The Volume 1 cover.
The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney manga is a manga series based on the Ace Attorney video games and distributed in the United States by Kodansha Comics. It was written by Kenji Kuroda and illustrated by Kazuo Maekawa and ran for a total of five volumes, with the first volume being originally published in Japan on April 6, 2007.
Kodansha comics released an English translation of the first volume in 2011 and has currently released all five volumes in the United States. Unlike the Del Ray manga, the Kodansha Comics manga is written and illustrated by one team and told more in the style of the games; an investigation of a crime followed by a trial. Unlike the games, however, there is only one investigation and one trial for each case.
Chapters[]
Chapter 1: Turnabout with the Wind[]
Phoenix Wright has to once again defend his friend Larry Butz when he's accused of murdering his latest girlfriend's ex-lover.
Chapters 2 - 5: Turnabout Gallows[]
Phoenix and Maya are invited to the home of computer company president Robin Wolfe, and asked to defend the man in court as he has been accused of killing an employee. But the case takes an unexpected turn when Wolfe is murdered, seemingly by his spider obsessed brother Bobby. Suspecting something amiss, Phoenix takes up Bobby's defence, and faces off against a familiar foe..
Chapter 6: Turnabout Showtime[]
Phoenix and Maya visit SparkleLand to watch the theme park's famous mascot stage show, only to witness one of the suit actors dying from a stab wound - while still inside their suit. In order to prove the innocence of the show's hostess, Julie, Phoenix must figure out the world's smallest locked room mystery to discover how the impossible murder was committed.
Chapters 7 - 9: Turnabout Prophecy[]
Phoenix and Maya visit a gathering of fortune tellers at Lordly Tailor, only to find themselves caught in another bizarre case when one of the fortune tellers is found dead - and the defendant, occult obsessed schoolgirl Russi Clover claims she was possessed by a demon when the crime occurred. Phoenix faces off against Franziska von Karma once again in order to find the truth.
Chapters 10 - 11: Turnabout from Heaven[]
While attempting to find the owner of a lost kitten, Phoenix, Maya and Pearl end up coming to the defense of Diana Wheatley, who is suspected of murdering her abusive father. Diana claims that her deceased mother returned from the dead in order to protect her, but can Phoenix discover the real truth?
Chapters 12 - 13: Turnabout Gurgitation[]
When Milo "Fairplay" Kent, a well-respected competitor in a television eating competition, is poisoned by a bowl of noodles during said competition, Phoenix and Maya soon find themselves defending the show's announcer for the crime. Their subsequent investigation reveals the cast and crew to be desperately trying to cover something up...
Chapters 14 - 15: Turnabout Power vs. Supernatural Power[]
Russi Clover once again gets herself in trouble after converting to the "Great Tengu Society", a cult that claims to give its followers supernatural powers. When an enemy of the cult is found dead, Phoenix and Maya must once again defend her in court against Franziska von Karma. But was the victim's death the divine retribution of the Great Lord Tengu? Or was it simply murder?
Story relation to the trilogy[]
The cases in the manga take place during consecutive months, strongly suggesting that they are chronologically ordered and take place all within a single year. Moreover, Pearl Fey appears in the first chapters, and both Miles Edgeworth and Franziska von Karma make appearances as rival prosecutors to Phoenix Wright throughout the manga. All this is essentially impossible within the storyline of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy. During Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Pearl and Wright have never met. During Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All, Edgeworth is nowhere to be seen until Farewell, My Turnabout, to the point that Wright believes him to be dead. During Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations, von Karma does not encounter Wright until Bridge to the Turnabout, in which she greets him by saying they have not met in about a year. The aforementioned final episodes of the latter two games are precisely the only times all four characters are in the same general location, aware of each other's presence. The manga could fit into the timeline of the trilogy by ignoring one of these facts, with the one in Trials and Tribulations being the least consequential.