It's completely old news, but I thought since we have this new forum there should be a manga section to go along with the anime discussion, especially since there's supposedly a new manga coming!

I'll start things off with my quick thoughts on the manga.

First off, I don't know much about the fan fiction Del Ray published back around 2008-2009. I bought it expecting the official manga but right around the time Grossberg is killed by an airplane and Maya channels Gumshoe before his very-alive appearance in AJ, I decided to stop.

Regarding the actual official manga:

Phoenix Wright Manga: I thought it was pretty good for what it was. In the pre-GS5 era when I was convinced we probably weren't getting any new AA ever again, it was a central part of my AA timeline (I tried to justify AJ taking place a year later than it did so Phoenix could have another year post-T&T of getting cases - something that I still think is better than the one month between T&T and 4-4 scenario) and I forgave its faults because it was more pretty good AA. Now that we have a localized AAI2 as well as DD, VS, and now GS6, it doesn't seem as important to me anymore and its flaws begin to bug me more. I also have resigned to the fact that it's almost impossible to place these stories in the timeline - even with my "extra year" headcanon it thematically makes no sense when you look at the characters' interactions over the years. Anytime you try to place an episode of the manga in between two game cases, you have a scenario where Franziska is there when she shouldn't be, or characters like Larry and Oldbag don't mesh with their current incarnations, etc. And quite a few of the cases were pretty bad. Looking back now, the only case I really consider still "canon" to me would probably be the "Turnabout Gurgitation" case. It has its problems but its really bizarre, really unique in terms of what happens, and it has a ton of great AJ foreshadowing. Everything else I'm ignoring at this point.

Edgeworth Manga: This was really bad in my opinon. The cases weren't very interesting, although the Gentleman Thieves thing was kind of funny. The biggest problem is that none of the characters sound like their actual game counterparts. While the PW manga was translated by a two people who obviously had knowledge of the franchise and its characters, the Edgeworth manga was translated by some guy who didn't seem to know it very well. He didn't seem to do any research at all, in fact, because there's a reoccurring character from the PW manga that's given a completely different name here. Did they not give him any translation notes or something? Also, while the PW manga was localized for Japanifornia like the games were, the Edgeworth manga was kept in Japan and people are using yen to buy things. I have no problem with literal translations; in fact, in most cases (apart from AA) I prefer it. But we have 9 games and a manga which take place in Japanifornia, so its really weird to suddenly be reading about Dick Gumshoe and Miles Edgeworth suddenly existing in Japan. Honestly at that point I wish they would have kept the Japanese names and it would have felt like a faithful translation of the original, which would be easier to compartmentalize than the strange place its in now. Also, the only place it can fit in is after AAI2 and Edgeworth's treatment of Gumshoe doesn't reflect the end of AAI2 here. All in all, I can't stand this manga.

I'm genuinely curious as to what they're doing with the new manga. I'd love an AJ-era manga. If you set it in between AJ and DD you'd be able to tell some nice filler stories without getting into the problems that the PW and ME manga did.

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Both the 'fanfiction' one and the serialized series are official series though; they have both been officially published...　Also: news reports already noted that the new manga is based on the anime (so a AA1/2 setting). Based on the other series than run in V-Jump, I think you can expect either an adaptation of the same stories (like the Dragon Ball Super manga), or side-stories to the anime.

I care little for the timeline actually, so I really enjoyed Kuroda's serialized Ace Attorney (the "official" manga). Most of the stories had a distinct turnabout theme to them, which to me was more important than the question whether it fits the timeline or not. Kuroda's a professional mystery writer actually, so it's interesting to see how such a person handles the AA franchise. The AAI manga was not as fun, I agree. I only read the Japanese version by the way, but here Kuroda kinda lost track of the theme or something like that, because a lot of the stories just felt... mediocre. And the art was a lot worse, if I remember correctly (it's been a while, I think I read the series only once when it was first released in Japan...)

Kuroda also wrote a two-part Ace Attorney short story (as in a 'book' short story) by the way, but it was only printed once in a literary magazine and never reprinted/collected. That story is probably one of the more obscure Ace Attorney spin-off materials.

