Tear Jerker / The Great Ace Attorney

Take moments specific to the Phoenix arc, Apollo Justice, Investigations, Dual Destinies, Spirit of Justice, or the anime to those pages, please.This page contains UNMARKED SPOILERS!!! Read at your own risk!

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The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures

The Adventure of the Great Departure:

• When the effects of curare is revealed to the court, in a land that had never heard of such a poison, you can feel the sense of horror coming from the court. The description of how Wilson became so paralyzed, he couldn't even scream as he got a third degree burn from a hot plate, and how his lungs just wouldn't allow him to breathe. It is an understatement when it's described as a truly cruel way to die.

The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band:

• Kazuma was the victim of this case. He had big dreams and goals going to London and then it becomes all for naught. What's worse was how mundane his death was: just a simple push from a young girl because of a misunderstanding. It just feels...sad how unconnected and pointless his death was.
• Nikolina Pavlova already had it rough with her life before boarding the SS Burya and it only piles on after Kazuma's apparent death. A 15 year old girl who ran away from the Novavic ballet troupe after being exploited and abused, with no family or real friends except for the Burya crew, and no money to her name. She got along with Asogi nicely, but when he makes an offhanded comment she misconstrues as him intending to turn her in to a police officer, she shoves him back in a panic, causing him to trip and hit his head on a bedpost, breaking his neck. She is utterly mortified by the entire ordeal, and looks on the verge of tears for pretty much the entire final chapter of the case.

The Adventure of the Runaway Room:

• Ryunosuke's "victory" left him on a sour note and for great reasons. He has doubts that his client and the defendant Magnus McGilded is innocent, there are multiple instances of forged evidence that he didn't know about, the jurors are useless, and there was no decisive evidence to find the truth. The verdict music makes this painfully clear.

The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro:

• Soseki's predicament. He was ostracized in London for being Japanese, becoming a recluse in the process. When the victim, Olive Green, was injured during an apparent knife attack, he was immediately accused of attempting to murder her and was given the death penalty, despite the fact that Green is alive and only in a coma, so it is also implied that he was given a harsher punishment solely for being a foreigner. And because he's Japanese, the public and lawyers believe him to be the culprit so no one will defend him.
• The life of a bobby is very life consuming and tiring as shown with Roly Beate, who nearly looks like he'll collapse in exhaustion during his testimony at any second. It's why he moved the crime scene. The scene of the crime was actually on his street and he would be required help with the investigation, and he normally would have. However, it happened on his one year anniversary with his wife who he rarely gets to spend time with because of his job so he moved everything just so he could have one day with her. He goes so far as admitting he resents God for dumping the case in his jurisdiction during his anniversary wedding.

The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story:

