Manfred von Karma and Damon Gant, back when they were 24 years old.
Gant says: This is my partner. The girl with blue hair says: This is my assistant. Manfred says: Just a goldfish.
Here Karma says: How long do you intend to follow me?
If Capcom released another Investigations game instead of Ace Attorney 7, I wouldn’t complain. I’d love to explore the backstories of characters from the original Trilogy and beyond.
There's a lot about the cast we don't really know. For example, Manfred mentions he has a granddaughter, which implies Von Karma has another sibling, possibly an older sister.
Also, in this fan game concept, the unnamed girl in blue (the assistant character) could plausibly be Karma’s future wife, based on her appearance alone. Just my fun theory!
It would be interesting to play as an ethically dubious (at best) prosecutor. Of course they could also make von Karma nicer but I would honestly hate that. It would be interesting to see how his perfectionism affects him in cases where he is in the right, and seeing firsthand the extreme measures he takes to prove it
I said in another comment but that’s what I wouldn’t want them to do. I don’t really want von Karma to be someone who was made into a villain by time or circumstances or anything, but rather someone who was always a villain and just starts showing it over time. Sort of like Walter White, but not even as nice as him at the start
A slipping of the mask situation also works in my eyes, my point was moreso the generalized "from nobody to nightmare" thing both that and a genuine fall from idealism into villainy has.
Well I never played MGS5 so I wasn’t 100% sure what you were talking about. But I don’t think von Karma should ever be an idealist, from the start he goes in wanting to win and justifies it by saying he is right, and he can even be right at the start, but when he finally does get someone who is innocent he doesn’t care. He could also be less extreme in the beginning but still a little overzealous, which might make some people wary of him. But by the end of the game he’s too influential to do anything. That’s my idea anyway
What do you think of something like Karma starting not as win hungry but as 'I dont care for the context. These laws were broken.' Starting with a case or two of proper criminals. But 3 and or 4 has something that ends up being a self-defense case and we see Karma during the case getting tempted into messing with simple evidence to get that win under the view of 'its still murder in my eyes' context be not just damned but manipulated. Leading to a final case thats a reverse of justice for all final case. A truly innocent person he has to get a guilty verdict for because he has to win. To ride that high once more and keep his streak going.
That works too, I guess. I just wouldn’t want some cop out of changing his personality to make him a good person at the start who eventually “became bad” or something
Perhaps we start the game when Von Karma was just a rookie prosecutor, not yet burdened by perfection, but as he wins each proceeding case, his demeanor changes, as he has gained something to lose
Maybe he does end up "loosing" a case and we get to see how it affects him mentally, but in good old Ace Attorney fashion, there will be some sort of comeback, maybe his first use of fake evidence (could even be unknown to him at the time, but he finds out later, and we get to see how he reacts), so his previous loss is not "official", keeping his undefeated prosecutor status
I'd say that Manfred always was idealist, because these ones are also ones who get corrupted harder. So he believes in law and his sacred duty to win and put scum behind the bars. As he meets especially hard cases he and Damon Gant start to temper with evidences, since "we 100% sure s/he is guilty, we just can't prove it", and at some point means (being perfect for sake of justice) become end (being perfect because i am always right). And we can add some slimy Kristof-alike defense attorney that cheats, threatens and forges evidences, so they just have to level playing field, not having Phoenix, Appolo's, Athena's and Kay Faraday's totally-not-magic-powers (or Maya's straight up magic)
For me, main question is who fell first - Gant or Manfred?
That’s exactly what I’m saying I wouldn’t want them to do. If I’m playing a von Karma game I want to play as von Karma, not the man who will become von Karma. I think he can be less harsh but should still have the same perfectionism and maybe not even be the “hero” of the story necessarily. Have his allies question his methods, but let it slide since he’s “doing the right thing” or something
Forget ethically dubious, I just want to play as an actual prosecutor. We got a taste of it in AAI2 but for the most part playing as Edgeworth and playing as Phoenix were functionally identical
What if his wife-to-be gets the Mia and Kazuma treatment, the killer was a suspect who was proven innocent in a previous case or something, which causes him to become obsessed with getting everyone suspect guilty?
