Franziska von Karma is a prosecuting attorney and the daughter of the late veteran prosecutor Manfred von Karma. She was the prosecutor for two of Phoenix Wright's cases, as well as an acting prosecutor for the trial of Iris of Hazakura Temple. She also aided Interpol in their investigation into an international smuggling ring, as well as another investigation into a black market auction. Although she generally speaks in a formal tone, to the point of addressing everyone by their full names, she also constantly uses the word "fool" and variations thereof to insult others. She is also known to carry a whip (a riding crop when she was younger) with her at all times, which she will often use on just about everybody who displeases her with very little provocation, including the judge himself. ADVERTISEMENT Early life & career Main article: Turnabout Reminiscence Reunion, and Turnabout TH-TH-THIRTEEN!? THE KID BECAME A PROSECUTOR AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN!? Manfred Trial Prosecutor Manfred von Karma. Franziska von Karma was born to the infamous undefeated prosecutor Manfred von Karma. Following the murder of Gregory Edgeworth, her father began mentoring an orphaned Miles Edgeworth, whom she came to view as a rival and "little brother".[3] However, Edgeworth would leave "[her] alone and [walk] on ahead without [her]", causing Franziska to resent him.[4] During her years at elementary school, Franziska would always wind up going to her previous year's classroom on the first day. Feeling overwhelming pressure from her father's reputation as a "perfect" prosecutor, Franziska started her legal studies in Germany at a very young age, and by the age of 13, she was set to pass the bar exam. She took a vacation to the United States, during which she went to the District Court to watch Edgeworth prosecute his first case, but the trial was canceled when Mack Rell and Byrne Faraday, the defendant and prosecutor, respectively, were found dead in a defendant lobby. Byrne and Rell 1 The corpses of Byrne Faraday & Mack Rell. Manfred put the two of them in charge of the subsequent investigation, much to the dismay of Detective Tyrell Badd, who was supposed to have been a witness in the trial as an expert on the notorious Great Thief Yatagarasu. Franziska told Edgeworth that they would compete to find the killer first, and Edgeworth played along. Upon investigating the crime scene, Franziska and Edgeworth argued about the order of events, with Edgeworth arguing that the evidence didn't make sense with the assumption that the victims had killed each other. Franziska then followed Edgeworth as he questioned the various individuals tied with the trial until they confronted Calisto Yew as the killer and the Yatagarasu. However, Yew shot at them and escaped from the courthouse, with Detective Badd vowing to catch her. Franziska started her prosecuting career shortly after this incident. Compounded with her perfect record up to her arrival in America, she earned a reputation as "the Prodigy". ADVERTISEMENT Encounters with Phoenix Wright Main article: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All Reunion, and Turnabout I GAVE UP A PROMISING CAREER IN GERMANY AND CAME TO THIS COUNTRY FOR ONE SOLE REASON. REVENGE. Phoenix body Phoenix Wright. As 2017 was starting, Franziska suddenly lost two of the people closest to her. Her father took on a case against Phoenix Wright with Edgeworth as the defendant. This resulted in Manfred himself being exposed as the true culprit behind the DL-6 Incident. Edgeworth himself "chose death" and disappeared two months later, having lost to Wright three times. Franziska traveled to Los Angeles to face Wright in court; if she won, she would have beaten a lawyer that Edgeworth could not, getting her revenge for being "left behind". ADVERTISEMENT First encounter Main article: Reunion, and Turnabout Reunion, and Turnabout FOOLISH FOOL WHO FOOLISHLY DREAMS OF FOOLISH DREAMS... TEN MINUTES. I GIVE THE DEFENSE TEN MINUTES BEFORE IT CHANGES ITS PLEA. THAT'S RIGHT. I'LL HAVE YOU RUNNING FOR THE "JUSTIFIED SELF-DEFENSE" PLEA IN NO TIME. Franziska first faced Wright in the trial of Maya Fey, who had been accused of the murder of Turner Grey during a spirit channeling at Kurain Village. As the trial started, she mocked Wright and suggested that he change his plea to justified self-defense, but Wright did not bite. Eventually, when she was revealed to have manipulated the witness testimony, Wright quickly condemned her for being no different from her ruthless father. Franziska proved to be quite a formidable opponent for Wright, even having researched the Kurain Channeling Technique to strengthen her case. She was even willing to break established evidence law so as to show an incriminating picture that strengthened her case to the judge. Wright, sensing her grudge towards him, told her that winning would not bring her father back. Ultimately, she could not best Wright, and she experienced her first defeat. Annoyed by her antics during the trial, Wright taunted her offhandedly about his victory over her and how her defeat would be broadcast all over the world. Furious, Franziska whipped Wright, the judge, and Mimi Miney once, and attacked Wright with her whip until he fell unconscious. ADVERTISEMENT Next confrontation Main article: Turnabout Big Top You have no chance. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I'm not losing this case! Why, you ask? Because it is not in the nature of a Von Karma to lose at anything!! FRANZISKA VON KARMA Turnabout Big Top I GUESS BEING BORN WITH THE NAME VON KARMA IS A FREE PASS TO BE ARROGANT AND ANNOYING. By the time of their next courtroom battle, Franziska had concluded that her previous loss had been a fluke and "did not count". She made her intentions known to Wright, blaming him for Edgeworth's disappearance. She knew that Detective Dick Gumshoe was trying to help Wright in his investigations, so she planted a tracking device on him to prevent him from doing so. She found Wright talking to and taking evidence from a witness, Acro, and took said evidence for herself. Gumshoe later suggested a surprise search of Acro's room, which Franziska conducted; this ended up costing her the case, as Acro, who turned out to be the real killer, had been forced to hide his murder weapon underneath his wheelchair to avoid discovery during the raid, and had thus taken it with him to court. Wright figured this out, leading to another loss for Franziska. ADVERTISEMENT Edgeworth's return Main article: Farewell, My Turnabout Farewell, My Turnabout YOU PATHETIC FOOL! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THE WRETCHED WHIMPERING OF A DISGRACED LOSER! A VON KARMA IS SOMEONE WHO IS DESTINED TO BE PERFECT! MILES EDGEWORTH... YOU ARE NO LONGER WORTHY! YOU ARE NO LONGER WORTHY OF BEING A VON KARMA! AND NEITHER AM I! Franziska was now even more determined to defeat Wright in their next trial together. A famous actor, Juan Corrida, had been murdered, and another actor, Matt Engarde, had been accused. During their investigations, however, Miles Edgeworth returned to the Criminal Affairs Department to discover Wright and Franziska arguing about whether the latter prosecuted only to win. His appearance angered them both, with Franziska calling him a coward. Franziska later spoke to a witness, Adrian Andrews, telling her not to testify about her involvement in tampering with the crime scene. However, before the trial, Franziska was shot in the shoulder and taken to the Hotti Clinic, while Edgeworth took her place as prosecutor. In addition, telling Andrews to refuse to testify worked against the prosecution, as Wright tried to name her as the real killer. Edgeworth emotionally broke Andrews in order to force her to talk, which resulted in new information that delayed the verdict until the next day. Frannydoorbreaker Bursting into the courtroom with decisive evidence. At the Hotti Clinic, Wright visited Franziska with a bouquet of tulips. However, when she asked what Wright was doing with the bouquet, he panicked. During the next day's trial, she heard that Gumshoe had gotten into a car crash trying to deliver crucial evidence, and took it upon herself to deliver said evidence to court instead. Although the evidence ended up clinching the guilty verdict, after the trial, she was shocked to find that Wright was happy, despite experiencing his first loss in court. Unbeknownst to Franziska, her shooter had kidnapped Maya Fey and had been blackmailing Wright into getting an acquittal for Engarde, who he knew was guilty of the crime. The evidence had turned the shooter against Engarde, thereby ending Maya's imprisonment. Edgeworth explained that he had disappeared in order to find out what being a prosecutor truly meant, and that