‘Ace Attorney’ Announces New Manga

A new Ace Attorney manga is on the way, reportedly premiering in the upcoming issue of Shueisha’s V Jump magazine.

Ace Attorney, or Gyakuten Saiban, has been through numerous iterations now, including video games, anime and manga. Now, the franchise is taking another swing at the sequential art genre with a new manga series in V Jump. According to a report by the Anime News Network, the comic will be spearheaded by Naoyuki Kageyama, the same writer and illustrator that oversaw the franchise’s last manga adaptation.

The new series will debut on Sept. 21, when the October issue of V Jump hits the stands. There is no word yet on where the story will pick up, but it is expected to continue adapting the anime series by the same name.

Kageyama was behind V Jump’s Gyakuten Saiban: Sono “Shinjitsu”, Igi Ari! manga series. It was serialized from March of 2016 to July of 2017, and compiled into the three collected editions. The third and final of these was published in September of 2017, though fans were pretty confident that they would see the series return one day.

That day is nearly upon us, as it appears the revived manga is meant to build off of the excitement for the upcoming new anime as well. A second season of Ace Attorney will premiere on Oct. 6 on YTV and NTV in Japan. The networks are apparently hoping that it can fill some big shoes, as it will take over the time slot of My Hero Academia when the season ends.

Ace Attorney first got an anime adaptation in April of 2016. It essentially traced the narrative of the first two games in the series, which were released in 2001 and 2002 respectively. The show streamed on Crunchyroll, and it was later released on home video by Funimation as well. There is no word yet on how the upcoming season will migrate to North America.

For those that do not follow, Gyakuten Siaban was created by Shu Takumi for CAPCOM. Released on the Nintendo Gameboy Advance, it was a mystery and a legal thriller with comedic elements sprinkled in as well. The games were so popular that Nintendo ported them over to the DS when it was released, and WiiWare some time after that. The games can also be purchased for Microsoft Windows.

All told, 11 Ace Attorney games have been made, and another title for the Nintendo Switch is in the works. Meanwhile, two other manga adaptations have been made outside of Kageyama’s work, including a spin-off titled Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney.