does get Case 4 primarily all to herself.
• Deadpan Snarker: She's not as snarky as Phoenix or Apollo, but due to her energetic and impulsive nature, she's much more likely to be vocal about it.
• Demoted to Extra: Her overall role in the main story of Spirit of Justice is just moral support. The one case where she takes center stage is a Breather Episode with no investigation and only a single trial day, and it's completely unrelated to the overarching plot. Even the special episode demotes her by having her constantly be chased around by Trucy trying to get her to do life-endangering tricks, and unlike Apollo's offscreen investigations of a mysterious piece of evidence in the previous game's special episode, she doesn't get to investigate any of the sort.
• Didn't Think This Through: When she finally manages to prove Simon's innocence, she's satisfied with the case...and then Edgeworth reminds her that they still have to figure out who the real killer was and that now Athena herself is a suspect.
• Ditzy Genius: Has qualifications in both law and psychology. She's also hyper and clumsy.
• The Dog Bites Back: Suggested as a motive for her possible matricide, upon apparently being used by her mother as a guinea pig for her research. Ultimately subverted, Athena loved her mother and she loved her back, and would've never murdered her.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Has these when her past is brought up, complete with a bloody background.
• Emotional Bruiser: She's the Big Girl of the agency, but is prone to overdo drama and tears for small things. Dual Destinies brings the "tears" part to its limit.
• The Empath: She can actually sense the attitude and feelings of the people around her. This overwhelmed her as a child, and as a result she wasn't able to handle people.
• Establishing Character Moment: Her establishing moment for Apollo is him witnessing her judo throw a cop that was about to wrongfully arrest her when he refused to believe that she's a lawyer at 18... unfortunately for Apollo, she throws the cop at him!
• Expressive Hair: Athena's ponytail spikes like a lightning bolt when she's shocked.
• Expressive Accessory: When not using her Mood Matrix, the device (nicknamed "Widget") takes the appearance of various facial expressions (along with its associating color) to reflect on what mood she's in (similar to what a mood ring does, although mood rings don't show facial expressions), sometimes it will even speak her thoughts aloud. Quite tellingly, it shuts off whenever she experiences a Heroic BSoD.
• Expy: She looks a lot like Lynne with different eyes and hairstyle. Both are also Fiery Redheads and Genki Girls.
• Fanservice:
  • Since she spent her high school years living in Europe, she was not a Themis Law Academy student. Therefore, her Downloadable Content Sailor Fuku outfit can only be considered this.
  • Her bonus outfit in Spirit of Justice is also Fanservice, being a Tres Bien waitress outfit, something she's never even been involved with.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Her Tomboyish Ponytail, Tricked Out Glove, and single earring.
• Fiery Redhead: Young, red-headed, headstrong and competitive.
• A Fool for a Client: Indirectly plays this role in "Turnabout for Tomorrow". Phoenix Wright is still the main Defense Attorney but she plays the role for assistant when they defend Simon Blackquill and co-assists with Apollo Justice in confronting the real killer. The Judge reminds her to return to the defendant seat after it is all finished.
• Foreshadowing:
  • She tends to unconsciously mimic other people's speech patterns (see Gratuitous Foreign Language below): it's later shown that she does the same for their emotions, getting easily carried away by their doubt or distress.
  • What kind of person would need a device that vocalizes their emotions? The kind of person Athena used to be.
• Fun Personified: Is let down by boring people (like Apollo, when he gets particularly serious or snarky), but otherwise, she's always ready to have fun in any situation, with any mundane thing around. She's the Plucky Comic Relief as of Dual Destinies, after all. She can get serious when the situation demands it, though. Obviously.
• Genki Girl: Probably the genkiest in the series. It's likely that she's overcompensating for her very stifled childhood.
• Girl in the Tower: When Athena was young, she lived in GYAXA's Space Center with her mother. She rarely left the Center because her extremely sensitive hearing made it difficult for her to be in crowds, and only a handful of people knew she even existed. It wasn't a disadvantaged childhood, exactly- her mother really did love her- but it was a while before she got any sort of grasp on social norms. Luckily, Simon was there to guard Metis' "most beloved treasure".
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: In the Japanese version, she speaks brief English phrases. In the English version, she occasionally drops German, Spanish and French phrases. Spirit of Justice adds Italian to the mix.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Photographs of her in her youth shown in Dual Destinies imply that her hair's been in the same long side-ponytail since childhood.
• Harmful to Minors: The tragic incident of her childhood is totally this. Also, something you probably want to keep away from real children too, hence the M-rating that Visual Novel got.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: During her youth, she was much less social and wore heavy headphones whenever she went out in public. Justified as the headphones were specially designed to protect her from Sensory Overload due to hearing the emotions of everyone around her at once.
• Hereditary Hairstyle: Athena's long ponytail may be an attempt to mimic her mother's.
• Heroic BSoD: Every prosecutor she has faced as lead defense attorney including Butt-Monkey Gaspen Payne has successfully managed to induce this in her in every trial she has led the defense in, and all of these prosecutors would have defeated her in these trials if she did not have a co-counsel to snap her out of this or if another lawyer of the Wright Anything Agency did not step in to take over the defense.
  • Suffers from this many times thanks to her PTSD. The major one being when being accused of killing her own mother.
  • She gets one in case 3 after Aristotle Means gives her a "Reason You Suck" Speech stating she should be ashamed to call herself a lawyer for bringing up false charges on Hugh O'Conner. Thankfully, everyone else in court besides Means helps her snap out of it.
• Holographic Terminal: How Athena operates the Mood Matrix and other software stored on Widget.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: She is an awesome co-counsel whose psychology helps fix up testimonies from witnesses who have lost their sanity or suffer other psychological problems which distort their testimonies while they are on the stand, and will help the lead attorney if asked if the lead attorney makes too many mistakes in one testimony. However, she is not yet cut out to lead a defense alone, because the prosecutors she has faced including Butt-Monkey Gaspen Payne have successfully induced a Heroic BSoD in her in every trial she has served as a lead defense attorney which would have resulted in guilty verdicts in every one of those trials if someone did not bail her out of it.
• Improbable Age: Athena is the youngest defense attorney in the series to date, having gotten her badge at the age of 18. Even more impressive considering that, in addition to studying law, she specialized in analytical psychology, meaning she is both a qualified lawyer and a qualified psychologist.
• Inconsistent Spelling: It may be a simple typo, but press releases from E3 2013 have spelled her surname as "Sykes" instead of "Cykes".
• Iron Butt-Monkey: She becomes this in "Turnabout Time Traveler". Her athletic build, which supposedly keeps her from getting injured by tricks during Trucy's practice sessions, really doesn't help her case. Mr. Wright won't let her sneak out of her duties, either.
• Irony: Athena, whose defining characteristic as an attorney is to find contradictions between a person's words and their emotions, often shows such contradictions herself, with Widget sometimes displaying an emotion that does not match Athena's animation.
• It's Personal: Vows to clear her best friend Juniper Woods's and Simon Blackquill's name, no matter what it takes.
• It Was with You All Along: The evidence used to expose the real killer in "Turnabout for Tomorrow" is her earring.
• Just a Kid: Case 4 of Spirit of Justice has her get annoyed with pretty much everyone in the court for treating her like a child. She doesn't help things by acting like one for a good portion of it.
• Large Ham: Athena is by far one of the most expressive characters in the series, even in a World of Ham, fitting with her specialty in psychology and reading emotions. Her face is very prone to squashing and stretching, and her eyes during emotional outbursts come straight out of a shōnen manga.
• Leitmotif: "Let's Do This!", a cheery song that represents her eagerness and active personality. Her Objection theme, "Courtroom Révolutionnaire", is a triumphant variation of it, and it gains a remix in Spirit of Justice. It also gets a Dark Reprise as "Reminiscence ~ Tragic Memories" during "Turnabout for Tomorrow".
• Living Lie Detector: Athena's ultra-sensitive hearing can allow her to detect when a subject's heart is betraying their emotions if they are in the heat of lying. From there she can use the Mood Matrix system within Widget to break down what she is sensing with her hearing and understand the source of the discord, revealing information that may not have been readily apparent. Thus she is able to identify mistruths even when the subject is doing an otherwise admirable job of concealing it.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Her English first name, Athena, is the name of the Greek goddess of wisdom and defensive warfare. The latter part was first revealed to the player when she throws the officer in "The Monstrous Turnabout" in the air towards Apollo. Additionally, the Greek goddess wasn't only the patron goddess of wisdom and tactical warfare, but the goddess who inspired the creation of the judicial court system. Fitting, as Athena takes part in kickstarting the end of The Dark Age of the Law. Her last name is pronounced like "Psyches", both to refer to her focus on psychology.
  • Also applies to her original name. It's written like this: 希月 心音. 心音 means 'Heart Sound'; 希月 means 'Hope Moon'. Both signifies her hearing ability and lunar motif (as well as her earring's role as the decisive evidence in case 5-5) respectively.
• Mood-Swinger: Thanks to her boisterous personality, she can hit a wide range of emotions even within a single dialogue box.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When a cheerful, energetic girl like her suddenly becomes a helpless quivering wreck, sometimes while doing her job no less, it is clear as day that something very bad had happened to her. When the cause is revealed, it really is very bad.
  • Similarly, she goes utterly quiet around Aura for a reason...
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: The single earring she wears is a memento from her late mother. It's made from the moon rock that was recovered seven years ago.
• Out of Focus: She spends nearly the entirety of "Turnabout Time Traveller" acting as Trucy's assistant for her magic tricks offscreen, much to her chagrin.
• Parental Abandonment: Par for the course in the new trilogy, she grows up without parents.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Blackquill.
• Plucky Girl: Described as "a determined girl who will do anything to help her superior". She also has a personal objective of her own during the events of Dual Destinies: clearing the name of Simon Blackquill.
• The Pollyanna: Keeps a smile on her face and stays optimistic against all odds. This is how she tries to get over her childhood trauma. Does not work all the time.
• Power Incontinence: As a child, she was prone to Sensory Overload due to being able to hear the feelings of everyone in the vicinity.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: In personality, the red to Blackquill's blue.
• Sailor Fuku: Her DLC costume for Dual Destinies is an outfit similar to a school uniform.
• Sand In My Eyes: Claims this when she tears up after Apollo explains their client, Damian Tenma. She actually cries at some point in the game though.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl:
  • The hyper, cheery energetic girl to Blackquill's grim, pragmatic savvy guy, especially in Turnabout Storyteller.
  • She also has this sort of dynamic with Apollo throughout Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice, with Apollo being drier, snarkier, and unable to help but put up with her antics.
• Science Heroine: Like Kay Faraday, her "power" is explicitly a gadget, though she uses it to amplify her natural talent at reading moods.
• Sensory Overload: When she was a child, her enhanced hearing proved overwhelming in crowded areas, so her mother made her special headphones to dampen her hearing.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: In "Turnabout Academy" she finds Aristotle Means' philosophy - that attorneys should do anything in their power no matter how underhanded or unethical to achieve the verdict they desire - to be repulsive.
• Sleepyhead: According to Athena, she used to nap a lot as a child. Phoenix points out she naps a lot in his office present day. She tries to refute it, but Nick isn't buying it. Proved further in "Turnabout Revolution", where she dozed off while waiting for a plane's arrival — when she woke up, it was already dark.
• Spanner in the Works: Two examples:
  • Her attack in self-defense against the phantom starts a series of events that eventually leads to his downfall.
  • Her going to the wrong airport when she went to go pick up Phoenix bought time for Apollo to find the Founder's Orb, forcing Phoenix to file the lawsuit. Had he gotten the Founder's Orb first, the Defiant Dragons' revolution might have failed.
• Stepford Smiler: When she's arrested for Clay's murder after helping clear Starbuck's name, she hides her distress and shoots Starbuck a bright smile and a congratulations. She also hides her horrific past behind a cheerful, energetic demeanor, even when she is forced to revisit her childhood home.
• Super-Senses: Has an exceptional sense of hearing and perception of minute changes in voices.
• Teen Genius: Became a lawyer/psychology expert at 18.
• Thinking Tic: Athena wraps her right arm around her waist, rests her left arm on her right arm, and tilts her head to the left while she occasionally plays with her right earring with her left index finger. Her eyes also tend to shift back and forth.
• Tomboy: More brash and confrontational than either Maya or Trucy. Makes sense, considering how it's borderline required for attorneys to be able to point and shout with utter conviction. Also the contrast to her friend Juniper's Girly Girl personality.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: While Athena is easily one of the most tomboyish characters in the series, she also wears feminine clothing, has some girly gestures, and likes being called cute.
• Theme Naming: Has a mythology-based given name like her fellow Wright Anything Agency attorneys.
• Trauma Button: Her Dark and Troubled Past triggers a Heroic BSoD every time it's brought up or she feels unable to lead the defense. Widget even shuts down when this happens.
• Trauma Conga Line: "Turnabout for Tomorrow" was the best and worst thing that could have happened to her. To wit: She's already in the middle of a Heroic BSoD due to being accused, in short order, of killing Clay Terran and not even having enough memory of the event to resolutely state she didn't, she's accused by Aura Blackquill of killing her own mother and leading to her brother's unjust death sentence (the same brother she became a defense attorney to save), discovers she had a motive for killing her own mother, and after Simon's Mood Matrix in which we see her covered in said mother's blood, her suppressed memories come rushing back and she realizes Aura may be right. At that point she completely collapses and outright tells the Judge to get it over with and declare her guilty.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Pretty much lost all memory of what really happened when she discovered the phantom and her mother's dead body during "Turnabout for Tomorrow".
• Tricked-Out Gloves: Uses one to operate the Mood Matrix. Curiously, the glove only has three fingers: the thumb, the index and the middle one.
• The Un-Smile: One of Athena's first attempts at forcing a smile as per the Wright motto, Apollo calls her face, "a weird mix of terror and creepy grin".
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Her favorite tactic in getting information out of people, though its effectiveness varies between targets.

Mia Fey (Chihiro Ayasato)

Mia Fey (Chihiro Ayasato)

Voiced by (Japanese): Miyuki Kawahara (OT), Sayaka Ohara (OT voice drama), Chie Nakamura (anime)

Voiced by (English): Christina Katano (OT), Colleen Clinkenbeard (anime)

Played by: Rei Dan (film), Minami Hamabe (child - film)

Debut: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

"Wright? I hope you see the importance of evidence now. Also, hopefully you realize, things change depending on how you look at them. People, too. We never really know if our clients are guilty or innocent. All we can do is believe in them. And in order to believe in them, you have to believe in yourself."

Nick's mentor and an accomplished lawyer. Mia was born the heiress to a once-powerful family of spirit mediums and supposedly inherited top-notch spiritual powers, but she left the village behind to become a lawyer and find out the truth about her mother's disappearance. Although she dies in the second case (which is about twenty minutes into the first game and long before the Wright Anything Agency was founded), she's often hauled back from the afterlife through her spirit medium sister and cousin to give Phoenix advice.

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• Abdicate the Throne: A variation. According to Sister Bikini, while Mia was originally going to be Misty's successor due to being the eldest daughter and having spiritual power, she willingly stepped aside, chose to become an attorney and let Maya become the successor instead so the sisters wouldn't have to fight like their mother and aunt had.
• The Ace: An extremely skilled, attractive Defense Attorney; she mentored Phoenix Wright and almost ended Edgeworth's winning streak before it even began. She’s also stated to have been an excellent spirit medium, surpassing her sister for most of her life even though Mia left to go become a lawyer and Maya has devoted her life, for given value of the phrase, to polishing her art.
  • Given the events of Turnabout Sisters, she ultimately does wind up being the one to put a pin in Edgeworth's victory streak given Phoenix was still too green to seal the deal himself.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • To Dahlia Hawthorne, a feeling that is more than mutual. She takes the 3-1 case simply because of her potential involvement.
  • To Redd White as well. He disgraced her mother and murdered her when she got too close to the truth, but she is the one to take him down for good from beyond the veil of death.
• Backup from Otherworld: Her spirit is a huge help to Phoenix in the first three games, most often by giving advice, but she sometimes takes a more active role (such as shuttling information between Maya and Pearl when Maya is kidnapped).
• Big Damn Heroes: Maya or Pearl channels her just in the nick of time, nine times out of ten. Godot accuses Phoenix of being too reliant on this instead of rational thought and demands he finish the final case of the third game without such assistance, but she does show up as a hallucination when Godot finally breaks down.
• Big Good: Even after dying, Mia is this in the original trilogy, thanks to spirit channeling. She's easily the wisest and most competent of the good guys and often the one to jump in and save the day when everything seems lost. Part of Phoenix's arc during those games is stepping up to replace her in this role.
• Bludgeoned to Death: She was murdered by being struck on the head with a clock designed after The Thinker.
• Body Surf: Does this frequently to give advice to Phoenix through either Maya or Pearl's. In Justice for All, she does this to relay information to Gumshoe in order to find Maya.
• Brainy Brunette: Consistently one of the smartest and well-informed characters in the series; she often has the case figured out long before Phoenix does.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Played straight in case 3-3, when her flatter younger sister Maya channels her so that she can look more attractive in her waitress outfit.
• Collateral Angst: Subverted. She's Phoenix's beloved mentor, he discovers her dead body, and her death kicks off his solo career, but she wasn't killed specifically to spite him. In fact, a little thing like death doesn't stop Mia from being a hero in her own right all the way through the first three games. Phoenix doesn't really beat himself up over her murder, either.
• Cool Big Sis: Maya trusts her absolutely, even venturing out of Kurain to visit her. Mia also cares for Maya deeply, and part of the reason why she left the village to become a lawyer is so that she and Maya wouldn't have to fight over the Master title.
• Crusading Lawyer: Mia dedicated her career to taking down despicable villains; she even came very close to ruining Edgeworth's winning streak before it began. She passed on many of her ideals to Phoenix, who consistently tries to live up to her legacy.
• Cultural Rebel: She is one of the very few Feys who've moved out of Kurain permanently, and is comfortable vis-à-vis the modern world and trusting men. The only visual indication of her heritage is her magatama. In the anime, Morgan, who's both rather traditional and a Jerkass who hates Misty and her children, sees this as a betrayal of the Fey clan.
• Death by Origin Story: She dies shortly after the first case. However, she does return occasionally as a Spirit Advisor.
• Death Glare: How she shuts up Winston Payne at one point in case 3-1.
• Determinator: Even without a spirit medium channelling her, she's still able to somewhat contact Phoenix telepathically, but it seems very difficult to do, judging by the very spotty and strained fashion of the first time she tries this (when hinting to Phoenix that the missing bullet from DL-6 was taken, but not intentionally). When trying this again in "Rise From the Ashes", she's a lot more clear, but leaves Phoenix to figure the rest out.
• Deuteragonist: Her role in Trials & Tribulations. She appears in every single case of the game (the only game in the series in which that happens), is playable in two Whole Episode Flashbacks and factors into the motivations of two major antagonists, and teams up with Phoenix to deliver a Break Her By Talking to Dahlia and final rebuttal to Godot in the game's climax.
• Disappointed in You: In 2-2, if you present the wrong piece of evidence regarding the culprit's motive, Mia tells Phoenix, "I feel embarrassed for you for even thinking of showing that piece of evidence," then provides a brief answer as to why the culprit committed murder.
• Dude Magnet: Seeing as she attracted a number of male admirers including Dick Gumshoe and Larry Butz, then, after death, Victor Kudo and possibly Cody Hackins. Just a photograph was enough to trigger an interest from "Director Hotti" and Luke Atmey. She also had a boyfriend named Diego Armando according to case 3-1 who is shown in-game later on and is still quite concerned about her memory after her death. Unfortunately for her, the relationship ended after Diego was put into a coma by Dahlia's poison, and was assumed he wouldn’t come out of it any time soon.
• First-Name Basis: After she dies and Phoenix consults her spirit, they call each other by her first names, although Phoenix still tends to refer to her as "Chief."
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Responsible sibling to Maya's Foolish, being a rather mature defense attorney. Of course, she's also much older than Maya.
• Foreshadowing: A relatively minor example occurs in "The First Turnabout". When the Judge asks Phoenix a series of questions about the case, one of the options for who the victim was is "Mia Fey"... Guess what happens to her in the second case right after this one...?
• Gentleman Wizard: A female version. In addition to being a talented, high-powered lawyer while dressing and living like it, Mia is stated to have been a powerful spirit medium, consulting with the ghosts of the dead to build up her lifelong investigation into Redd White.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: The first character to do so chronologically in a legitimate courtroom (other than Gregory). Phoenix likely picked it up from her while working under her.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's not above berating Phoenix over him presenting a very weak argument in 2-2 or blackmailing her own murderer into confessing.
• Hair Flip: Fond of it in flashback cases when she's just about to poke a hole in someone's overconfidence.
• Hairstyle Inertia: As seen in the photograph of her and Maya at the end of "Bridge to the Turnabout," Mia's sensible hairstyle has been around since she was a young girl (although she had bangs while starting out as a lawyer).
• Hello, Attorney!: She wears low-cut tops, form-fitting suits, and miniskirts, and many characters are smitten with her. Maya even takes advantage of her sex appeal by channeling her to get Victor Kudo to cooperate. Downplayed in that no one ever really brings up her looks in court itself, outside of Gumshoe briefly the first time he meets her in 3-1.
