Ok, so from perusing the internet, it seems like DelRay released 4 manga 'casebooks' in Japan, and only brought 2 over to North America. I have both of them, so I think I'm fine there.

But looking here (http://aceattorney.wikia.com/wiki/Phoenix_Wright_Manga), it seems like Kodansha has been translating some more manga, and bringing it over to the States. So far, Amazon.com lists 5 "Phoenix Wright manga", and I have collected 3 of them.

But now, there are two different "Miles Edgeworth" manga that are on Amazon. Where do they fit into the 12 chapters from this page (http://aceattorney.wikia.com/wiki/Phoenix_Wright_Manga)? I just want to know how many were released in Japan, and how many are making there way over here.

Thanks :D

The Kodansha manga is separate from the Del Ray one. I think the entire Kodansha manga has been translated and should be available for sale. The numeric order is also the chronological order. As for the new Edgeworth manga, it probably takes place in the same timeframe as AAI did.

As Rov stated, the Del Ray manga and the Kodansha manga are different. The Del Ray manga is a collection of fan-fiction [which was really bad in my opinion]. It was much more focused on "Let's have fun with the characters!" and less on actual law/crime stories. The Kodansha manga is the official manga and is written to match up perfectly to the games and is as Canon as any PW manga could be. It is much more like the games and generally is a good read, although the cases still aren't as good as the games. But at least there are cases at all, unlike the Del Ray manga. Also its a lot more violent than the actual games. There are 5 volumes of the Kodansha PW manga and there will eventually be 4 volumes of the ME manga.

As the Kodansha is the "canon" of the two mangas I am only going to talk about that.
Chronologically, there aren't any sure bets on when exactly the PW manga take place. The small hints in the text make it seem to take place after Trials and Tribulations. However, the events of the manga happen from August to November. This doesn't work because Trials & Tribulations ends in March of 2019 and Phoenix loses his badge in May. [This is one of those times the official dates really screw things up; personally, i think giving Wright another year after T&T to be a lawyer before his disbarment is much better for the narrative]. And as the manga has numerous references and tie-ins to the plot of Apollo Justice, I can't imagine the writers took everything from Apollo into account EXCEPT the dates. So that throws some doubt on when it takes place.

As for the Edgeworth Manga, there are no dates given [a smart move, in my opinion] but the appearance of AAI-style Ema in the not-yet-released Vol.3 points at it taking place after AAI and GK2.

Overall, the Kodansha PW/ME mangas are worth reading and its a shame the PW ones have that date issue. Once PW123HD comes out [which lets you start a case from any point] I'm going to look at GS3 to determine if it can fit in between Case 3-2 and 3-3. [The manga dates match up perfectly to the ones in those cases.]

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I thought the manga's were varying in quality. My two favorite stories were the case with the spiders and the case with the fortune-tellers, the others were just "meh".
I always thought the stories took place in an alternate reality.

Yeah don't get me wrong they're not amazing works of literature or anything. In fact, I have a lot of issues with them, specifically for making the violence worse than it needs to be and giving Phoenix that weird nail biting thing. [I'd say that "Turnabout Showtime" is the worst case of the manga. Hated it.]

I still think the manga cases were better than "Turnabout Big Top" from GS2 and "Recipe for Turnabout" from GS3.

I generally look at the manga similar to "Turnabout Samarai" from GS1. I enjoyed it as a case and don't hate it [although I know some people do] but its certainly not at the level of "Turnabout Goodbyes" or "Rise from the Ashes".

The manga case I remembered most the one with the game show, which wasn't fantastic but I loved that they brought Eldoon's noodles there. It was the case that made me feel like the manga contributed to the overall lore of the series. And that's the biggest reason why I like the manga: it does a good job of being a subtle introduction of things that appear in Apollo Justice.