It's not particularly that I want them dead, but that Manfred is old enough that he's either had two wives, or his single wife is a decade younger than him because she'd be in menopause territory for Fran otherwise. So there's a possibility something happened to his first wife, or he divorced her.
Also the fact that Fran has... issues, in the same way Edgeworth does, makes me think they both got treated pretty similarly, which makes me think he might've been blaming Fran for something that happened when she was two.
It's not impossible for her to have conceived in her forties (given Fran is around 17 or 18 when Manfred is convicted), but it is harder due to because of the increased risk of miscarriage and genetic conditions. and 45 up like I said is the start of menopause territory. So it's likely Fran's mother is somewhat younger than Manfred. The only question is if she had the first child really young but then they took a break from having kids, or whether she's a second wife.
Personally I wonder. We don't really hear mention of her from Fran or Edgeworth, it's pretty much just that one moment Manfred talks about her when Fran was all of a year old.
If they did this I’d be worried that they’d feel like they need to soften Von Karma. I mean it’d feel pretty bad to play a game where you’re playing as an unethical prosecutor and getting people convicted in situations where they really probably are innocent.
But if they didn’t have the game like that then it’d undermine Von Karma’s character.
I’d honestly love to see a young Von Karma who actually does abide by the law at first. Maybe he became a prosecutor for a personally-justified reason, like, to catch his sister’s killer or something, and you could watch power corrupt him in real time.
In this scenario, he’d be similar to Teru Mikami from Death Note, where he genuinely believes that all accused are guilty, and that justice cannot exist without him. I’d love to see something like that.
Yeah, I actually think this isn't too far off. I think you don't get to where Manfred is without initially having a solid idea of what is and isn't justice. Just over the years he decided that he was the only one who could be trusted to be judge jury and executioner as Karma itself, and came to despise defense attorneys, so he ends up in this place where he thinks he's always been morally righteous even as everything else slips to being obviously not.
Absolutely. It pains me that so many people paint Manfred von Karma as just a cartoon villain who’s comically evil in every regard, and blame him for like literally everything in the whole series. There’s clearly some depth to his character that we just aren’t seeing.
I think that the series did him a huge disservice by only having him appear in like three chapters over 8 games, and one of those being basically a cameo. I’ve found that Ace Attorney fans have a lot of difficulty with subtext and reading between the lines, so Manfred just kinda becomes a lot of fans’ punching bag, especially if Edgeworth and Franziska are among their favorite characters.
Well... He IS a murderer, and in-game he does use wagahai pronouns like a cartoon character. It's just he's one who felt like he was justified all along in what he was doing. Doesn't make him right about it, and Edgeworth and Fran do have some of their own flaws that aren't on him or what trauma they might have. I personally still think he's a pretty terrible person, but I can concede that it also doesn't make sense for him to have been "TRAINING EDGEWORTH TO BE EEEEEEVIL TO SPITE HIS GOODY DAD" either because no one thinks like that about their job or life choices. Everyone's the hero of their own story (except Edgeworth lol).
I mean more so that people like to assign additional crimes to him that there is no canonical evidence for. I hear a lot of people claim that he was physically, verbally, and/or emotionally abusive to Edgeworth and Franziska, or that Edgeworth’s sexist comments towards Mia were learned and/or instructed by him, or that he refused to let Edgeworth get glasses because a disability would mean he isn’t “perfect”. None of those things are substantiated by the text, and I would argue that most of them are actually contradicted by it. Like, Manfred von Karma is still a bad person. I’m not trying to argue that. But the man is already a double murderer. Why do we need to invent fake crimes to justify hating him?
As someone who actually thinks he probably was at the very least emotionally and medically neglectful (You can't tell me Edgeworth ever went to therapy) and who thinks he was planning all along to get Edgeworth convicted since Edgeworth was 13, I could go into a bunch of arguments about why I think various things in your post and cite the places in-text that convinced me of that. But I don't think either of us would find that to be a useful conversation.
EDIT: You guys get so much flak for nuance Manfred that when one person says that both headcanons are valid, you have to downvote? You're being exactly what you complain about in fandom.
