Characters / Ace Attorney: Wright Anything Agency

Ace Attorney | Main Character Sheet
Wright Anything Agency (Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice) | Defense Attorneys & Assistants | Main Prosecutors (Miles Edgeworth, Franziska von Karma) | Prosecutors & Judges | Law Enforcement | The Fey Clan | Troupe Gramarye | Kingdom of Khura'in
Witnesses and Other Characters (Original Game | JFA | T&T [Dahlia Hawthorne] | 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

Character-Specific Pages

• Phoenix Wright
• Apollo Justice

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.

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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