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Yeah don't get me wrong, I enjoy the PW manga and they remain a part of what AA is to me, but I have just given up on making them mesh 100% with the games and they aren't the absolutely necessary parts of the saga that I felt they were pre DD. (For those who are X files fans, its similar to what happened with the franchise recently. Back when there hadn't been any hope of an X files movie/TV show to come back and wrap up the last mysteries, a comic book was released that acted as that finale. Then this new show has started up again recently and now the comics are pretty much side stories to my knowledge. That's kind of the shift that's gone on for the AA manga with me).

I don't remember the art in the AAI manga that well but mostly my complaints are with the lazy localization and the blandness of the cases themselves.

I haven't heard about this AA short story! What did it revolve around?

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I wish I knew! The two-part story has only been published in those two issues of a monthly literature magazine published almost ten years ago, so finding them is kinda difficult.

I do have a different obscure AA story though. Back in 2009, they released an Ace Attorney-themed "For Dummies"-esque introduction book on the jury trial system in Japan (which was re-introduced in the country in that year). The book consists of two parts: a story part where Phoenix handles a case with a jury, and an 'educative' part, with an explanation of how the jury trial system works in Japan (coupled with comments made by the AA characters).

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Something like that EXISTS? Please, can I have more information? A link or something? And in which language is it?
I have read the five localized (English) AA manga, and I really liked them a lot. "Turnabout Prophecy" was my favourite case. I also read one AAI manga, and I really don't want to read more of them. I think there are some nice ideas in it, but unfortunately Edgeworth behaves like a strange, magenta-coloured version of Sherlock Holmes, especially during the first case. He is just... strange, I think.

I've only ever read the Miles edgeworth manga, i've tried to find the Phoenix Wright manga but i can't seem to find translated scans of them.

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It's this book, and only available in Japanese. Well, was available, as it's been OOP for a looooong time. I have my copy still somewhere. The story itself is quite bland from what I remember, though the book does offer a very easy-to-understand explanation of how the lay judge system works in Japan.

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Okay... I'm so jealous of you Japanese readers...

No kidding, when I was in middle school the library was doing this thing where they were giving away old books and one was a massive old book about constitutional law but it didn't come with a dust jacket, so I had this big plan to make an AA-themed one with Phoenix and co. talking about constitutional law. Never ended up doing it though.

The idea of having books where fan-favorite characters teach you things is actually a really good idea. I'd totally read a "Phoenix and Maya explain the Law", or "Snake and Otacon explain Nanotechnology", or "Link explains Pottery". It might make it more enjoyable for people, especially kids, to get the concepts.

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Made another topic about the book itself, for those interested.

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I'm a little surprised there aren't more posts about these; but yeah, I think that [while not quite on par with the games] the Kodansha manga are nice supplemental material. The art is nice, and the cases are usually pretty interesting, imo. The Del Rey manga (from what I read) is alright; none of the stories are necessarily BAD or anything, but a story lasts maybe 10 pages at most, so they're never really given enough room to breathe or grow into something more interesting. Usually the stories tend to be better off when they're doing simple comedy bits, like when Nick was trying to make a waterfall for Maya.

I enjoyed the 5 mangas for what they were, as they did have a lot of comedic elements to them. That waterfall chapter you mentioned was hilarious. I laughed out loud a lot while reading them.

I wasn't really a huge fan of the casebook volumes that came out. The quality varied a lot throughout as it as a compilation by many different authors and artists.

For what it's worth I enjoyed the Edgeworth manga so much more than the Phoenix one. I liked how it was a direct translation of the series, but uses the English names instead. Gumshoe is also way more enjoyable than he ever was in the games. I loved how more mature and serious it was as well and I think it was a tad more violent too? Not sure how often AA has mild gore.

The Phoenix manga on the other hand...I don't really enjoy it. It has way too much slapstick and humor and doesn't even take the cases seriously. Feels more like I'm reading a parody of Ace Attorney instead.