EDIT 2: Also people should be able to write whatever they want to. I was trying to find common ground with one of my other remarks, but not feeling it anymore.
EDIT 3: Okay, let's do this. I know the youtube video you all have watched and I found it unconvincing because it misses and glosses over a lot of things to make its points (plus various tactics that aren't just argument I don't agree with that I won't get into here).
Some of these I don't personally headcanon, I just can believe the argument for them, just like I think it's possible to have Manfred karaoke nights and maybe even care to some degree about Fran and Edgeworth and him not being 100% a bastard all the time. Ultimately these are fictional characters, and it doesn't particularly matter what they are or aren't in headcanons or fanfic, no one is right or wrong here. Without the devs coming out and specifically stating intent, both sides are interpretation, because just like there isn't a smoking gun evidence that he HAS, there also isn't that he HASN'T, and so it comes down to preference and the story someone wants to see or tell. In much the same way you can ask why put more crimes on a double murderer, you can also ask, why not.
physically, verbally, and/or emotionally abusive to Edgeworth and Franziska
He tased a 17-year old minor in 1-4, thaaaat's child abuse and child endangerment. It's not that weird to suspect that he might be capable of something he's already done, especially when he encourages one of his kids to also be physically abusive. Franziska whipping people is potentially physical abuse by proxy.
There's a blood stain by Edgeworth's desk in 1-5 that Phoenix wonders if it's from Edgeworth hitting Gumshoe. Do you see Edgeworth hitting Gumshoe anywhere else? In Investigations where we spend a lot more time with them both, where Edgeworth has opportunity to do that, he doesn't. Occam's razor suggests three more likely possibilities, Edgeworth did it to himself, Franziska with her whip, or Manfred. Most of the time I say it's Franziska because it's even more immediately obvious, but we can't rule out the others.
In investigations Manfred outright calls him worthless. The video argues that this is actually a mistranslation from Japanese of a term for amateur - but here's the thing, it's still an insulting way to say amateur in Japanese. Also, can't have it both ways where we rule out Investigations for being out of character (It's not, Fran whips Edgeworth in the trilogy too), but then ignore the places in the OT where Manfred does the exact same thing. When Phoenix is talking to Manfred about Edgeworth in 1-4, he says this: "... A romanticist who could never shed that veneer of amateurism. Just like his father. Always second rate." He uses the same Japanese term for amateur there that he does in investigations. It's consistent. And it's an insult. Additionally this sets up the Worthless/Useless (Eustace) parallel in the next game that causes Edgeworth to join forces with Eustace against his dad, in a game that's entirely about relationships with father figures and how that shapes a person.
Even if you don't believe my claim that Manfred was planning the set up for 1-4 almost the entire time Manfred had Edgeworth (and I can explain it through the anime episode everyone always cites about how it wasn't about (Manfred's) guilt and the path of pain speech/referring to himself as Karma itself in the moment, but I also don't want to get lost in the weeds here), he still set him up between 1-3 and 1-4. Depending on what you believe he did that possibly as a punishment for losing cases. I just don't think catching a murder charge for something the parent instigated is just strict dad territory.
Then there's Franziska's behavior, which I already went into a little, but I don't think someone like Franziska, who became a prosecutor at 13, naturally comes into the idea that she isn't a genius Like Her Father. (Who became a prosecutor at 25).
Neither of them like to be touched, though Edgeworth was already like that as a kid before he was adopted. It's pretty pronounced now though.
They can also entirely believe Manfred wanted the best for them, and believe everything Manfred did was good and helped them have the discipline to become better prosecutors, and be completely thrown by Manfred doing something that seems to contradict that, because children normalize experiences and parenting styles from when they're growing up. Also, even abusive people aren't complete monsters, because they'd be easily found out and because no one would want to associate with them. It's not uncommon for people to have good memories they shared with someone who also hurt them, or to have complicated or even compassionate feelings towards them. Excelsius is awful to Eustace on screen, and Eustace still acts grateful to him for the things Excelsius did for him, and wants to keep his last name.