• Hopeless with Tech: Wright mentions she only has a basic understanding of some tech in Case 2 of the first game.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In case 1-1, if you screw up and mistakenly name her as the defendant, she gives the excuse of having to go home to get a package.
• Informed Ability: According to Maya, Mia had strong spiritual power, and her records of her investigations mention communing with the dead; however, since she dies early on, we never get to see this in action. Being able to channel her is instead indicative of Maya's and Pearl's abilities.
• Lascivious Beauty Mark: Mia Fey, Nick's Sexy Mentor, has a noticeable mole off the side of her mouth. She's drawn in a fanservicey suit (a cleavage-baring top, form-fitting blazer, and miniskirt) and draws much male attention throughout the series. Her sister has even taken advantage of her sex appeal to get a witness to cooperate.
• Last-Name Basis: When she's representing Phoenix at their trial, they call each other "Mr. Wright" and "Ms. Fey". When Phoenix starts working for her, she calls him "Wright" and he calls her "Chief."
• Leitmotif: "The Ballad of Turnabout Sisters", a mellow remix of the Turnabout Sisters' theme that, while used in a few other occurrences with Maya, is strongly associated with Mia and her appearances.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Chihiro" means "1000 questions"; fitting, considering her lawyering techniques. Edgeworth says pressing witnesses' testimony is her signature style. It contains the same character as is in the original 'Cross Examination' animation.
  • "Chihiro" can also mean "to search for 1000 times", contrasting her sister "Mayoi" or "lost".
  • Fey also means "Doomed to Die".
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Part of the territory of being The Mentor; it happens in record time, too! She's offed right after the first case - not that this stops her from being a huge help to Nick.
• Morphic Resonance: Inverted, as Maya and Pearl take her form when Mia possesses them.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Maya and Pearl's robes are designed to be modest and fit their own bodies - not so much for Mia's. In Pearl's clothes, she has to keep her arm pressed against her chest to stop her breasts from popping out. Also, even though character's lower bodies are almost never seen, you have to assume that Mia is showing off quite a bit of leg when she's in Pearl's clothes.
  • Even weirder: she only does the "arm-across-the-chest" thing when talking directly to Phoenix (and, by extension, the player). While in court, when the player has a side view of her, she keeps her arms folded across her stomach (and, presumably, gives everyone on the prosecution-side of the court quite the show).
  • This actually becomes a plot-point in case 3-3, when Phoenix and Maya are trying to extract information from the cranky and intractable Victor Kudo. Kudo isn't interested in talking to either of them until, thinking quickly, Maya channels the much more well-endowed Mia. Kudo suddenly becomes much more cooperative in light of this development. Mia even gets a unique animation in that case, not used anywhere else, where she stands side-view and prominently shows her curves.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: Maya is finally able to channel her in the climax of 1-2 just when things look really bad for Phoenix, and she's able to bring her own murderer to justice.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Ultimately resorts to blackmail in order to defeat master blackmailer Redd White. But to be fair, he's sufficiently proven himself too well-connected to be taken down cleanly, not to mention his constant kicking the dog against both her and everyone she cares about. And Edgeworth had just saved Redd's ass when Phoenix came close to taking him down fairly.
• Posthumous Character: A significant part of her backstory is filled in during flashback cases 3-1 and 3-4. This aside from the fact that she is a literally posthumous character who hangs around via spirit channeling.
• Practically Different Generations: Mia was ten years older than her little sister Maya.
• Promoted to Playable: After two full games of being a counsel to Phoenix, she gets to be playable in the past trials of Trials and Tribulations.
• Put on a Bus: While she is referenced occasionally, Mia doesn’t appear at all during the Apollo Justice trilogy, in which her role as The Mentor is taken up by Phoenix. Even when spirit channeling comes back into focus in Spirit of Justice, the prospect of channeling her is never once brought up.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Along with Phoenix, she doles out an awesome one in Trials and Tribulations. After being channeled by Pearl, she rips into Dahlia Hawthorne, citing how every single one of Dahlia's schemes has failed, thanks to Mia, capping it with "You will never defeat me".
• Sexy Mentor: Though there's no indication of romance between her and Phoenix. She does ask him out for some drinks at the end of his first case, but she perishes before anything comes of it.
• Sibling Rivalry: Defied. After witnessing her mother and aunt's relationship sour because of the position of Master, Mia left Kurain Village to become an attorney and actively cultivates a close sibling relationship with Maya.
• So Proud of You: At the end of case 3-5, Mia warmly thanks Phoenix for helping to bring closure to the Fey Clan and Diego and praises him as being as good as any Defense Attorney could ever hope to be.
• Spirit Advisor: Maya and Pearl channel her to help in cases sometimes, and she'll often offer insight or advice that Phoenix needs. Other times, she seems to possess them without any indication that they were trying to reach her. Sometimes her spirit even manages to communicate brief snippets of garbled information to Phoenix directly when the girls aren't present. Notably, Mia's presence as this slowly fades away during the original trilogy, as Phoenix learns to stand on his own two feet and solve cases without Mia's help, and following the time skip, it's now him who's taken up the mentorship role.
• Start My Own: She moved from Marvin Grossberg's law office to create her own.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Mia is normally a very supportive person, but when she sees who Diego (now called Godot) has become and how the man she once knew years ago was gone, she goes quiet and addresses him very formally. When it comes to Phoenix, she can be cool and professional most of the time, but also shows that she's proud of him when he does well.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Literally. When she gave a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Dahlia, she lost control of her victim, and it ultimately results in Dahlia being sent back to the underworld.
• That One Case:
  • Although she was very young when it happened, part of her motivation as a lawyer was to find out the truth behind DL-6.
  • Her defense of Terry Fawles ends with a hell of a Heroic BSoD, enough to drive her away from the profession for a whole year before finally coming back in order to square off with the one who caused all of it.
• Unfinished Business: It seems as long as Wright is still alive and lawyering, Mia's not going to let a little thing like death stop her from continuing to lend her protégé a hand.
• Weirdness Censor: Played with. Most characters tend not to notice the changes when she possesses someone (e.g. Miles Edgeworth). Others ask if there's "something different" about whoever she's possessing (e.g. Penny Nichols), and others definitely notice the difference but don't connect Mia and Maya/Pearl (e.g. Victor Kudo). The only people who seem to have any idea are Godot, who has his own connection to Mia in the past, when he sees her channeled in 3-2, and Franziska, who, while it is rarely acknowledged, is fairly informed about how the Kurain Channeling Technique works and seems very aware that it's Mia who is Nick's co-counsel during Case 2-2.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Played for Laughs in "Recipe for a Turnabout". Mia is shocked that Maya channeled her just to have a Dirty Old Man talk to them. While she does play along, she leaves Maya's body as soon as Phoenix gets the information he needs.

Assistants

Maya Fey (Mayoi Ayasato)

Maya Fey (Mayoi Ayasato)

Voiced by (Japanese): Satomi Hanamura (SoJ, PXZ2), Mirei Kiritani (PLvAA), Aoi Yūki (anime)

Voiced by (English): Abby Trott (SoJ), Samantha Dakin (PLvAA), Lindsay Seidel (anime)

Played by: Mirei Kiritani (film), Ritoka Nishiguchi (child - film)

Debut: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

^{Click here to see her in the original trilogy}

^{Click here to see her as a Trés Bien waitress}

"The new and improved Maya Fey is on the scene, spirit and girl power at the ready!"

Mia's little sister, as well as a spirit medium-in-training and heir to the Kurain Channeling Technique. Maya is introduced as the main suspect of Mia's murder, and she becomes Phoenix's loyal companion after he gets her acquitted. She's the main assistant to Phoenix in the first three games, though she decides to accept her role as the Master of Kurain Village at the end of Trials and Tribulations, resulting in her absence in the fourth and fifth games. She's a major character in Spirit of Justice, where Phoenix visiting her in Khura'in is the catalyst for the plot. Phoenix is very fond of her and will go to great lengths to ensure her well-being.

Maya's main contribution is her ability to channel spirits. Due to not being particularly well-trained, this at first means she can only channel Mia's spirit (and even then, not so reliably). She gets better over the course of the series, and is a top-notch channeler by the time of her reappearance in Spirit of Justice.

She also has the dubious honor of being the series' most recurring defendant.

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• Ambiguously Bi:
  • In "Turnabout Big Top", she acts very smitten with Maximillion Galactica, swooning when he gives her a heart card and stuttering when he turns his charm on her. She also says though, in the same case, in reference to Regina, "Even I want to profess my love to her."
  • In episode 21 of the anime, she seems to enjoy the magazine with "rather scantily dressed" women and is visibly disappointed when Phoenix takes it away.
  • In the manga, Maya has an interaction with Phoenix where she is annoyed at him for not finding the Pink Princess sexy due to it being Will Powers under the costume.
    Maya: I'm telling you, you're crazy if you can't see how sexy the Pink Princess is.
• Angry Cheek Puff: One of Maya's sprite poses has her puffing both of her cheeks while glaring, which is used whenever she's angry at Phoenix, fitting with her young, Genki Girl demeanor. She still does it even when she's a 28-year-old woman by Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Her appearances beside Phoenix in court usually are filled with snark or saying something funny or ridiculous that just happens to kick start Phoenix's thought process, but in the final case of the first game she's the first character, even before Phoenix, to put everything together and straight up tells Phoenix that she thinks Von Karma murdered Edgeworth's father, which turns out to be true.
• Big Eater: She apparently has an "extra stomach" for steak and for sweets, and will bring up eating whenever the opportunity crops up. Despite this, she's consistently portrayed as having a slender build.
  Phoenix: (How many stomachs does this girl have!?)
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Both parts, depending on which phase of the plot you're in.
  • In investigations, she plays the boke to Phoenix with her childish and oddball observations.
  • In the courtroom, she plays the tsukkomi to the more oddball or difficult witness in snarky asides.
• Break the Cutie: You're introduced to her when she stumbles upon the corpse of her big sister, Mia, who was murdered in her own office and she is subsequently arrested and accused of the murder. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as the next two games put her through the wringer in certain cases, and she still manages to come out of it smiling.
• The Bus Came Back: After being absent in the main story games since Trials and Tribulations, aside from the occasional crossover, cameos in the Investigations games, some vague references in Apollo Justice and a postcard in Dual Destinies, she finally returns to the series in Spirit of Justice.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Any moment Phoenix isn't the butt of a joke, there's a fifty-to-fifty chance Maya's on the receiving end instead. This includes being attacked by a dog, having camera flash repeatedly blasted in her eyes, being coerced into a waitress gig, and so forth.
  • In a more serious manner, she's also the most recurring defendant in the series. Maya has been accused of seven murders on five separate occasions, four of which actually go to trial.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: This is what prevents her kidnapping in "Turnabout Revolution" having lethal stakes like in "Farewell, My Turnabout", as her spirit channelling would be needed to summon the spirit of the Holy Mother, making Paul Atishon's threats against Phoenix empty.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Half the things she says during investigation are off-the-wall comments.
• Continuity Cameo: She appears in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue of "Rise from the Ashes" even though she's absent in the case proper, save for some split-second flashbacks.
• Cool Big Sis: Pearl thinks the world of her and Maya supports her no matter what. Justified, as Maya's the only close family Pearl has who's still around (and not in jail). This is reflected in how Pearl picks up some of her mannerisms by the time of Dual Destinies.
• Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose: She does this pose anytime she's thinking something mischievous.
• Damsel in Distress: At least once every game she shows up in. Also qualifies her for Designated Victim.
  • Phoenix Wright: Maya is accused of her sister's murder in the first half of case 2.
  • Justice For All: Maya is accused of murdering a spirit channeling client in case 2, and she's kidnapped for ransom in case 4.
  • Trials & Tribulations: Maya's Sacred Urn is stolen in case 2, and she's missing/almost killed/accused of her mother's murder in case 5.
  • Layton vs. Wright: Maya is accused of witchcraft and murder in case 3, after which she is seemingly executed anyway when she tries to prevent the actual witch from being executed.
  • Spirit of Justice: The prologue anime has Maya taken hostage by a Khura'in Kingdom fugitive, but she's immediately rescued by the local authorities. However, she was on the phone talking to Phoenix when this happened, and her phone broke during the scuffle, so Phoenix goes after her without knowing she's alright, triggering the events of the game. Then in case 3 of the game itself, she's accused of murdering a priest. And in "Turnabout Revolution", she is abducted in order to force Phoenix to work for a murderer, just like in Case 2-4.
• Deadpan Snarker: Not as bad as Phoenix in any sense, but she gets her fair share of snark in the cases against Godot and his coffeenese. Most of the pans over to her in the cases are for her to say something about Godot's latest "metaphor", or when Phoenix fails at bluffing the court.
  Godot: It would seem I've been forced to eat crow!
  Maya: I wonder what blend number crow-flavoured coffee is?
• Depending on the Artist: Capcom just can't decide on what her eye color is. While trilogy art and other media flip-flops between brown, gray, or blue, Spirit of Justice art shows it to be gray.
• Determinator: No amount of training is too harsh for her, even when it involves standing under a waterfall or sitting on a block of ice overnight (in winter).
• The Ditz: Her assessments of things can be quite a bit silly at times. While she didn't appear in Dual Destinies, she did write a letter to Phoenix in which she assumed he was having a trial in an exploding courtroom (as opposed to a courtroom in which there was an explosion).
• Dumbass Has a Point: In "Turnabout Goodbyes", when Phoenix is worried that Larry's testimony might make things worse for Edgeworth, Maya points out that Edgeworth was convicted, so they have nothing to lose. Phoenix agrees and realizes that Larry is their last hope.
• Entertainment Below Their Age: She's seventeen at the beginning, and a fan of The Steel Samurai, which is apparently aimed at 10-year-old boys — an interest that survives to her late twenties.
• Fangirl: Lover of all things Steel Samurai and its spinoffs. Spirit of Justice even extends it to its ripoffs as well, to the point that she considers pitching a Plumed Punisher/Steel Samurai crossover when she gets back to LA.
• Fanservice Pack: Official art of her adult self indicates she's developed a figure comparable to her sister's.
• Fighting Your Friend: Phoenix has to cross-examine her in the final section of "Bridge to the Turnabout", and Apollo must cross-examine her in one of the final sections of "Turnabout Revolution".
• Final Boss: The final witness in Trials & Tribulations.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: She's the rather childish Foolish sibling to Mia's Responsible. Part of it's due to her personality, but some of it may be due to the large age gap between the sisters.
• Generic Cuteness: In the first game she's referred to as plain; in the third, when asking Nick how she looks dressing up as a waitress he replies that maybe she should quit being a spirit medium. She's still drawn in the same Animesque style as everyone else (although she does look a tad more cartoonish than other characters). In the manga, Phoenix introduces her by saying that she's not all that pretty. By Spirit of Justice she seems to grow out of it, being considered pretty or regal by a handful of characters in Khura'in.
• Genki Girl: Maya is easily excitable and generally in a chipper mood to the point of wearing out Phoenix.
• Hairstyle Inertia: A photograph at the end of "Bridge to the Turnabout" shows Maya sporting the same long hair and bun as a toddler. Her hair is still this way in her reappearance in Spirit of Justice, a whopping nine years after she's last seen in-game.
• Hiding in Plain Sight: She avoids Dahlia's wrath by channeling her. It works to the point Dahlia thinks she's in Pearl's body, and that Phoenix only realizes she's being channeled by Maya because there's no one else that could.
• Hime Cut: A variation, there are baubles that decorate the sidetails and tie the back together. It serves both to reflect her traditional upbringing and act as a tip-off to her spiritualist job.
• Hopeless with Tech: Zigzagged. She has a cellphone that she knows how to operate all right, but when it comes to computers, she can't even turn the things on. And despite this, she teases Phoenix when he struggles to get a security report from a computer in case 3-2.
• I Owe You My Life: "Bridge to the Turnabout", Godot kills Dahlia-in-Misty's body before she's able to murder Maya. Maya then spends her entire testimony at the end of the case trying to clear Godot of suspicion, realizing he'd be incriminated for killing Misty even though he saved Maya's life in the process.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Morgan believes her to be this to the position of Master, as she has relatively weak spiritual power compared to her prodigy cousin Pearl. That said, Maya later proves this wrong when she overpowers Pearl's control of a spirit in 3-5.
• Kiddie Kid: Maya is 17-19 during the Phoenix trilogy but acts like 9 most of the time. Even in her late twenties in Spirit of Justice, she still retains some childlike mannerisms.
• Kimono Is Traditional: Goes hand in hand with her spirit medium background. At the end of "Turnabout Time Traveler", she is the only one to wear a kimono (a different one from her normal outfit) to the wedding in contrast to Athena and Ema's modern-style dresses.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: If it weren't for Phoenix, much of the evidence and various possessions of witnesses and suspects would end up in her pockets. She's always eager to get into restricted areas through illegal means, as well.
• Leitmotif: "Turnabout Sisters", which comes in 2001 (first game), 2002 (second and third game), and 2016 (sixth game) flavors.
