The 2007 manga series based on the Ace Attorney franchise. The series sees Phoenix Wright and his assistant Maya Fey take on a slew of new cases as they face off against Winston Payne, Franziska von Karma and Miles Edgeworth in court.
Unlike the games, there is no running storyline throughout the series. Aside from a few reoccurring new characters, the cases are all standalone and have an ambiguous but nonintrusive place in the canon of the games.
A total of seven cases were published:
- "Turnabout in the Wind"
- "Turnabout Gallows"
- "Turnabout Showtime"
- "Turnabout Prophesy"
- "Turnabout From Heaven"
- "Turnabout Gurgitation"
- "Turnabout Power vs Supernatural Power"
The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney manga series contains examples of:
- Accident, Not Murder: "Turnabout from Heaven" turns out to have this solution. The victim's cat knocked over a tin of buckwheat, which caused an allergic reaction when he was playing with the cat later.
- Advertised Extra:
- April May and Jean Armstrong appear on the back of the volumes they appear in, even though their appearances are just gag-based cameos.
- Edgeworth appears on the cover of volume 5, even though he never appears. Both cases are prosecuted by Winston Payne and Franziska von Karma.
- Asshole Victim:
- Downplayed and Subverted with Bright Bonds, who is stated to have cheated on his wife with Belle and then began to harass her into getting back together when she ended it. However, we then find out that he was the one who ended the affair out of guilt, and it was Belle who was harassing Bright. It's even implied that, even after Belle had fatally stabbed him, he used the last of his strength to clear her as a suspect.
- Discussed at the end of "Turnabout Gallows" with Robin Wolf, who was, by all accounts, a nasty person who abused his brother and mentally tortured Eddie Johnson into suicide. However, his daughter Lira does not forgive the killer or accept their motivations as reasonable, since Robin was still her dad and she loved him despite his faults.
- Madame Hecate is described as a terrible person who was difficult to work with, and she would often insult customers. She was murdered by her collaborator after she coldly cast them aside.
- Buck Wheatley was physically abusing his daughter Diana. The same can be said for his wife Vale, Diana's Wicked Stepmother who abused her as well. Both parents were killed in separate accidents, and nobody is saddened by their deaths.
- Milo "Fairplay" Kent turns out to be a cheater. Also, his reaction to finding out his food might be poisoned is to switch food with another contestant. Sure, he was baited into it by the killer, but from his point of view he was willing to let someone else get poisoned to save his own skin.
- Batman Gambit: In "Turnabout Gurgitation", Risa Iko poisons her own food, correctly predicting that Fairplay would want to switch bowls with her due to the threatening letter she sent earlier.
- Busman's Holiday: Phoenix and Maya are witnesses to four of the seven murders in the series, and in another they already knew both the defendant and the culprit.
- Call-Forward: Cool Saito the Ice Cream Fortune-Teller prophesies that Phoenix will become a pianist. Phoenix thinks the guy is nuts, but anyone who's played Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney will know that he's anything but.
- The Cameo:
- April May appears in a Fanservice Imagine Spot.
- "Director" Hotti appears in one panel during a visit to the Hotti Clinic.
- Jean Armstrong (and his terrible cooking) makes a brief appearance during "Turnabout Gurgitation".
- Various characters from the games, including Godot, Manfred von Karma, Lotta Heart, Mia Fey, Apollo Justice and Trucy Wright appear briefly in the humorous non-canon bonus chapters at the end of each volume.
- Continuity Nod:
- Eddie falls to his death at the exact same spot Dustin Prince was killed in "The Lost Turnabout".
- Phoenix is attracted to Julie Henson due to her resemblance to Dahlia Hawthorne/Iris.
- The ladder/stepladder gag makes its obligatory appearance.
- Darker and Edgier: While the series is just as goofy as usual, two cases ("Turnabout Gallows" and "Turnabout Prophecy) are horror themed. The former even has a spider-themed Nightmare Sequence with disturbing imagery unlike anything else in the entire franchise.
- Death by Woman Scorned: In "Turnabout with the Wind", it turns out that Belle killed Bright because he broke off their affair so he could be with his family.
- Designated Victim: While not as extreme as, say, Maya in the games, newcomer Russi Clover still manages to be accused of murder in two separate cases.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Some of the motivations behind the murders are a bit... harsh. Raymond Splume killed Flip Chambers because he took over his role as Sparkle Star, a theme park mascot, in "Turnabout Showtime", and Risa Iko from "Turnabout Gurgitation" killed Fairplay because he cheated and, more importantly, was wasting food.
- Fake Alibi: In the Turnabout Gallows case, the entire crux of the case revolves around the fact that everyone but the defendant has a completely impenetrable rock solid alibi: At the exact time of the victim's instantaneous death, everyone who could have possibly committed the murder besides the defendant was right there in front of Phoenix. This seemingly cast iron fact is about to get Phoenix's client a guilty verdict. That's when Phoenix quite literally turns the entire case upside down to work out and prove how the real killer managed to cause the victim's death without actually being anywhere near him.
- I Never Said It Was Poison:
- Belle slips up when she mentions the exact location the murder took place, which was currently unknown. She tries to explain it away, but Phoenix immediately catches her in another lie.
- Raymond Splume of "Turnabout Showtime" gives himself away as the killer when he claims to have seen Julie bite her nails during the performance, even though his back was supposedly turned and locked inside a mascot costume.
- Midquel: The manga appears to take place somewhere between Justice for All and Apollo Justice, presumably sometime after Trials and Tribulations.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: Wally Flores, the palm reader from "Turnabout Prophesy", returns as a competitor in "Turnabout Gurgitation"'s food competition as Caliente del Fluego.
- Of Corpse He's Alive: In "Turnabout Power vs Supernatural Power", it turns out that someone was suspending Sly's body with wires to confuse the investigation.
- Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: In "Turnabout Gurgitation", it's revealed the bowl that contained the poison that killed Fairplay had been switched with Risa's, at Fairplay's request no less. It turns out that Fairplay knew from his threatening letter that someone wanted to kill him, and switched bowls with Risa to feel safe. However, Risa had correctly predicted this and poisoned her own bowl in advance.
- Reverse Relationship Reveal: In "Turnabout with the Wind", Belle claims that Bright Bonds was begging her to take him back. In reality, she was the one who wanted him back.
- Reverse Whodunnit: Like most of the games, the first chapter shows who the killer is to the reader. In this case, we only see Belle's silhouette, but it’s very obviously her. The third case also shows a very incriminating, but slightly less obvious, silhouette.
- Stop Worshipping Me: At the end of "Turnabout Power vs Supernatural Power", after The Great Tengu Society has been disbanded, the former followers start worshipping Franziska von Karma and her whip instead. She is understandably not pleased, and even tries to hide at Phoenix's office.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: In "Turnabout Gurgitation", Risa Iko manages to convince the court that she was the recipient of the threatening letter, and that she was the intended murder victim. It's all an act, as she's the murderer.