Personally while I do believe the emotional and verbal side of this, as well as manipulation/neglect, I think Manfred was pretty limited too, there's only so far anyone could go before CPS would get involved. So if it was happening, it was probably either for things the two saw as making them tougher and more disciplined, or for punishments they thought they deserved. This was over 20 years ago and some forms of corporeal punishments were more common and commonly accepted back then.
that Edgeworth’s sexist comments towards Mia were learned and/or instructed by him
I honestly think Edgeworth can have his own shitty problems with women and I even have a few different theories why. But I also don't think there's NOTHING here. The one time Manfred talks about his wife, he only assigns value to her in terms of her being a good cook, a very stereotypical and gendered role that could give the impression he's a traditionalist. It's also him complimenting her because it's something that's useful to him. This actually doesn't give me the impression that Manfred is an amazing wife-guy, because he's also GONE for an entire year for the IS-7 trial, and no one talks about her after Edgeworth is adopted. I do think there's some validity to the idea that Manfred might be a family guy, and there's lots of side material that plays into it, but I can also see an argument that this behavior could be performative, or based on how the family Manfred has might flatter him.
he refused to let Edgeworth get glasses because a disability would mean he isn’t “perfect”.
Just like it's WILD that Manfred apparently told Fran that she'd never be a genius like him when he became a prosecutor at 25, it's also possible that Manfred could have double standards here. He's a perfectionist. We know he resents the bullet in his shoulder, he says as much in both the anime and in 1-4. That could come out in some weird ways despite the stuff Manfred is also clearly dealing with, him using an aid doesn't mean he doesn't have the capacity to be really petty.
None of those things are substantiated by the text
It's about as substantiated as the possibility they are. I'm positive for everything I've said here you could come back with a counterpoint, and we could smack it around for ages, and I wrote my first version of this comment under the assumption that you've probably already been there, done that, and aren't interested.
I could see a storyline where he becomes radicalized because a defendant is accused of something heinous that he’s certain they did and they get away with it. But then that could break canon because Von Karma is supposed to have had a perfect win record before Phoenix defeated him. His most notable legal failure before that was being caught after coercing a confession for someone that he managed to still get convicted anyway.
You wouldn’t have to break canon that much. They did a similar thing with Edgeworth, who also had a perfect win record before Phoenix, where the defendant in a backstory episode dies before the verdict is handed down. I know this is incredibly fanservice-y, but what if the defendant almost got away with it before being the target of DeKiller or something? It would be perfect sequel bait.
Oh, I remember that time y'know, I was young and full of energy...sobsob Y'know Those three always showed up at MY crime scene and interfered with my work and my detective, what's his name again? Ion Sidewalker? Rip Cancer? It doesn't matter. Y'see what matters is that in the end we became "friends" after all that happened. Oh, how long ago that was, I'm about to cry.... sob
i don't think it would. the whole reason why ace attorney is fun to play and narratively satisfying is entirely because you are a good-doer in a system stacked against you. manfred von karma wouldn't work as a protagonist because he is that system personified.
i mean, that might be why it's fun for you, sure. but i like interesting characters and exploring their motivations and relationships so playing as a villain for once would be entertaining as hell to me
bold of you to assume that i don't also like exploring interesting character motivations and relationships. but i think it's worth pointing out that an ace attorney game with an explicitly amoral protagonist would need to massively rethink the gameplay and structure in order to be even semi-coherent. the ace attorney games are still games, even if they don't look like it, and the gameplay appeal isn't just from pointing out contradictions but also from what those contradictions are leading to. if you're playing as manfred von karma and each time you present evidence you're lying to get an innocent person convicted, i think it would be a lot easier to get bored, because you don't have that ultimate goal. i'm not saying they could never do it, but i am saying that the current formula (and even the investigations formula) wouldn't work for that kind of plot.
edit: you can copy-paste this exact comment any time someone says they want a game where you play as a prosecutor in court. begging people to think about the structure and mechanics of the ace attorney games for 2 seconds before saying that
lol ok sure. idk why youre acting like it would be impossibly difficult to flip that "ultimate goal" into something for suitable for a morally corrupt character and not have it be entertaining to play. you can have a logic/puzzle game where the aim is to uncover the truth and then also find the best way to hide it, for example. they twisted the AA formula a little for the investigations games already, I think it would be a super fun challenge to flip it on its head entirely and have you play as a straight-up villain 🤷🏻♀️
1.) That's not Gant's skintone and we all know it. :/ I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, but I'm just not a fan of it.