I'm hoping AJ and DD get their own mangas eventually, or even a continuation of the Phoenix manga that has Apollo, Athena and Trucy. That would be nice and would make it more bearable to read at least.

H-How many different manga are there out there? I've only ever seen one chapter of one manga, and I have no idea which it was. Now I read in this thread there are many more? Does anyone have a list?

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Serialized manga:
- Gyakuten Saiban (Story: KURODA Kenji, Art: Kazuo MAEKAWA). A five volume mystery series that was serialized between 2006~2007. Released abroad as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
- Gyakuten Kenji (Story: KURODA Kenji, Art: Kazuo MAEKAWA). A four volume mystery series that was serialized in 2009. Is released abroad as Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth.

Officially released dojinshi collections:
- Gyakuten Saiban Official Anthology Comic Naruhodo Hen 1 & 2 (By various artists). A collection of random dojinshi, officially sanctioned by Capcom. Released abroad as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Official Casebook: Vol. 1.
- Gyakuten Saiban Official Anthology Comic Mitsurugi Hen 1 & 2 (By various artists). A collection of random dojinshi, officially sanctioned by Capcom. Released abroad as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Official Casebook: Vol. 2.

Officially released dojinshi not released outside Japan:
Gyakuten Saiban Comic Anthology (2002), Gyakuten Saiban I&II Anthology Kingdom (2003), Gyakuten Saiban I&II 4 Koma Kingdom (2003), Gyakuten Saiban 3 4 Koma Kingdom (2004), Gyakuten Saiban 4 Anthology Comic (2007), Gyakuten Saiban Anthology Comic Playback! Naruhodo (2007), Gyakuten Saiban 4 Characters 4 Koma Kingdom (2007).

And then you have the fanbooks/guides/etc that might have some short manga also.

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Thanks! Much appreciated. I'm not sure if I'll actually use this info, but at least it's nice to know in case I do want to do something with it

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Do you have isbns for all of those? I am thinking of trying to cover the manga in the redesign and it just wont do without the ISBNs.

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As I have actual physical copies of the US releases (UK always seem to import the US versions of manga down to it not even having a UK price printed on it) of the first three books of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth to hand I can at least give you the ISBNs for those:-

Volume One ISBN:- 978-1-935-42999-9
Volume Two ISBN:- 978-1-935-42998-2
Volume Three ISBN:- 978-1-612-62096-1

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Okay, so I've read quite a few of the regular Ace Attorney manga in English from the library, so I'm confused as to why they're so hard to find. Why is it this site needs fan translations when there are already official translations?

Kenji Kuroda, the writer of the Ace Attorney and Ace Attorney Investigations manga, has been busy the last few weeks posting two unused plots he had written for the Ace Attorney Investigations manga. The scenarios got canned for various reasons, but he thought it'd be a shame if nobody would ever read these plots, so he decided to publish them on his own site, ten years after the series ended! It's just the basic plot divided in scenes/dialogues without the art, but they're easy to follow even without the art that would've accompanied it (if you know Japanese; as it's mostly simple dialogue I think Google Translate will be fairly comprehensible).

Kuroda also posted an unpublished plot for a prose mystery story of Ace Attorney there: he already wrote the very first Ace Attorney original mystery short prose story back in 2007, and he had hoped he'd be able to do a second one and have them published as one volume, but the offer for the second story never came. It's a pretty interesting story, though weirdly, it's a bit of a 'visual' story and would've worked better as a manga... he did use elements of this story in an AAI manga story.

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Know this is a little bit old, but I wanted to weigh in.

I've only got the Ace Attorney manga (I have all 5, but never read the last one; it's still sealed) and I have one volume of AAI. It seems like the prices for it have become pretty absurd and they're really hard to find; I snagged a copy of AAI volume 1 that had been sitting in my local shop for...gosh, a decade or so.

I think they're actually really good. They feel like actual cases and while their canonical status is probably questionable at best, I genuinely appreciate them.

One odd thing I noted is that I can't find the Japanese names of the characters for the Ace Attorney Investigations manga anywhere. If anyone has the manga in Japanese, can you please list them off here?

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