• Iris Wilson's mother apparently died in childbirth while her father was sent to a faraway land without Iris knowing what he is doing now. Her father is shown to be John Wilson, the victim of murder back in the first trial. Herlock Sholmes took in Iris, but, when a couple of criminals shot Herlock, he had to be sent to the hospital. When Iris learned this, she was distraught, pleading to Ryunosuke on whether Herlock would recover. Iris and Ryunosuke ran to the hospital, but Herlock's bed is empty. Iris then concluded that the doctors sent him away early because the injury was minor, but the truth was that Herlock's condition was so critical; they are having trouble with the anesthetic. Ryunosuke observes that Iris, while a genius inventor, is still a child in the end.
• Gina has been abandoned by her parents. After other adults only lied to her, she banded with other abandoned children and turned to pickpocketing and other forms of manipulation in pursuit of survival. One day of pickpocketing, though, she witnessed the murder of 'Thrice-Fired' Mason. Magnus McGilded then blackmailed Gina into committing perjury in the following trial and pawning off a coat then picking up the coat two months later. On the night that she did pick up the coat, she ended up in the middle of a crime scene with a gun in her hand while lying next to the dead pawnbroker. By the time Ryunosuke and Susato meet her in the jail, she claims that everyone lies, but Gina is the worst liar of all. She even refuses to let anyone, even Ryunosuke, defend her!
• In connection with Runaway Room is when Ryunosuke learns what really happened on the omnibus that night. He really felt sick to his stomach that he "proved" Magnus McGilded innocent when, in truth, he did murder 'Thrice-Fired' Mason and the coat Gina was currently wearing would have been decisive evidence at that trial.
• Ashley Graydon, once called Ashley Milverton, lived a life of extreme poverty and had to listen to his parents fight every night until his mother left his father and took him with her. He was able to claw his way out of poverty and become a quintessential British gentleman but he was left with an unhealthy obsession with money to the point where he would sell government secrets to McGilded for it. His father 'Thrice-Fired' Mason Milverton suspected something was going on and confronted McGilded which led to his murder and the disappearance of the disk. Graydon was angered that McGilded got away with his crime and had him killed. Then, desperate to find the remaining disk and music box, he broke in Windibank's Pawnbrokery and accidentally murdered him. While he didn't expect or want any of these events to happen, he murdered a man and pinned it on a young girl and became the very thing he despised in McGilded.
• Susato, having been by your side as your judicial assistant since you began your journey as a lawyer in Britain, leaves for Japan after learning that her father had collapsed with a high fever. She has to catch a train to the next boat as soon as possible so she isn't with you at all during the trial. The night before she leaves, she tells Ryunosuke she doesn't want him to say goodbye or even see her off to the train station because she didn't want to cry in front of him. Before that, though, when she hands him the McGilded case files, we get this:
  Ryunosuke: You really are the best judicial assistant in the world.
  Susato: Well...that's extremely flattering. But I'm sorry to say... that I've been a complete failure.
  • Luckily Ryunosuke and crew manage to make it to her ship before she embarks and stop her before she throws her judical book into the ocean. It's then revealed why she feels that she can't call herself a judicial assistant: she began to lose faith in British law and tampered with the crime scene because she didn't believe the police, and by extension Ryunosuke, would find the truth otherwise. It went against everything she believed in and therefore she could no longer see herself as worthy of the title.

End Credits

• When, after leading confidently, Kazuma steps back into the timeline and Ryunosuke continues on ahead.

The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve

The Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney:

• In the intro, we see Susato conversing near what looks like a gravestone before images of Jezaille Brett's body slumped on the ground appear. Susato then makes a promise that she will defend Rei Membami to the bitter end, no matter what happens, before ending her statement with "...Kazuma-sama." Then you suddenly realize that the grave she was talking to was not Jezaille's. As a Rewatch Bonus, you begin to realize that she is talking with Kazuma's cenotaph, unaware that he is not dead, of course.
• Although the scene is mostly Played for Laughs, Auchi's breakdown at the end of the trial qualifies as this trope. Since his hair was cut off by Kazuma at the end of the trial with Ryunosuke nine months ago, Auchi had a small tuft of hair growing on the bald patch of his head, where he referred to as his "seed of hope". However, the trial ended with his defeat against another Naruhodo (who is actually Susato), which made him cut that tuft of hair off in a manner resembling Seppuku, while saying that his hope is lost forever. While the whole scene was so over the top, his actions can be seen as a man whose self-esteem has hit rock bottom after being defeated by people much younger than him, and has chosen to give up entirely.

The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro:

• The truth about Olive Green. She was engaged to Duncan Ross, who loved her deeply. Then one day, he died in a gas leak accident, sending her into depression. When she found out Shamspeare may have caused it, she bought strychnine on the black market and poisoned his gas pipes in such a way that he'd suffer a Karmic Death if he tried to do the same thing again, but was also planning on drinking the poison herself afterwards, and the only reason she doesn't go through with it is Ryunosuke and Sholmes walking in on her as she's about to. Here's the Reminiscence theme that plays when this character tells their full story.

The Return of the Great Departed Soul:

• For the most of the first trial, Ryunosuke is completely alone with no one to be by his side.
• Albert Harebrayne coming to terms with his grand experiment having been nothing but a trick from the very beginning, and his desperate attempts to refute that possibility. A likewise saddening track during this exchange.
  • Related, Ryunosuke's Heroic BSoD when he realizes that the only way he can prove Harebrayne's innocence is to reveal that the science experiment he spent most of his life on was a lie.
• The revelation that Enoch Drebber, a man described as a fake scientist and con man was, at one point, a highly acclaimed student set for a bright future. A future that was stolen from him by an unscrupulous (secretly criminal) journalist who revealed his identity as the student who "saw the Professor rise from the grave" while he was grave robbing corpses to for medical study, leading to his expulsion from university and destroying his ambitions. The way he reacts to his Royal Science Award in court is deeply pitiful.

Twisted Karma and His Last Bow:

• Gina relaying the news of Gregson's death to 221B Baker Street, from her pained, terrified expressions and desperation to get Sholmes and Ryu to the crime scene, to what Sholmes says after she leaves, as such:
  Sholmes: It's a detective's lot to appear wherever some sinister plot has unfolded. Little wonder we all look haggard. Sometimes these things are almost too much for the nerves.
  Ryu: Mr Sholmes...
  Sholmes: What use is there in being a great detective if I fail to see something like this coming, hm?! How could I let this happen to Gregson?! To Gregson...
  • It's even worse when you consider that it's revealed in the last case that the majority of actions he had taken throughout the entire duology was done with the express purpose of protecting Gregson from getting killed from a potential hit. A year of relentlessly trying to protect his respected colleague's life only for it to be taken at the eleventh hour. It's little wonder that Sholmes is a man possessed for the final two cases.
• Barok van Zieks hasn't been able to get a defense lawyer until Ryunosuke, and he was genuinely surprised that Ryunosuke would want to defend him despite everything he's done. He's just accepted that his reputation as the Reaper makes that everyone despises and fears him and no one will help him. If not for Ryunosuke Naruhodo defending him, it is likely that van Zieks would have been found guilty of Inspector Gregson’s murder as well as the Reaper Killings and would have been executed by hanging.
• Kazuma reveals his true mission in London: to find out what really happened during the Professor case and bring justice to his father, Genshin Asogi, as Kazuma believes that he was wrongfully convicted of the crime.
• Maria Gorey is saddened that her mother Courtney Sithe was jailed for the murder and hiding the the true death of the Professor. Not just because she was jailed but because she believed Sithe was a coroner for the pursuit of the truth not because of personal gain.
• Daley Vigil. Once the chief warder of Barclay Prison, he was blamed for the jailbreak of the notorious serial killer the Professor and dismissed from his job because they needed a scapegoat. He was so devastated that he threw himself out of the window of Governor Caidin's office and erased the memory that he was dismissed. When his memories come back to him, he faints from the realization.

The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo:

• When Kazuma challenges Naruhodo to prove with evidence that he himself was with Gregson the night of his murder, Naruhodo points out the large gash made in Gregson's metal trunk which has what looks like a fragment of a knife wedged in it. However, it's actually the tip of Kazuma's beloved Karuma, which considering his fervent belief that a katana is a man's soul, is heartbreaking considering how close he came to striking down someone in blind rage.
  Naruhodo: The tip...is broken...
• Barok's Heroic BSoD when Ryunosuke proves Klint van Zieks wasn't a victim of the serial killer known as "the Professor", he was the Professor.
• Barok is hit hard when the will all but confirms that Klint van Zieks is the professor, especially when in it Klint confesses that he did in fact kill his own mentor and benefactor the former Chief Justice before Mael Stronghart. Since Klint owed a lot to his former mentor and benefactor, Barok concluded that his brother Klint was not the professor. The will destroys that false conclusion and any hope that Barok clinged to that Klint was not the professor because he would not kill his own personal friend by proving that assumption wrong. Barok did not want to believe that his older brother Klint could have killed an innocent person and his feelings and respect for his older brother blinded him to that truth and his desire for revenge on the man who killed Klint blinded him to the simple fact that the ring was fabricated evidence because it would have cut Klint’s throat to heck if he truly swallowed it off of Genshin’s finger. Because his love for his brother and his grief and desire to avenge his brother’s death blinded him to that simple fact, is it any wonder why Kazuma wanted to send Barok to the gallows? Had Barok objected to the Ring being decisive evidence of Genshin being the Professor 10 years earlier since no tissue damage was found in Klint’s throat or stomach tissue, Kazuma might have realized that Mael Stronghart was the real enemy sooner.
• The whole truth of the Professor case is tragic for everyone involved. Yujin Mikotoba, Genshin Asogi and Seishiro Jigoku went abroad to the British Empire to study its legal and medical systems. Yujin was lucky and ended up becoming friends with Herlock Sholmes, but the other two both got caught up in a horrible conspiracy centered on Mael Stronghart's attempt to take control of the British legal world. Genshin became friends with Klint van Zieks, brother of Barok, who turned out to be a serial killer blackmailed by Stronghart into being his personal hitman. Genshin ended up killing Klint in a Duel to the Death (with implied that he likely threw the duel out of guilt), and when Stronghart discovered this he decided to pin all the serial killings on Genshin, under the pretense that England would panic if they found out a British aristocrat was a serial killer. Tobias Gregson and Jigoku reluctantly agreed to help, and Genshin was convicted in a secret trial. Bear in mind, he had a son, Kazuma, back in Japan at the time. The other conspirators told Genshin his execution would be faked and that he could live. However, Enoch Drebber happened to witness him "rising from the grave", so Stronghart had to order Jigoku to kill Genshin to prevent the truth from being revealed. (Under the pretense that letting him go free could harm British-Japanese relations) The fact that Stronghart used two people as pawns simply due to them being Japanese is doubly tragic knowing that that's really how things were back then.
• Kazuma becomes more and more incensed and obsessive as the trial goes on. He becomes convinced that Barok van Zieks is actually the Reaper and knowingly framed his father as the Professor despite mounting evidence suggesting Mael Stronghart is the true culprit. He becomes so caught up in his hatred and revenge against van Zieks that he refuses to see the truth. If Ryunosuke was not the Defense Lawyer to calm him down so that he could see that the real enemy was Mael Stronghart at the time, then it is likely that Kazuma would have convicted Barok van Zieks for the Reaper killings.
• At one point, Kazuma reveals that he had verbal confirmation that Genshin Asogi was framed, however his only "proof" is a confrontation that only he and Gregson were present for, meaning that Stronghart will not accept it as evidence. He can only slam his fists down on the prosecution bench and shout in frustration as his case slips through his fingers.
• Mikotoba's story on doing everything he could to help Iris be born safely only for her mother to die in the process, something he admits reduced him to tears. Even worse is that the whole reason he left Japan for the exchange program in the first place was to escape the depression of his own wife's Death by Childbirth.
• A bittersweet tearjerker: Ryunosuke and Susato return to Japan, leaving their new friends and Kazuma behind in London.
• Gina and Gregson's appearances during the end credits. Gina says she found a letter that Gregson left for her, where she learned that Gregson's attempted leave from acting as the Reaper after killing Jigoku was to keep her safe from winding up like their other targets. She's still grateful to Gregson for saving her, but wishes she was able to thank him. Meanwhile, Gregson admits that Gina essentially taught him to live again and told her that she would have to keep the Inspector's will after he was gone.
• Barok van Zieks reveals in the credits of the reason for his 5 year absence in the courtroom: he cracked under the pressure of being called the Reaper, the deaths of the defendants, and the assassination attempts so he took a break, hoping that curse would end if he stopped taking cases.