• Lethally Stupid: Not very often but she has her moments, like when she tested how a decorative sword would bend by smashing Phoenix's head with it, or when she tested if someone can be struck on the back of his head from the front in the same way.
• The Load: She certainly feels like she's this, especially after case 1-4. It's not true, of course; spirit channeling powers aside, she's often a valuable source of insight and is one of Phoenix's pillars of emotional support throughout the original trilogy. She also remembers a key piece of information and figures out that Manfred von Karma killed Gregory Edgeworth before Phoenix even thought about it, saving his whole case and setting him on the right track to nailing the real murderer.
• Making the Choice for You: She wrote a note to Phoenix asking him to get Matt Engarde, the defendant who hired a Professional Killer to kill the defendant's rival, declared guilty no matter what. The problem is that she was being held hostage by that Professional Killer who will kill her if the defendant is found guilty. This means that she was asking to die rather than let Engarde get away with his conspiracy to commit murder.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Maya" and "Mayoi" are the Sanskrit and Japanese names, respectively, for the Buddhist concept of illusion. Meanwhile, the kanji used for the name Mayoi mean "true night," which the director felt suited the setting of "Turnabout Sisters", her debut case. "Mayoi" can also mean "lost" (as in losing your sense of direction).
  • Maya (altough sometimes spelled 'Maia') was also the eldest of the Seven Pleiads, and the most beautiful. The latin word 'Maior' ('greater') and 'Maiestos' ('majestic') are related to the name. The month May is named after this Maya, embodying growth. Fitting, since she eventually grows to be the master mystic.
• Nephewism: Maya was very young when her mother Misty disappeared, so her aunt Morgan became her guardian.
• Nice Girl: As childish as she is, Maya is one of the most selfless characters in the series. She gets herself held in contempt of court to save Edgeworth, despite the latter having prosecuted her and her new friend Phoenix, and later insists that Phoenix see to it that Engarde gets convicted regardless of what might happen to her.
• Non-Standard Character Design: In the first three games, her animation sprites look more cartoony compared to the rest of the realistic-looking cast at that time sans Moe and Ben, especially in this animation◊ of hers, probably to highlight her Generic Cuteness. Averted when she is drawn with the newer style.
• The Not-Love Interest: For Phoenix, despite what Pearl says. They're always together, obviously care deeply about one another, and messing with Maya is a really good way to ruin Nick's day (and perhaps get him to ruin yours next time you're in court). Even after seven years, they're not officially a couple but still keep in contact and are apparently close despite Maya's intensive training.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In Spirit of Justice, Maya keeps her ability to channel spirits secret for much of the third case, since only the royal family is supposed to be able to do it. As a result, Rayfa dismisses Maya as a neophyte at best and a phony at worst, but Maya realizes that this deception is for the best.
• Oddly Visible Eyebrows: Particularly noticeable because her eyebrows are often completely covered by her long bangs.
• Older and Wiser: Although she remains perky and dorky, her reappearance in Spirit of Justice shows that she's also become much more mature as she grew up.
  Maya: Sorry, I guess I've outgrown that stepladder argument we always have...
  Phoenix: I think you mean "ladder," Maya.
• Older Than She Looks: She's 28-years-old in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, yet looks younger. It helps she hasn't changed much in appearance or personality.
• Once an Episode: In every main-series game she appears in, she is accused of murdering someone. The third game is the odd one out however, as it's the only one where she isn't the primary suspect, and it was intentional on her part. Nevertheless, it still counts.
• Out of Focus: In Justice For All, she spends most of the time being either as a defendant, or kidnapped. She only gets some relevance in the final act of the first case, and the entirety of the third case. Her role is so diminished compared to the first and third game that she doesn't even appear in the game's cover (when even Edgeworth, who appeared in only one case, is present there).
• Parental Abandonment: Her mother disappeared in disgrace at the end of the infamous DL-6 incident. Maya usually doesn't let on how much this bothers her, it tends to come up when other tragedies darken her mood and pull her out of her normal Plucky Girl attitude. Also, her father died when she was very young, but that almost never comes up, because it seems that she never really knew him.
• Pipe Pain: Played for Laughs in Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney during the English Trial, where she picks up the assault weapon and whacks Phoenix with it to try and see if she could hit the back of his head with it.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Phoenix. They're attached at the hip all through the original trilogy, and Phoenix risks his life for her multiple times; the two remain very devoted to each other even after the timeskip. However, despite minor Ship Tease moments, their relationship is not romantic.
• Plucky Girl: Maya loses multiple relatives over the course of a few years, gets accused of murder in every game, and endures other traumatic events. Despite this, her enthusiasm never wavers. Even during her more somber introduction in Case 1-2, she will still attempt to laugh if Phoenix tries to joke with her.
• The Pollyanna: She will talk about being accused of murder with a big smile on her face.
• Power-Strain Blackout:
  • Faints dead away after Dahlia is removed from her body in Case 3-5.
  • Just as she's found in "Turnabout Revolution", she faints from exhaustion and spends the first half of the trial resting in the hospital. Unsurprising, considering she'd been channeling Dhurke for almost the entire time Apollo and company were with him.
• Practically Different Generations: Maya was ten years younger than her older sister Mia.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Right before Case 1-5, though in the original Game Boy Advance release there was no case 1-5 and her reappearance in 2-1 came without a break in between.
  • She is also absent from Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies. The latter confirms that she has been keeping contact with Phoenix by sending letters and Steel Samurai videos, and undergoing intensive training.
• Pretty in Mink: In the live action film, her jacket has a thick fur collar added.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Especially when she's in full boke mode during investigations.
• Secret-Keeper: In Spirit of Justice, she's asked by Dhurke to keep his own death a secret so the Khura'in revolution can keep going... as well as to be able to see Apollo again through channeling.
• She's All Grown Up: Before the time skip she was a perky teenager; starting with the 3D games, she's a lovely young woman in her late twenties. Lampshaded by Larry in Turnabout Time Traveler when he says she's "all grown up and as cute as ever".
• Shipper on Deck: For Phoenix and Iris after seeing what she assumes to be Love at First Sight.
  Maya: [singing] Iris and Nick, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
• Shoo Out the Clowns: She is largely absent in both "Farewell, My Turnabout" and "Bridge to the Turnabout" — the final cases of the 2nd and 3rd game, respectively. In the former she's kidnapped to pressure Phoenix into taking the case, in the latter she's locked away courtesy of Dahlia Hawthorne. Happens again in "Turnabout Revolution," which acts as a Call-Back to "Farewell, My Turnabout."
• Sidekick: Effectively Phoenix's partner in solving crime and the second main character in the first three games. She finally returns to this role in the DLC case of Spirit of Justice.
• Slipknot Ponytail: In Case 3-5, after Dahlia leaves her body.
• Spanner in the Works: In Dual Destinies, without even showing up in person! In her letter in "Turnabout for Tomorrow", her inaccurate comment about Phoenix being in a trial in an exploding courtroom (when the trial was actually after the explosion) ended up giving Phoenix the idea of using the blown-up Courtroom No. 4 for the retrial of Metis Cykes's murder. This ultimately causes the phantom to be caught, which might not have been possible otherwise.
• Stealth Pun: She's a legal assistant with paranormal abilities — a paralegal.
• Stepford Smiler: At times, as Mia comments that she's more lonely and sad than she lets on. This is especially true at the conclusion of 3-5, when despite Maya's mother having been killed, she puts on a strong face and resolves not to cry for Pearl's sake, as Pearl has not only been manipulated by her mother, but also blames herself for the incident being set into motion.
• Took a Level in Badass: Thanks to her extensive training to live up to her new position as Master of Kurain, she's a much better spirit medium in Spirit of Justice than she was as a teenager in the original trilogy.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Burgers or ramen, depending on whether it's the English or Japanese version, which leads to the odd case of the noodle stand Phoenix apparently visited with Maya a lot in Apollo Justice, since there's no mention of such a thing in the American releases of the first three games. At least the Professor Layton crossover there is a cutscene showing her and Phoenix munching burgers.
  • Though with how much Maya loves food in general, it's easy enough to assume they're both her favorites. This is further implied in Spirit of Justice (third case, second investigation day), when Phoenix offers to take Maya to "Eldoon's Noodles, or your favorite burger joint" for celebration.
• Unskilled, but Strong: She doesn't train nearly as hard at the Kurain Channeling Technique as her cousin Pearl, and considers her skill inferior. There are also times that she fails to channel a spirit when she's trying to (notably in Case 1-4, where she fails to channel her sister). Closer analysis reveals that, between her and Pearl, Maya is actually the medium with the stronger spiritual power. In case 2-4, she channels a spirit that Pearl was channeling, leaving Pearl as herself—a feat Pearl stated had to be done by a very powerful medium. This is a plot point in 3-5, where the failure of Pearl to channel a spirit is caused by Maya turning out to already be channeling said spirit—in other words, Maya can "steal" a channeled spirit from Pearl, but not the other way around. Not so much anymore in her Spirit of Justice appearance, as she's now both skilled and strong.
• Vapor Wear: In 6-3, when Maya is channelling a male spirit, he removes the upper part of her outfit to reveal his chest. Not among the clothing removed is a bra. This does, however, make sense, as channelling involves changing the shape of the channeller's body, and so loose, unrestrictive clothing is probably for the best.
• Willing Channeler: She can channel spirits of the dead, most usually her sister Mia, but only if she lets them.
• Womanchild: To a degree in Spirit of Justice. While she has gotten Older and Wiser, there are still moments where she shows a childlike enthusiasm and curiousity even into her late twenties, and of course, she's still just as big of a Steel Samurai fan as she was when she was a teenager. She even enjoys the Khura'inese ripoff The Plumed Punisher just as much as the original.