An alternate universe is a good way to look at it, although what drives me crazy is that there are so many things foreshadowing Apollo that it would fit PERFECTLY on the timeline if it wasn't for those stupid dates. When I was reading it I just assumed that maybe that Phoenix's final trial didn't happen in May of 2019, but rather 2020 [Because AJ never mentions the actual date it takes place, only that it is 7 years after that trial] But with GS5 coming out, there may be something in there that contradicts that argument. [I know that Phoenix's age in the flashback of AJ is the same as in T&T, and I accept that as evidence which contradicts my idea, but the ages are done so screwily in the games that I feel it almost shouldn't be.]

I just think it works better to have Wright be in business for another year before AJ. At the end of T&T, Maya hints that she's still working with him as she trains to be the Kurain master, and it seems to me that Phoenix hasn't yet achieved the level of fame he has in AJ. If someone accepts the manga as some cases from Phoenix's 4 and final year of being an attorney, it gives Maya time to work with wright and eventually leave, for him to gain more notoriety, and for those wonderful AJ references in the manga to happen. If someone looks at the canon chain of events, Maya trains & leaves in less than two months, and right after that all hell breaks loose. Giving him another year is more believable and the transition to AJ is much smoother.

Sorry about the rambling. It doesn't matter I guess though because the official canon is that he looses his badge two months after T&T, so I can't believe that the manga authors would take everything from AJ into account except the actual date of Phoenix's disbarment.

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Yeah, it would be cool if some of the manga was canon (especially if they sorted this date issue you mentioned). But they would probably have to go ask Shu Takumi about all of that, and then it just gets to confusing.

And yeah, I double checked. Last case of GS3 is in Feb 2019. Phoenix gets disbarred in April of 2019. It would have been cool if he had gotten more time to become more famous, but when you think about it, he probably got famous for The Bridge to the Turnabout. He managed to not only find his client not guilty, but wrapped up a decade long incident (the whole Fey family thing), and found out that an ace prosecutor was guilty of murder.

Yeah, and now that AAI and GS5 were done by different people, Takumi's canon might get really confusing. Like he might not consider AAI or GS5 canon at all for all we know. I'm sure he probably doesn't consider the manga canon. But because the AA series is effectively being taken over by the AAI team, his word has a lot less weight in regards to canon.

There might be another possibility as to where the manga fits in, one that would work with the "canon". The first couple of cases in the manga happen in August-early october, and the rest happen late october to late november. Phoenix's first case, "The Stolen Turnabout" from T&T happens in the middle of october. The next case in T&T happens in early December. So the manga would fit perfectly in between the two filler cases of T&T. If this is the case, then the authors WERE thinking of everything and made a conscious effort to avoid the dates of the T&T cases. Unfortunately I can't prove or disprove these things without replaying the whole cases again for these reasons:
* In the first manga case [late august], Phoenix mentions that Larry was dating a woman from his security guard job. Larry has a security Job in The Stolen Turnabout [mid october] but I can't remember how phoenix reacts. I know it is a shock that Larry is involved, but I don't remember if it could be taken as "Phoenix didn't know Larry was working at THIS security Guard job" or just flat out "Phoenix didn't know Larry was working at a security guard job". The former works, the latter doesn't.

* In a couple of the manga cases Edgeworth returns. Phoenix isn't that shaken up by it, and that's reasonable considering Edgeworth's big return in JFA's "Farewell, My Turnabout". But how Phoenix reacts to Edgeworth coming back in "bridge to the Turnabout" is important. If he just acts surprised to see Edgeworth, then it works, as Bridge to the Turnabout would at least 4 months after the manga and that's enough time to be surprised at his arrival. But if Phoenix is like "OMG Edgeworth I haven't seen you since that one case with Engarde" or something similar it doesn't work. Like I said, I can't remember.

*In a similar situation, Fransiska is in the manga with no discussion about her return. It's possible Phoenix didn't know she left, but they don't mention it. But what's really important here is that Fransiska returns in Bridge to the Turnabout, and if I remember correctly wants to beat Phoenix Wright, upset when she finds Edgeworth is substituting. I can't remember what she says and if it leaves room for more cases against Wright or if it clearly is referencing JFA.

