Spoilers Off applies to all Moments pages, so all spoilers below are unmarked!
- The fact that the series was released to begin with counts as an Awesome Moment! After an insanely Troubled Production lasting four years longer than expected, the series finally debuted its first episode in June of 2019! Talk about a determined creator!
Turnabout Theatre
- The Judge actually calls out Prince Blueblood and defends Phoenix over accusations of falsifying evidence, saying he mistook Phoenix for a criminal once, and was thankfully proven wrong. The Judge warns Blueblood that he must have some serious evidence to back up his claims if he wishes to continue with his accusation, or else he will hold the prince in contempt of court.
- Playwright defying Blueblood in revealing what he was told to leave out of his testimony, now that he knows it's not certain that Coco murdered Overall Concept.
- Phoenix finally snapping at Prince Blueblood during Part 3 and delivering him an epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech.Blueblood: Why are we continuing with this charade?! Is this your handiwork, dirty human? Did you set this up just to rub my defeat in my face?!
Phoenix: Of course not. It's our duty as keepers of the law to find the truth — the whole truth. If all you care about are your own personal victories, then I suggest you find another occupation!
Blueblood: Grr! You! You little blue cretin! You dare disrespect me?! ME?! PRINCE BLUEBLOOD?! Nephew to Princess Celestia her—
Phoenix: I don't care WHO you are! I'm here to find the truth! And if you aren't here to do the same, then the only "experience" you're going to get with these trials... is how to severely damage your own judicial system! - While it's less enjoyable because she's insulting everyone else (though surprisingly she doesn't actually insult Phoenix that much), Suri laying a verbal smackdown on Blueblood earlier in the trial is also quite awesome.
Crusading for a Turnabout
- Phoenix Wright gets to work again, breaking Psyche Locks on Scootaloo with the limited evidence they've collected over the course of the day.
- When Diamond Tiara starts flaunting her wealth to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, each of the trio shut her up by pointing out three things: 1) Diamond's fortune comes from business deals with Sweet Apple Acres, 2) Scootaloo could actually be as rich as Diamond herself were it not for her parents donating the money from their research for the betterment of science and medicine for all of Equestria, and 3) Sweetie Belle's sister Rarity is a fashion designer and sooner or later Diamond will be purchasing fancy dresses from her. Diamond herself is beyond angry at having to eat her own words.
- Props to whoever wrote Zecora's dialogue.
- Rainbow Dash and Rarity have an argument over Sweetie Belle getting arrested, even dragging Applejack into the fight, and it takes Apple Bloom to get everypony to stop fighting.
- When Apple Bloom bursts into the detention center to inform everyone/pony of a crisis, Guard #2 is ready to throw her out until Twilight reaffirms her authority as a Princess of Equestria and makes him stand down.
- The entirety of 2-7 is one for Athena. "Oh, I'm DONE playing games, Luna!"
- First, instead of following Luna's subtle guidance to directly question Fair Devotion, she has Sugar Stamp offer further testimony in regards to her movements that night. This is because Sugar Stamp had confessed in 2-5 to killing Bridge Royal Order (the body found at the bridge, in case anyone's wondering).
- Then, Sugar Stamp doubles down on her confession and claims that she stashed the letter opener inside her mailbag. Since the weapon was still covered in blood, it stained the inside of the bag. However, Athena points out that if she actually did that, the letter she delivered to Zecora that night would ALSO be covered in blood. This raises serious doubt that the letter opener was the murder weapon.
- Followed by that, Private Eye is called back to the stand and explains why the evidence clearly points to Sugar Stamp being the killer. Athena's response? Accuse Private Eye of FABRICATING the evidence and forcing a test on Royal Order's journal to prove it!
- It needs to be stated how Athena arrived at this conclusion. In the previous episode, Private Eye mentioned that he checked the journal personally to see if it matched Royal Order's handwriting. Athena realized that he never mentioned a forensic team doing the testing, only himself. Acting on a hunch, she asked him through Sonata to secretly get her a sample of Royal Order's blood for the trial. He does so, and when she presents the blood sample in court, it's to prove that Private is able to access Royal Order's body without anyone knowing. This leads to the aforementioned testing of the journal to seal the whole thing.
- Finally, Athena faces two dilemmas throughout the case. The first is Sweetie Belle being abnormally silent and unwilling to help during the first trial and then invoking a right of silence during the second trial (where she is the defendant, no less). The second is Fair Devotion acting as a coach in the witness stand during the second trial, leading both Sugar Stamp and Private Eye in directions and explanations that contradict the points the defense is making after accusing them of illegal actions (making a perjurious false confession and tampering/forging evidence, respectively) and even goads Athena to accuse her next. Athena solves both dilemmas with one action after realizing she is being forced to follow both Luna and Fair and deciding to make her own choice: She announces to the court that the defense will no longer represent Sweetie because her right of silence makes her unwilling to testify and help herself. The Judge, Luna, Fair Devotion, Sugar Stamp, and Sweetie are shocked by this decision. However, it ends up just as Athena wanted all along: Sweetie revokes her own right of silence and agrees to testify.
- Episode 8 gives us our first Revisualization with Athena. In this case, she focuses on why the body had to be moved, as opposed to how the body was moved. She first rules out anything that Sugar Stamp, Fair Devotion, and Private Eye have said or found, given that Sugar Stamp's confession is questionable at best and outright a lie at worst. With that, she determines that the blood Sonata found in the clearing and the rings of blood found are most important to reach the conclusion that someone moved the body and splashed the blood on the trees in the process. Athena questions how no one found blood on the ground, but comes to the realization that a unicorn must've levitated Royal Order's body from the statue to the clearing. But then that means only one murder occurred at the statue, not two like she and Twilight had been arguing the entire time. And that brings her to her final conclusion: There was never a clone in the first place!
- Athena gets a second moment later on. Once it becomes clear that Turning Page may actually be the culprit, she finds herself conflicted on whether or not she should push forward. In that moment, Phoenix's voice rings in with the fact that, in the end, the truth is more important than a trial's outcome. The music shifts into a hopeful fanfare as Athena steels herself and realizes that no matter the cost, she has to do this. Even when Twilight and Luna argue against her, she pushes forward and makes Twilight and the Judge realize that Athena's argument makes sense: that Turning Page hid next to the body and that Scootaloo had crashed into him, not into Royal Order, and that the breathing she heard belonged to Turning Page. Luna is the only one to remain in denial right up until Athena requests for Turning Page to be searched for bruising. And it turns out that Athena was right.