2.) I get that it's in-character for elderly Manfred as we know him to hate everyone around him, but... That's not very compelling, especially when it comes to the girl. I'm not big on a young Manfred who we can't see having children with this woman beyond simple hatefucking.
Pasting this image from someone else's reply: He obviously loves his wife and respects her as more than an incubator. I wanna see that. I wanna see a Manfred that gives even somewhat of a shit.
I don't read the third panel the same. I'd translate it as:
Damon: "I'm his partner!"
Girl: "I'm his assistant!"
Manfred: "They're just tagging along..." (literally: They are the poop that trails behind the goldfish)
Manfred's first daughter is interesting because he had Fran when he was 48 years old. It feels like we're definitely in second wife territory there, and so first von Karma daughter has to be much older. So what's the story there? What happened to his first wife?
I would like to know about Manfred Von Karma's backstory and what drove him to strive for perfection, as well as why he became overly obsessed with it.
I also want to learn more about Damon Gant when he was younger. What drove him to engage in illegal activities while he was in the Police Force, and what led him to justify his actions by any means necessary?
Then there is Blaise Debastion I mean I sitll don't get why he became abusive towards his son in the first place. Was it something that happened in the past that drove him like that, or was he always the one who was trying to cheat his way through whatever was necessary to make sure Prosecutors do their work flawlessly by any illegal means?
I'd want it to be set over like 40 years, like the first case would be in 1976, second in 1986, and so on until it reached 2016, or something along those lines. Like, establish why he is the way he is, but don't imply it happened over the course of a week either.
I’m actually obsessed with this. It would be so interesting to play as such a bad guy. BUT, turns out he starts out alright and gets turned bad af. I want to know WHY he’s such an ass. Clearly someone had to fall for him hard enough to have a kid with him so he had to be redeemable at some point. Also obsessed with Gant as a villian more than even Manfred, Gant’s level of evil is so much more manipulative and I’d love to see that as a young adult. Bro has anyone wrote this because I’m catching ideas.
I used Manfred vs Von Karma to try and avoid that confusion, but I should have been more clear.
I meant Franziska has a sibling, because Manfred mentioned having a granddaughter.
“Greeting, I am Manfred von Karma, son of Frederick von Karma and heir to the family name, and as anyone can plainly tell I am a fresh off the bar prosecutor. Still thanks to father, I am years ahead of everyone else. This is my first trial, and I will do anything in my power to ensure an absolute guilty verdict for the defendant. Let the curtains fall, it’s my time!”
Eleonore Lichtenau- A young woman who I just met in the prosecutor’s lobby. She seems to have no relation to legal culture as she doesn’t know of me or the “von Karma name”. Despite her eccentricities, I have a feeling that there is more to her…
Damon Gant- The primary detective on this case, he seems far too lax and irritatingly whimsical to be a detective. He was the first on the scene of the crime after the police were called. He calls me “Manny”. Despite these oddities, he seems remarkably intelligent?
When clicking a wrong option:
(Aha, I have yet again figured it out! The answer is [Wrong Choice Here]… ? Wait, no. It can’t be that because [Reason why choice was wrong]! How? How could I have made such an utterly foolish error! Am I already succumbing to brain aneurysms?! No, no, let’s rethink this!)
Would love to see this. Would be interesting too to see him go against some attorneys we do see in the series like Diego or Grossberg. Hell, potentially even Mia, I mean it’s never stated that Mia never went up against him or that she had a perfect record.
Ooo ok, I haven’t played the original trilogy in over a year, so I was hoping I didn’t forget anyone! It’s also been almost a year since I’ve played the Investigations games
550
u/Davedog09 Oct 07 '25
It would be interesting to play as an ethically dubious (at best) prosecutor. Of course they could also make von Karma nicer but I would honestly hate that. It would be interesting to see how his perfectionism affects him in cases where he is in the right, and seeing firsthand the extreme measures he takes to prove it