his answer was simply to find the truth. Furious at Edgeworth and overwhelmed by her own losses, Franziska stormed out of the courtroom, leaving her whip behind. Edgeworth followed her to the airport and returned the whip, reminding her that she was still a prosecutor and that she would understand someday what that really meant. He added that, if she quit prosecuting, he would keep going forward and wouldn't wait for her. With tears in her eyes, Franziska vowed to become a better prosecutor and to face Wright in court again when she came back. She left the country with that vow in mind, taking a piece of evidence from the case with her: one of Shelly de Killer’s calling cards over which Maya had drawn an image of Wright. She said that she would give it to the defense attorney the next time they met, but has made no mention of it since. ADVERTISEMENT Return to America Main article: Bridge to the Turnabout Sketchy In a sketch by Larry Butz. One year after Engarde's conviction, Franziska was appointed as an acting prosecutor to another case with Wright, and she returned to America for another chance to defeat him. The case involved the murder of a children's book illustrator, Elise Deauxnim, with a temple nun named Iris as the accused. However, instead of Wright, she saw Edgeworth at the defense's bench. Shocked at first, she quickly recovered to see this as her chance to prove herself as superior to Edgeworth directly. The presiding judge tried to confiscate her whip, but Edgeworth asked him to allow her to keep it. Edgeworth and Franziska argued about the strange circumstances in which the victim had supposedly been killed. In addition, witness Larry Butz claimed to have seen Iris flying across a burning bridge. Using a crystal that had fallen from the victim's staff far from the apparent scene of the crime, Edgeworth convinced the court that the murder had happened somewhere else, and the trial was adjourned. Franziska was infuriated with her failure to defeat Edgeworth, and blamed Butz for this failure, whipping him into unconsciousness just like she had done to Wright a year ago. Undeterred, Butz tried to get her to model for his picture book, "Franzy's Whippity-Whip Trip",[note 1] something she (violently) refused to do. Butz would manage to eventually publish the book. Franziska decided to follow Wright, who had been incapacitated that day and recovered after the trial, in his investigation. They met Pearl Fey, Maya's cousin, who harshly told off Franziska for her behavior towards Maya in her trial. This left Franziska speechless and visibly hurt, although she quickly recovered enough to whip Wright when she caught him smirking at her situation. They also met Godot, the prosecutor who was supposed to have taken the case. He treated Franziska with disdain, telling her to know her place as an acting prosecutor, as the case belonged to him. Accompanying Wright, Franziska learned of a plot to murder Maya Fey by channeling Iris's deceased sister, Dahlia Hawthorne. It was also revealed that Elise Deauxnim was actually the long-lost Master of the Fey clan, Misty Fey. Among Franziska's contributions was to stay awake all night to open the trick locks at the Inner Temple and rescue "Maya". Godot vowed to defeat Wright, but he lost in court, after being implicated as the real killer. Wright acknowledged that, without the help of Edgeworth and Franziska, the case would have been lost. ADVERTISEMENT Aiding Interpol The smuggling ring Main articles: Turnabout Airlines & Turnabout Ablaze Smuggling ring card The smuggling ring's card. Franziska went on to assist Interpol in its investigation of an international smuggling ring. One of the ring's major activities involved smuggling Babahlese ink to Zheng Fa to make fake currency there. Her investigation took her to Hope Springs Airport in the wake of the murder of Akbey Hicks, the agent she was supposed to be aiding. At first she believed that Edgeworth, who was on the plane that Hicks was on, was the killer, but Edgeworth quickly refuted her accusation, which shifted the blame onto flight attendant Rhoda Teneiro. She allowed him to question Teneiro and investigate the cargo hold of the plane, which turned out to be the crime scene. Edgeworth determined that another attendant, Cammy Meele, had pushed Hicks over a railing to his death. Using Franziska's phone to download details from Hicks's phone, whose