*In the manga case turnabout showtime, the leader of the stage show reminds Phoenix of his old girlfriend "Dahlia Hawthorne". [This is also where that weird nailbiting thing is, which I just ignore as non-canon. weird.] He obviously has really good feelings towards this girl. If the manga takes place after T&T, it makes sense because he knew "Dahlia" was really Iris during the dates he had with her. If its during T&T, its possible he still had feeling for her and their time together, but it seems like he'd have some really bad feelings too. Interestingly, Phoenix doesn't mention the girlfriend by name.

So I need to take a look at T&T and see if the manga contradicts anything. One good thing about having the manga be during T&T is that it keeps Bridge to the Turnabout as the finale. The last case of the manga is not related to the plot at all and sucks as an ending to the original arc. Another thing is that I always felt T&T had too little of actual Phoenix cases [we have two good mia cases, two bad filler Phoenix cases, and one awesome finale.] having the manga as part of T&T almost makes the experience more fitting.

[Oh, and I've thought about these cases working during JFA, and it doesn't because of Fransiska's really specific discussion of the trials and Edgeworth's big return.]

So its either post-T&T or during T&T.

If anyone can remember any of this stuff from T&T tell me because once I can answer these questions I'll have a good view of where these fit int.

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This is all pretty interesting. Also, to confirm, which manga are we talking about. I'm assuming you mean the Kodansha, not the Del-Ray.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm asking a bit late haha. Just wanted to confirm. After I'm done with exams for the week I'm gonna dive into either the Kodansha or Del Ray manga. Think I should skip Del Ray? People seem to complain about it.

Yeah Skip the del ray. It's actually fan fiction that was published as "official" for some reason. There's literally no real cases, its more like people just write about what they want the characters to do. Gumshoe dies and Maya channels him. Non-canon and lame.

The kodansha, the real official one, is the one I've been takling about. It's not up to the level most of the game cases are, but its probably as close as a comic version of AA could be.

For the record, I found a partial transcript of T&T. It only has Bridge to the Turnabout, but Edgeworth does say "I've been out of this country for a year". So there goes that. Von karma on the other hand only says she flew over here, so that doesn't mean she hasn't been there in the meantime, especially since she's been working with interpol. So maybe the solution is ignore the dates for Edgeworht's cases:

Cases without Edgeworth: During T&T
Cases with Edgeworth: Post T&T.

EDIT: Oops, never mind. Later on, Von Karma says "It's been a year since we last met eachother" so there goes that.

I guess the only option is to forget about august/november and just place them march & april. Except for the first case if you want [its a better phoenix intro case than The Stolen Turnabout!

The order of the manga seems random, so it might work. Tha'ts taking it pretty far though. I'm just trying to somehow wrap my brain around how to make these fit somehow! It reminds me of discussing with other Legend of Zelda fans about the timeline of the games and looking for all these litle clues before Nintendo released the official timeline.

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I only read until four, so I only know about the first part of the game show one.

I agree that Turnabout Showtime sucks. (Wtf was up with that epilogue?) But am I the only one who thinks Recipe for Turnabout is a great case? It's among my favorites.

The reason that I didn't like it was that, despite it having a really good and humorous idea [Phoenix being impersonated by Tigre was great] it kinda went nowhere after that. Same problem for The Stolen Turnabout. It almost is like Takumi wrote Bridge to the Turnabout and the prequel cases, then quickly came up with two filler cases. Also I hate Jean Armstrong. The character is really stereotypical and should have been a little less offensive.

But tha'ts just my opinion. I dislike all the Phoenix cases in T&T except for Bridge to the Turnabout. And everyone likes different cases. I, for instance, love Turnabout Succession and the Jurist system, while most everyone else hates the case. ;)

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