Pearl Fey (Harumi Ayasato)

Pearl Fey (Harumi Ayasato)

Voiced by (Japanese): Miyuki Sahaku (DD), Misaki Kuno (anime)

Voiced by (English): Alexis Tipton (anime)

Debut: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All

^{Click here to see her in the original trilogy}

"I know who you are. You're... You're Mystic Maya's... 'special someone!'"

Mia and Maya's younger cousin, and a spirit medium prodigy. She believes that "Mr. Nick" is "Mystic Maya"'s "special someone", but this is a result of a sisterly devotion to Maya and growing up in a village with a high divorce rate, even for the US. She first becomes Phoenix's assistant when Maya is accused of murder in Justice for All, and hangs around in succeeding cases. She moves back to Kurain Village after the events of Trials and Tribulations and resides there post-timeskip, although she still willingly offers assistance to the Agency when they need it.

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• Achievements in Ignorance: Once ran from Kurain to the courthouse when it's likely she's never left her home village before. Judging by the fact she doesn't know what a train is, she doesn't seem to comprehend that running a 2-hour train route on foot at the age of 8 shouldn't be possible.
• Affectionate Nickname: Phoenix calls her "Pearls" and Maya calls her "Pearly" ("Harumi-chan" and "Hami-chan", in the Japanese version). Edgeworth picks up Phoenix's name for her, while Athena picks up Maya's. Subverted with Apollo, who just calls her Pearl or Ms. Pearl Fey.
• The Baby of the Bunch: The youngest of the Feys, and a little sister figure to Maya. Phoenix also grows quite fond of her.
• Badass Adorable: The girl can run from her home village to the courthouse. Without getting winded. On a route that takes 2 hours by train. She can also slap a 26-year-old man out of consciousness.
• Big Sister Worship: She adores and idolizes Maya. In Dual Destinies she's even picked up a few of her mannerisms as shown by her animations.
• Blush Sticker: Often when in the depths of Phoenix/Maya shipping delusions or when embarrassed.
• Break the Cutie: Pearl is one of the most well-meaning, sweet-natured, and adorably naïve characters in the entire series. Naturally, she gets put through the wringer several times a game, and is probably the character who gets the most grief heaped upon her other than Maya. Phoenix even tries to avert some of this in 2-2 by having her channel Mia for him so she doesn't have to watch her mother be questioned and arrested. This only postpones things to 3-5, where Pearl learns that her mother used her in an attempt to kill her cousin and aunt.
• Cheerful Child: When life isn't beating her down, she's generally in a good mood, because she's either seeing something new and exciting or mooning over Phoenix and Maya.
• Child Prodigy: Described by other characters as possessing massive spiritual power at a very young age. Amplified in Spirit of Justice, where she states that it takes year of studying and training to channel spirits and that only she and Maya are capable of it. Remember she first channelled a spirit when she was eight.
• Children Are Innocent: Pearl is a sweet kid who adores her mom and her cousin Maya. She has absolutely no idea that her mother wants Maya killed so Pearl can take her place, and is vital to Phoenix unraveling Case 2-2, Morgan's latest plot. She does find out about her mother's true nature by the end of the trilogy, though.
• Cool Big Sis: Acts like this to Trucy, according to Phoenix. Pearl is often amazed whenever Trucy puts on a show for her.
• A Day in the Limelight: Case 2-4 is one of her biggest roles in the series, where she takes over Maya's role as assistant while Maya is being held hostage.
• Death Glare: One of her default sprites. Even moreso in Case 3-2, when she thinks Phoenix is getting too close to Desiree.
  ...*glare*
• Die for Our Ship: In-Universe example. She tends to beat the crap out of Phoenix if she catches him with another woman, whether the wife of one of his clients or the woman who dated Phoenix while disguised as her sister, and whom he realized actually did love him. However, she seems to get over this in Dual Destinies.
• Expressive Hair: The rings in the back of her head perk up or sag with her mood.
• Fatal Flaw: Pearl's only true fault is her naivete. Cool and all, except it allows her to be used as an Unwitting Pawn by Morgan and trigger Case 3-5. And the sad thing is, she really just wanted to help...
• Fashionable Asymmetry: As a teenager, she sports a little hair-bauble on her left.
• The Fashionista: In Spirit of Justice, she suggests that Maya add a clothes shop to Kurain. She also retains her waist bow and painstakingly intricate hairstyle, implying that they were not forced on her by her mother.
• Felony Misdemeanor: The sets of Psyche-Locks she has only conceal things she's too embarrassed to admit, not crimes. In Justice For All, they indicate that she accidentally broke a vase, as children are prone to do; in Dual Destinies, that she got lost on a school trip. That she worries about these things at all may be an indicator of her mother's sternness.
• Freudian Excuse: As Maya points out, Pearl's passionate Shipper on Deck tendencies come from growing up in a village where many marriages end in divorce, and thus desperately hoping that her cousin ends up with a good man.
• Friend to All Living Things: A lot of the vet's staff say that it's hard to get Rifle the penguin to like anybody. Both Pearl and Rifle get along swimmingly.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Her bangs are slightly different as a teenager (tied down by one bead instead of two) but she still sports the same pretzel hairstyle in Dual Destinies.
• Height Angst: She's rather short for her age and self-conscious about it. This is most obvious in "Phoenix Wright: Asinine Attorney", where she dismays about being an inch shorter than Ahlbi Ur'gaid, who is only nine years old while Pearl is eighteen.
• Innocent Prodigy: She's very naive but at the same time she's an even better spirit medium than Maya.
• Irony: Pearl is the one who gave Phoenix the means to be a lie detector, yet in every appearance she has something to hide from him. Even in Spirit of Justice where Apollo visits her instead, she hides something from him, and ends up getting perceived.
• Just Trying to Help: She wants to do the best she can for the people she loves, including her dear mother. Her following Morgan's directions (wanting to help) ended up starting the chain of events of 3-5 without her even realizing what she did.
• Leitmotif: "With Pearly", a happier and lighter version of "Turnabout Sisters", Maya's theme. It got remixed in Dual Destinies as well.
• Malaproper: In Case 3-5, she gets confused with the final passage of Morgan's instructions, which ended with a flowery passage basically condemning Misty Fey to Hell. Pearls reads it as: "Take the gravy from the roast dinner and cover Misty's scroll with it".
• Meaningful Name:
  • She is precious to her mother as a means to an end, not as a person. Her Japanese name means 'Spring Beauty'. It indicates that she's cute, really.
  • According to the creators, her name is actually a reference to The Scarlet Letter, in which the book's protagonist is forced to raise a daughter from a love affair.
• Mistaken for Romance:
  • Maya apparently talks to Pearl about Phoenix a lot, resulting in Pearl assuming that Phoenix and Maya were a couple. She doesn't exactly get disabused of this notion in the first three games, but she seems to have grown out of it by Dual Destinies.
  • In the "Turnabout Reclaimed" case in Dual Destinies, early in the case Phoenix mistakenly assumes that Pearl is in a relationship with Marlon Rimes, because Pearl has been acting very friendly to Marlon and is even helping Marlon get Rifle the penguin back. Why was Pearl getting along so well with him? Because Pearl got lost and bumped into Marlon, spilling fish all over the both of them, screwing up his schedule and causing him to lose his calendar. Pearl was trying to make it up to him by helping him in his job.
• Mage Born of Muggles: The only case in a series where Muggle Born of Mages is more common. Her mother, Morgan Fey, had low spiritual power, and her unknown father was a normal man outside the Fey clan, yet Pearl herself is very much capable of channeling spirits.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Has one of these moments when she realises exactly what happened in Case 3-5: that she nearly got Maya, whom she looks up to as a big sister, killed and that she did get Misty Fey (whom she adored both as the former master of Kurain and as her author-alter-ego Elise Deauxnim) killed. She runs from the courtroom all the way back to the monastery, presumably intending to go into self-imposed exile there, but Phoenix and Maya bring her back pretty much straight away.
• Nice Girl: Pearl is a good kid who just wants the people she loves to be happy. This gets abused badly by her mother.
• Older and Wiser: Post-timeskip, Pearl has definitely become this to a degree. She's a bit more accustomed to the outside world now beyond Kurain Village and tends to speak more like an actual teenager; key word is "tends", as she does slip back into some of her speech patterns from when she was a kid.
• Older Than They Look: Due to her Hairstyle Inertia and height she actually looks 3-4 years younger than her age in Dual Destinies despite being only a year behind the 18-year old Athena. She's even mistaken by Dhurke for a little girl in Spirit of Justice and is actually shorter than the 9-year old Ahlbi (who in all fairness is quite tall for his age) by an inch.
• Parental Abandonment: Her father left her mother due to feeling marginalized by Kurain village's emphasis on its women, due to the Fey family's spiritual powers only being passed down to its women. This and all the other failed marriages she's seen growing up are the root of why she's so fixated on romance, especially the one she's convinced Maya has with Phoenix. And then there's what her mother did...
• Pink Means Feminine: Comes off as girlier than Maya with her obsession with romance, and wears a pink kimono.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: At the age of nine, she's able to slap a grown man into unconsciousness.
• Practically Different Generations: She's more than 15 years younger than her half-sisters Dahlia and Iris.
• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: She is quite intelligent, being able to avoid her mother's evil influence and navigate a city alone as a child, but her incredibly narrow education never taught her what murder is. When Phoenix tells her he's a lawyer, she thinks "lawyer" is a school of channeling.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the final case of Trials and Tribulations, Pearl gives this to Franziska von Karma, bluntly stating she hates her for trying to get Maya convicted for murder just for her own satisfaction. She even goes as far as telling Franziska that's she's just a wimp if she doesn't have her whip. Although in the context of the situation this rant is due to Pearl being traumatized and case 2-2 being the first memory of Franziska to enter her mind; it may have not happened if Pearl remembered the events of case 2-4.
• Shared Family Quirks:
  • Like her mother, Pearl seems to have a fondness for green tea and strawberry desserts.
  • Her idle and serious animations bear a resemblance to that of her half-sisters Iris and Dahlia. After the Time Skip, she has picked up Maya's clasping hand animation as well.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Pearl is an in-universe Phoenix/Maya shipper. She responds... violently... to any suggestion they are NOT madly in love, at least on Nick's part. By the time of Dual Destinies, she seems to get over it for the most part.
  • She also ships Oldbag/Edgeworth in case 2-4, or at least takes Oldbag's feelings seriously about the matter and chides Nick for not doing so too.
• Soul-Powered Engine: She can charge Maya's Magatama with her spiritual power, enabling the holder to become a Living Lie Detector.
• Spanner in the Works: In case 2-2. Her presence in the Winding Way is the one thing that prevents Morgan and Mimi's plan from going off without a hitch, preventing them from hiding the evidence that winds up unraveling their entire scheme. She also empowers Phoenix's Magatama so that it can detect when people are hiding something, which helps him unravel both that case and many others after it.
  • Also in 3-2. She gets lost and wanders into Luke Atmey's office, where Phoenix and Maya pick her up. If they'd actually checked inside of the bag, they'd have found the Urn and the case would have been much shorter. Her mistake still winds up unravelling Atmey's scheme, as the fingerprints Phoenix left on it prove that he was concealing the Urn from police. Subverted when it turns out that Atmey wanted to be convicted as DeMasque.
• Terrible Artist:
  • This trait comes into play as an important plot point in Justice for All, as she breaks a sacred urn supposedly containing Ami Fey's soul, and spends the rest of the investigation fixing it (although she reversed the I and A, making the name being spelled as "IAM" instead). Phoenix takes advantage of her presence in her mansion's hallway to catch a witness lying that they walked across the same hallway while not noticing anyone.
  • As shown in Spirit of Justice, even as a teenager, her drawings are little more than childish doodles, to her embarrassment.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Having grown up in a village where marriages culminate in either emotional distance between husband and wife at best, and divorce at worst, Pearl is a big believer in the "happy ever after" and a huge sucker for romance plots in general. It isn't Maya who sucks her into the Steel Samurai franchise — it's Will Powers describing the tropperiffic romantic subplots of the shows in case 2-4. She gets really intense about whether or not the female love interests fall in love and tries to drill Powers for more info.
• Token Good Teammate: Of the Branch Families of the Fey Clan. Since their inception, the Branch Families have always plotted to wipe out the Main Family and usurp their spot as the Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique, with Pearl's mother, Morgan, scheming to kill Maya with the help of Pearl's half-sister, Dahlia Hawthorne. By contrast, Pearl and Iris are the only members of the Branch Families who bear no animosity towards Maya or any of the Main Family members, with Pearl idolizing Maya.
• Token Mini-Moe: When first introduced, she was the adorable child character in a cast of young adults. By Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice, she's more mature but still seems like the "baby" of the group.
• Trust Password: Because she's been warned not to talk to strangers, she won't talk to Phoenix until he shows her Maya's Magatama. The sight makes her burst into tears, because she knows Maya would only have given it up if she were in serious trouble.
• Unequal Rites: If shown Phoenix's badge in Justice For All, she says she sees power in it, power which isn't related to channeling.
• Unwitting Pawn: Morgan wants to use Pearl to regain main family status, which requires killing/discrediting Maya. Pearl has no clue about this and adores her cousin.
  • In Case 3-5, is told to retrieve a letter and channel Dahlia Hawthorne, supposedly for the sake of the main family, but so that Morgan can kill Maya (or, alternatively, frame her for murder) and install Pearl as Master.
  • In "Turnabout Revolution" the main villain of the first part thought he could make her this so he could further manipulate Phoenix, but Apollo, Athena and Phoenix immediately shot that down, knowing that Pearl wouldn't do anything like that, especially if she knew what he and his benefactor did to Maya.
• Willing Channeler: She can channel spirits of the dead, most usually her cousin Mia, but only if she lets them.
• Youngest Child Wins: The youngest of the Feys, and possesses immense spiritual power — her two older sisters, on the other hand, have almost no spiritual power to speak of.