screen had been broken during the fall, Edgeworth found decisive clues leading to Meele's arrest. Franziska's next mission from Interpol sent her to the embassies of Allebahst and Babahl, along with another agent, Shi-Long Lang, to serve as part of the security contingent for a goodwill event happening in the joint building, as the notorious Yatagarasu had threatened to steal a terrible secret from the embassies. Franziska watched as Allebahst's ambassador, Quercus Alba, prepared to give a speech in the rose garden of the Allebahstian Embassy, but the Yatagarasu's shadow suddenly appeared, throwing the audience into an uproar. Franziska tried to catch this figure, whipping anyone she could, but the shadow disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. Shortly afterward, Alba summoned Franziska to his office to have a friendly talk. Meanwhile, the Yatagarasu was also sighted in Babahl, and two fires erupted on that side. Shortly afterward, the embassies were embroiled in an investigation of two murders, one at each embassy. Edgeworth also happened to be in the embassy, seeking to catch the Yatagarasu. He offered to placed himself under Franziska's authority to gain investigative privileges, which she enthusiastically accepted; the opportunity to have her "little brother" working under her was far too good of an opportunity to pass up. The victim on the Babahlese side, Ambassador Colias Palaeno's assistant Manny Coachen, was found to have been a part of the smuggling ring, and it was presumed that he was the leader. The victim on the Allebahstian side, a thief named Ka-Shi Nou, was found to have been killed with the Primidux Statue in the Allebahstian ambassador's office. The statue had in fact been switched with an identical-looking statue in Babahl; it was later revealed that the statue originally on the Babahlese side was the real one. Edgeworth and Franziska then investigated the rose garden and determined that an accomplice to the Yatagarasu had set up two statues in the garden so that spotlights would shine on them and form the shadow seen earlier. Edgeworth then returned to the Babahlese side for further investigation. He, Franziska, and Lang met at the Theatrum Neutralis between the embassies to discuss Edgeworth's findings. Edgeworth pointed to Lang's aide Shih-na as the arsonist in the Babahlese embassy, and after questioning, she was revealed to be the woman who had gone by the alias "Calisto Yew" from many years before. However, as she was being taken into custody, "Shih-na" told Edgeworth that she had not murdered anyone at the embassy, and that the rest was for him to figure out. Alba then tried to declare the investigation over, since the apparent culprit of all of the events that had unfolded had been caught, but Lang then suddenly accused Franziska of the murder of Ka-Shi Nou. He requested that Alba allow him to investigate Alba's office again to solidify his case, which Alba was obliged to grant. After questioning Franziska about her visit to the office, Edgeworth eventually figured out that Alba had been Shih-na's partner in crime and the true leader of the smuggling ring. At this point, Lang admitted that his accusation had been a ploy all along, so that he could get to his real target, Alba. However, Alba wouldn't surrender that easily; he admitted to killing Ka-Shi Nou out of self-defense, showing a wound that he claimed Nou had inflicted on him. Because of his position as an ambassador, he had the right to be tried in his own country's courts; America's prosecutors could not touch him. However, the investigation team didn't give up. Franziska did her part by unearthing the security footage of people entering each embassy, which proved that Coachen had not left the Theatrum Neutralis alive. The next confrontation with Alba had Edgeworth prove Alba's guilt of Coachen's murder piece by piece, with the aid of several other individuals in the area and Lang contacting the Allebahstian imperial household to have Alba's ambassadorship revoked. With Edgeworth and Franziska at each country's respective prosecutor's bench, Alba was tried in both the United States and the newly-reunited Cohdopia and finally convicted for his crimes. After the trials, Franziska chose to stay in the Cohdopian courts for a while to give her whip new vigor. ADVERTISEMENT Black market auction Main article: A Turnabout Forsaken Alifredreal The black market auction's secret warehouse. After taking down the smuggling ring's leader, Franziska returned from Cohdopia to the United States. Still working on Interpol's behalf to hunt down the ring's remnants, her investigation led her to a black market auction of police evidence being held at the Bigg Building. When Rosie Ringer was found murdered in the chamber of the Committee for Prosecutorial Excellence, Franziska was put in charge of the investigation. She headed to the crime scene and found Edgeworth and Kay Faraday, as well as the coroner, Hilda Hertz. Later, Verity Gavèlle and Eustace Winner arrived, and they ended up arguing with Edgeworth about the case. Franziska had no qualms with giving her opinions on Eustace's competence using both her words and her whip. Eventually, Eustace's father Excelsius, the chair of the Committee, showed up and tried to force Faraday's arrest for the murder. Edgeworth intervened despite threats of being fired and, to everyone's shock, laid down his prosecutor's badge, saying that he would not be stopped from finding the truth. Faraday then ran from the Committee chamber, and Edgeworth chased after her. Franziska was upset that Edgeworth would just quit and leave her behind again, and told him as much later that day when he took a secret lift to the Committee chamber from the floor above; Edgeworth had found a hidden storage room for the auctioned evidence on the floor right above the Committee chamber. After a discussion on the matter, it was determined that Ringer had been a customer, and that the conductor of the auction was still at large. Excelsius then found them and, despite protests from Franziska and others, had both Edgeworth and Faraday thrown in jail. Edgeworth had a hearing with the Committee the next day, which he used to indict Excelsius as the man behind the auctions and the murder. During the meeting, Dick Gumshoe asked for an updated autopsy report on the victim, and handed it over to Franziska, who went to the hearing to present it. It turned out that the original autopsy report had been altered by Hertz's granddaughter Florence Niedler, who was being blackmailed by Excelsius. The murder weapon was never found, but with the surprise help of Gavèlle, Edgeworth was able to prove that Excelsius was indeed guilty. Upon realizing that his father was a criminal, Eustace ran away. Franziska sympathized with him, knowing the pain of realizing her father's true nature. ADVERTISEMENT Eustace's disappearance Main article: Turnabout for the Ages Eustace was not found in time for the trial of Fifi Laguarde, who was charged with murder after a previous investigation by Edgeworth. Ringer was supposed to be Laguarde's defense attorney, but Eddie Fender took her place. Franziska offered to fill in for Eustace, but when the trial started, she found out that the evidence against Laguarde had gone missing. Fender convinced Gavèlle to suspend the trial instead of ending it in an acquittal. Edgeworth arrived at the courthouse and, after learning of the situation, had both Fender and Franziska agree to stall the trial while he looked for Eustace. He found the young prosecutor bound and gagged in his father's garage. Edgeworth learned that Eustace had given the evidence against Laguarde to his father for safekeeping, and that Excelsius had probably thrown it away. Eustace suddenly ran away, leaving Franziska and Fender with little choice other than to go with the few leads that they had. Edgeworth found out that Laguarde and Excelsius had a connection from 12 years ago, and so Fender summoned Excelsius to the stand. Eustace eventually returned to the courtroom with evidence. It turned out that he had gone to look for the evidence that Excelsius had thrown away in the junkyard. Franziska graciously gave the prosecutor's bench back to him and watched from the gallery as he and Edgeworth proved that Excelsius had thrown away the evidence. The trial was thus adjourned, with Excelsius officially losing all of his authority. Just then, however, Lang arrived to take in Gavèlle for questioning. Upon seeing Laguarde and Excelsius, he mentioned them finally getting justice for what they had done during the SS-5 Incident. Franziska and Fender decided to investigate said case, and it turned out that Excelsius had been in charge of it. They brought the case files to Edgeworth and Lang so that they could re-investigate. