Apollo Justice


 * You may be looking for the game Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

"Phoenix Wright"

- You know what changed her mind? Hearing your defense in there today. She could feel your gaze, unwavering, always looking straight at the truth.

Apollo Justice is a defense attorney working for the Wright Anything Agency. He is notable for his involvement in a test trial for the Jurist System, an effort to reintegrate the jury into court proceedings, along with co-counsel Trucy Wright, Prosecutor Klavier Gavin, and mentor Phoenix Wright.

Early life

 * Main article: Turnabout Succession

Justice was born to Thalassa Gramarye and a stage performer. His father died because of a tragic stage accident a year after he was born, and his mother left him soon afterward, giving him one of her bracelets and later remarrying and having Trucy Wright. Justice grew up not knowing about his mother or his half-sister, and he came to idolize and respect defense attorney Phoenix Wright. However, Wright was disbarred in 2019 following a vaguely reported forgery incident. Nonetheless, Justice worked to become a lawyer like him.


 * Main article: The Cosmic Turnabout

In middle school, Justice found his classmate Clay Terran crying alone after learning that his mother had died. Justice, knowing the pain of having no mother himself, encouraged Terran to stand tall by yelling, "I'm Clay Terran and I'm fine!" The two soon became close friends, and both shared and talked about their dreams, with Justice wanting to become a lawyer and Terran wanting to become an astronaut. It was through this friendship that Justice came to visit the GYAXA station and meet Solomon Starbuck, who he soon respected deeply.

Meeting an idol

 * Main article: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Justice passed the bar with badge number 29003, and he came to work for Kristoph Gavin's law firm, Gavin Law Offices. Gavin aided him during his first case, in which the defendant was the disgraced former lawyer, Phoenix Wright. The trial was a very standard one until Wright began to accuse Gavin of being the real killer. Wright helped Justice to figure out the truth about the case, securing the not guilty verdict and resulting in Gavin's arrest. After the trial, Wright told Justice that he had faked a key piece of evidence. Horrified that someone he respected would openly admit to forgery, Justice punched Wright and then left, intending never to see Wright again. Gavin Law Offices was consequently dissolved, and Justice was left without work. During this time, Aoi encouraged him to continue being an attorney despite the turn of events.

Wright invited Justice to work for the Wright & Co. Law Offices, which he refused. After two months, however, with nowhere else to turn for a job, Justice reluctantly visited the old firm. He found that it was now a "talent agency" run by Wright's adoptive daughter, Trucy Wright. After the confusion was settled, Trucy hired Justice as the agency's lawyer. Because Justice had no entertaining talent to speak of, Trucy renamed the agency the Wright Anything Agency to account for Justice's involvement in it.

At first, Phoenix assigned Justice to three minor, seemingly pointless cases, but he found that all three cases were tied to a murder that had occurred in People Park. Desperate for real work, he offered to take on the resulting defendant's case. With the help of Trucy and Detective Ema Skye, Justice gathered evidence and then faced off against Kristoph Gavin's brother, Prosecutor Klavier Gavin, in court. Justice implicated the defendant's fiancee as the real killer, and as Klavier began to figure out that Justice was right, he helped Justice with the process of proving his claims. Justice wondered whether he had really earned his victory.

Klavier also had his own band, and he invited Justice and Trucy to one of his concerts at a discounted price. However, during the concert, a bodyguard was fatally shot, and Justice once again defended the accused in court against Klavier. A blind witness implicated one of Klavier's band members, Daryan Crescend, as the real killer. While Crescend had set up an alibi for himself, Justice was able to show that Crescend had set up the crime to throw off the time of the shooting, and that he had been smuggling a Borginian cocoon, which had led to the confrontation that had killed the victim. Lacking decisive evidence, Justice convinced his defendant to testify to his involvement in the smuggling, proving Crescend's motive.

Three months later, Justice participated in a test trial for the Jurist System, defending Vera Misham against the charge laid on her for the murder of her father Drew Misham, with Klavier as the prosecutor. Although Phoenix promised Justice a "simple" case, the case quickly ballooned into a complex monstrosity, as the murder weapon, a Troupe Gramarye commemorative stamp laced with atroquinine, was tied to Vera's secret life as a forger, as well as the case that had cost Phoenix his attorney's badge. It was revealed that Phoenix had continued his investigation into his last case for the past seven years.

Eventually, Kristoph Gavin was summoned from his prison in Solitary Cell 13, accused by Justice of setting up the murder seven years prior. As Justice and Klavier closed in on the truth, they found that they had no decisive evidence to prove that Kristoph had done the deed. However, they had no need for this under the new Jurist System. As Kristoph utterly broke down upon finding out that the common people would decide the outcome of the case, Klavier and the judge gave their justifications for the new system, though Justice was rendered speechless. Justice vowed that he would learn what law was for himself, and fight to change it if he had to.

The return of Justice

 * Main article: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

Wright later regained his job as an attorney and hired Athena Cykes. Before Wright's return to the courtroom, however, a trial that Justice was involved in was disrupted when a bomb planted in the courtroom detonated. Justice was injured while protecting Juniper Woods from some debris, so he had to have both his arms and his right eye swathed in bandages. Additionally, he sported a slightly tattered blue coat that hung from his shoulders over his usual apparel, which was originally worn by his deceased childhood friend, Clay Terran. After recuperating in the hospital, Justice went back to the courtroom to watch Wright defend Woods, the latter being accused of planting the bomb.

Personality
Justice tends to be sarcastic and critical. He often makes blunt comments concerning his mentor Phoenix Wright's piano playing in particular. He occasionally even shows some disdain for some of his clients. He also has a vain side; he frequently makes puns out of his own name, and he practices his shouting for hours at night, calling it his "Chords of Steel", which sometimes makes his voice raspy. Underneath it all, he is serious about his job, and he cares deeply about justice. He is also caring, frequently worrying about Trucy Wright (although her odd relationship with her adoptive father puzzles him) and his clients. Justice cried in relief after finding out that Trucy was safe following her "abduction", as well as when Vera Misham survived her atroquinine poisoning.

During his first year in court, Apollo Justice was often unsure of himself and easily flustered. He has been shown to suffer somewhat from stage fright in court, as shown when he was supposed to perform a Luminol test on a piece of evidence, only for his hand to tremble when he realized the whole courtroom was looking at him. However, he is just as determined as his mentor was. His training under his former mentor, Kristoph Gavin, has led him to rely mostly on facts and arguments, which often puts him at odds with Wright's use of questionable tactics. Justice has also adopted Gavin's serious attitude, which conflicts with Wright's easygoing manner. Justice's unusual hairstyle frightens many of the defendants or witnesses whom he sees, though unlike Wright, who claims his hair is "natural," Justice uses hair gel.

Justice has a strange dynamic with his rival Klavier Gavin, in that the prosecutor does not seem to see Justice as a rival at all. He often calls Justice "Herr Forehead" in reference to an objection made by Justice about where a murder victim had been shot, as well as to the defense lawyer's rather large and exposed forehead. However, Klavier is pretty friendly towards Justice outside of the courtroom, even talking openly to him about cases on which they are both currently working. Justice, on the other hand, often shows jealousy and a sense that Gavin is "stealing the show", while also showing a certain morbid disdain towards Gavin's brand of loud music. Despite this, the two eventually worked together in court against Kristoph Gavin.

By the time Athena Cykes had joined the Wright Anything Agency, Justice had matured greatly into his role as a defense attorney. He no longer showed any major signs of stage fright in court (although he was still somewhat easily flustered by Simon Blackquill's swordplay metaphors and slashing motions), and had become an overall calmer individual.

On a superficial level, Justice has several similarities with Wright. For example, Justice is afraid of heights and rides a bike. Additionally, when talking about newspapers, he has admitted that he only reads the funnies. Justice claims to be good with astrology and hula hoops. He also used to watch a certain science-fiction show, which he was reminded of when Trucy used the phrase "bigger on the inside than on the outside" to describe her top hat. In the Japanese version, when Justice refers to a person, he says their last name (written in Kanji form in the text box) as well as the common "-san" honorific, with only one exception.

"Perceive" ability
The bracelet Justice has helps him to focus on the nervous habits of other people. When Justice feels his bracelet getting tighter during a cross-examination, he knows to focus on the witness. Justice inherited the bracelet from his mother.

Name

 * His Japanese surname, "Odoroki" (王泥喜), comes from the word for "a surprise".


 * The kanji that make up "Housuke" (法介) can be broken down into "hou" (法) meaning "law", and "suke" (介), which is a common suffix for male Japanese names. This makes the meaning of his first name literally "boy of law" or "law boy".


 * His Japanese full name can roughly mean "A surprising man of law".


 * The name "Apollo" comes from Apollo, the god of (amongst other things) light, the sun and truth in Greek and Roman mythology. It may also be a nod to Phoenix Wright's first name originating from mythology. It may also be a reference to the Apollo Program from NASA, which Trucy mentions in Turnabout Corner when suggesting that Apollo's crest should be the Lunar Lander.


 * The surname "Justice" is a reference to his job; he likes to make puns with his last name.


 * In both Spanish and Italian, Justice's nickname "Pollo" means "chicken", which might be a reference to his hairstyle being like that of a chicken's comb.

Development

 * In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, Justice is the only player character to have five voice clips, while the other two have only four.


 * The main clothing color themes of Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes are the three primary colors.

References to popular culture
During Turnabout Serenade, Trucy states that her hat is "like a	little universe! Bigger on the inside than on the outside!" At this, Apollo muses that this reminds him of a sci-fi show he used to watch. This is a reference to the long-running British sci-fi show Doctor Who, in which the main character travels through the universe in his spacecraft/time machine, one of the most notable features of which is that its interior is much larger than its exterior.

Other media

 * In episode 19 of the anime Lucky Star, Hiyori produces two drawings to show Yutaka and Minami. These are of chibi versions of Klavier Gavin and Apollo Justice, complete with "Objection!" written beside the picture of Justice. The episode premiered in Japan on August 12, 2007, four months after the release of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney in Japan. The scene can be viewed here.


 * Apollo Justice has a cameo in the Capcom game We Love Golf on the Wii, along with Pearl Fey.