Trucy Wright (Minuki Naruhodo)

Trucy Wright (Minuki Naruhodo)

Voiced by (Japanese): Chieko Higuchi (DD voice drama, SoJ)

Voiced by (English): Kira Buckland (SoJ)

Debut: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

^{Click here to see her at age 8}

"They always say that, on stage, you should hit the crowd with speed and ferocity!"

Teen magician extraordinaire (in training) and the heir to the Gramarye name. Phoenix adopted her following her father's disappearance seven years before the events of Apollo Justice. Once Apollo joins the agency, she tags along on his cases and acts as an assistant much in the way Maya did.

Her signature tricks are "The Amazing Mr. Hat", a wooden puppet almost as big as her that she can somehow hide in her cloak, and "Magic Panties", where she pulls out all sorts of bizarre items from frozen turkeys to mops to noodle bowls... all from a large pair of panties. She manages the talent branch of "Wright Anything".

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• Annoying Younger Sibling: She acts as one to Apollo — as his perky teenage assistant who's also his boss's daughter, she tends to wear him down by forcing him to do what she wants. Phoenix being the owner of the place makes it easier for her. For all Apollo grumbles about it, though, it's clear that he cares about Trucy and honestly wants to help her out, and it's similarly clear that Trucy cares for him. The twist is that they're actually siblings, although they're unaware of it.
• Bag of Holding: Her magic panties, which she pulls all sorts of things out of.
• Be as Unhelpful as Possible:
  • In "Turnabout Serenade," she realizes how the magic trick works, but refuses to tell Apollo so as not to reveal a fellow magician's secrets.
  • Averted in "The Magical Turnabout," in which Trucy immediately tells Apollo everything she knows about the magic trick that was used to murder Mr. Reus. It appears that this trope only applies when dealing with another magician's secrets, rather than with her own.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: By Spirit of Justice, she's taken to using Apollo's "I'm fine!" whenever she's feeling anxious or upset.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: An ambiguous example. Trucy has a running gag of interrupting Apollo and Phoenix's narrations.
• Characterization Marches On: The first time we see Trucy in Case 4-1, she almost comes across as an Emotionless Girl. It's really jarring upon re-playing the game and knowing what she's really like for the rest of the game, and possibly an indication that Trucy is extremely uncomfortable with handing over the fake piece of evidence Phoenix told her to give to Apollo.
• Child Prodigy: Phoenix accurately describes her as such. Trucy is an exceptionally bright, sharp-witted girl, often deducing the truth behind Apollo's cases well before he does. She's also a first-rate illusionist despite her young age, and even displays an aptitude for business management in the day-to-day operations of the Wright Anything Agency.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Trucy herself is not a true example, but she employs this trait intentionally, most often to grate on Apollo. For example, when her magic panties are stolen in "Turnabout Corner", she loudly and knowingly refers to them as her panties repeatedly, regardless of who could be listening and much to Apollo's chagrin.
• Consummate Liar: Tells Apollo a great many lies, large and small, right to his face throughout their cases together, all without the slightest hint of a physical tic to tip him off.
• Covert Pervert: Possible, if ambiguous — Athena found something questionable in her purse. We never learn what it is.
  Athena: Oh, wow! She has...?! Oh, Trucy! You are BAD!
• Daddy's Girl: Exceedingly so. She adores Phoenix, and he dotes on her as much as he can.
• Damsel in Distress: She is kidnapped and held hostage along with 12 other people in Dual Destinies. She handles the situation quite well, however, using a moment of carelessness by the kidnapper to convey important information to her father and the police. The sixth game then sees her falsely charged with a murder during one of her shows, leading to a defense by Apollo and Athena.
• A Day in the Limelight: After being Demoted to Extra in Dual Destinies in favor of Athena, she gets a whole case revolving around her in Spirit of Justice: "The Magical Turnabout", in which a magic trick gone wrong leads to her being accused of murder.
• Decoy Damsel: Played with. During the middle of "Turnabout Corner", she "kidnaps" herself by using her incredible Mr. Hat puppet to stall for time so she can explain the Perceive system to Apollo. Apollo is understandably angered.
• Demoted to Extra: While she appears in almost every case of Dual Destinies, she doesn't actually do much of anything most of the time and instead just hangs around the office (if present at all). Much of her detailed characterization fades out of focus with her. It's only until the final investigation in the penultimate case when Phoenix is left without Apollo or Athena that she regains her position as a investigative parner, knowing that helping her dad out will help cheer him up. This is alleviated in Spirit of Justice, where she finally gets a case for herself... as the defendant.
• Fangirl: She's a very big fan of Troupe Gramarye and the Gavinners, even using a special animation to signify "fangirling" over either.
• Fixing the Game: She helped Phoenix cheat in poker while he was disbarred by signaling his opponent's subtlest tells to him.
• Flanderization: A side-effect of her Demoted to Extra status in Dual Destinies is that most of her conversations involve her Magic Panties and little else. Not so much in the second case of Spirit of Justice, but beyond her stint as "The Magical Turnabout"'s defendant, she continues to be little more than a background character used only for occasional magic-themed gags.
• Genki Girl: Especially if it means an opportunity for her to bedazzle or entertain someone, whether it involves using a magic trick or not. This is also reflected in some of her idle animations where she's shown literally bouncing around.
• Guest-Star Party Member: She doesn't have as much screentime in Dual Destinies, but nonetheless briefly tags along as an assistant in both "The Monstrous Turnabout" and "Turnabout For Tomorrow".
• Hammerspace:
  • Just where exactly does she keep a puppet nearly as large as herself? Especially when she's a child, and Mr. Hat's actually bigger than her?
  • She somehow hides a number of improbably large items in her Magic Panties as well.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Her child sprites have the same hairstyle as her teenage ones.
• Happily Adopted: Calls Phoenix her father like he sired her himself, and the two of them obviously have a very close relationship. In Case 4-4, when Phoenix has adopted her, and says she can call him "Daddy" moments later, she does so without hesitation and with a smile on her face, despite having only just met him.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Though her years as a professional performer allow her to deliberately conceal it, Trucy displays many signs indicating that her deductive reasoning and understanding of a crime scene rival Phoenix's. Even Apollo is impressed at how fast she can unravel a contradiction of facts.
  • She is shown to have a poker face that rivals Phoenix's. She manages to convincingly hide her sadness over the death of her biological father. When Apollo realizes who "Shadi Smith" really was and is about to reveal it to the court, Trucy tells him that it's fine and to just say it. He wonders if she figured it out even before he did. And in Dual Destinies, when she's being held hostage, she takes advantage of access to a video screen Phoenix is watching to tell him how many hostages and robots there are, before the kidnapper shoves her away.
  • Spirit of Justice reveals she handles the office accounting.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Trucy refuses to reveal the secrets behind another magician's trick. Even when her partner Apollo needs to know how a magic trick works in order to save someone accused of murder.
  • In the audio drama "Turnabout Animal Circus!?", she takes her insistence on the Magician's Code to such an absurd extreme that when accused of stealing a male calico cat during a failed magic trick, she declines telling the police and the rest of the Agency how the magic trick works, and even goes so far as to accept her accusation.
  • Fortunately, she's willing to put reason before honor by the time of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, as in the second case, when she's been arrested for involuntary manslaughter, this time she's willing to reveal the secret of her magic trick to help Apollo and Athena (though she threatens that if Apollo ever tells anyone, she'll make him the guinea pig of all her future magic tricks, which she does anyhow). Overall, she only appears concerned by the idea of revealing another magician's secrets, while her own can be excused should the situation call for it.
• Hyper-Awareness: Capable of this, but her Perceive ability is far weaker than Apollo's. They are half-siblings.
• Idiot Hair: She has two under her hat, a design motif that she has in common with her half-brother Apollo.
• Kawaiiko: Just look at her bouncing animation.
• Kid Sidekick: At age 15, she fills the role in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, during Apollo's investigations and trials. She occasionally returns to the role for brief spaces of time in the later two games, Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice.
• Knife-Throwing Act: Is great at throwing knives accurately to the point of disabling Yuri Cosmos' segway tires to stop him for questioning, well beyond the point of skill needed to perform a Knife-Throwing Act. Reasonably, her father is a little disturbed at the accuracy with which she can do this.
  Trucy: And the streak continues!
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice specify that she’s Phoenix’s adopted daughter from the get-go, whereas in Apollo Justice this was a semi-major reveal that came partway through the third case.
• Leitmotif: "Child of Magic", an energetic and joyful theme that suits her cheerful disposition. The theme is later repurposed as a general theme for the Wright Anything Agency in Dual Destinies. She also shares "Troupe Gramarye" with the other members of the troupe, and it plays whenever she talks about them. In Spirit of Justice, "Reminiscing ~ Smile, No Matter What" plays when she's interviewed at the detention center, as her insecurities are finally brought to light. Fittingly, it is a Dark Reprise of "Troupe Gramarye".
• Little Stowaway: Apparently made her way to Khura'in in "Turnabout Revolution" by hiding in Edgeworth's suitcase, although where she was while the cast was off investigating is anyone's guess. Judging from Edgeworth's reaction, it's not the first time she has done this.
• Long-Lost Relative: She's Apollo's half-sister, although neither of them are aware of this relation.
• Magical Girl: Plays one in the "Trucy in Gramarye-Land" stage show, and often refers to herself as one in Spirit of Justice.
• Magician Detective: Sort of, being the magician assistant to a defense attorney, though she only very rarely uses her magician skills to help Apollo.She does use her magician skills to help Phoenix when Yuri Cosmos tries to flee on a Segway by throwing a knife into his Segway's tire to disable it, forcing him to finally reveal the information he's been hiding from Phoenix.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: She's a stage magician, so a few of the things she does can be explained with sleight-of-hand, fake props, etc. Some things don't really have a logical explanation as to how she's able to do them, like her "magic panties," or where she keeps Mr. Hat, which is bigger than she is.
• Never Bareheaded: She's never seen without at a magician's silk top hat, even as a child, except when her puppet Mr. Hat is wearing it.
• Plucky Girl: Trucy powers through several horrible experiences like a champ, keeping a smile on her face even when concealing her sadness.
• The Pollyanna: Despite all the hardships she's gone through in her life like both her biological parents vanishing from her life by the time she was no older than 8, with the latter being assumed dead and the former abandoning her and then being found dead 7 years later before they could reunite (something she still largely hides her knowledge of), and being accused of murder in Spirit of Justice, Trucy always maintains an upbeat and positive attitude. This trope is subverted to some degree, as much of Trucy's cheery nature is a mask, but nevertheless she's still The Heart of the Wright Anything Agency.
• Punny Name:
  • "Trucy" comes from "true" and possibly "see true"/"see through". "Minuki" means "seeing through" (just so you know, the Perceive System is called the Minuku System in Japanese).
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives a brief one to Roger Retinz in "The Magical Turnabout", after learning that he not only tried to frame her for murder, but used a magic trick to commit the crime.
  Trucy: ...I get it now. That attitude toward magic... is why my grandfather kicked you out [of Troupe Gramarye]. You... you don't deserve to call yourself a magician!
• Sibling Team: Although both parties remain blissfully unaware of the fact, she's normally paired with Apollo, her half-brother.
• "Silly Me" Gesture: She puts the knuckles to her hat instead of her head, though. Don't worry, though; the cuteness still shines through.
• Shout-Out: When she boasts that her hat is "...like a little universe! Bigger on the inside than on the outside!", Apollo is reminded of a certain show he used to watch.
• Stage Magician: This is her main job.
• Stepford Smiler:
  • A far less drastic version, but nonetheless hiding her sadness behind a convincing smile is a specialty of Trucy's. She feigns a cheerful smile when she tells Apollo that her father, Zak Gramarye, was so good at making things disappear that he made himself disappear, but Phoenix knows the truth.
  • Apollo pushes this button in the second case of Spirit of Justice, forcing her (via his Perceive ability) to open up to him. The resulting conversation sees her break her performer's façade and openly cry.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She’s the spitting image of her mother Thalassa. In her youth, she bore a stronger resemblance to her half-brother Apollo, though she’s evidently grown out of it by the time the two meet.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: She mirrors Maya's role from the original trilogy — a perky female assistant with a screwed-up family background. The creators even described her role in Apollo Justice as being "just like Maya's." This is, however, also subverted in that Trucy's personality, while superficially similar to Maya's, was also written to stand in sharp contrast to hers in many areas.
• Tender Tears: Displays these in Spirit of Justice, when Apollo continues to believe in her innocence even when Trucy herself believes she may have accidentally killed someone during a performance and disgraced the Gramarye name.
• Third-Person Person: Speaks this way in the Japanese version.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Played for laughs, but in Spirit of Justice, she shows a growing interest in bigger and more dangerous magic tricks, frequently using Apollo (and later Athena) as unwilling guinea pigs for them.
• Training from Hell: Though not originally true in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, part of her Flanderization in Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice includes Trucy frequently putting Apollo and later Athena through rigorous and often terrifying tasks as an assistant to her magic practice.
• Young and in Charge: As the major breadwinner for the Wright Anything Agency, everyone agrees that Trucy outranks everyone else who works there, including her own father.

Other

Charley

Charley

Debut: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

"Charley. A quite decorative plant. He's a handful, but I've grown quite attached to the little fella. He also helps me to remember all the good times with Mia." - Phoenix Wright

A potted plant (specifically, a Cordyline stricta), which was placed in the office by Mia Fey and has been there ever since.

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• And Your Little Dog, Too!: Was knocked over when Redd White broke in and was condemned by Roger Retinz.
• Caring Gardener: Everyone at the agency cares for Charley and tends to over water him.
• Companion Cube: Charley is a plant, therefore inanimate and his caretakers still love him.
• Punny Name: Just like everyone else in the office, Charley's name could be based on Charlwoodia stricta, one of the taxonomic synonyms for Charley's species.
• Shout-Out: His name might be a reference to "Chuck the Plant", from Maniac Mansion, which became a running in-joke and appears in many LucasArts adventure games afterwards.
• Talking to Plants: Whenever someone waters him they tend to talk to him.
• Tragic Keepsake: He is one of the few things that remain in the office that belonged to Mia Fey.
• Team Pet: Or rather plant.

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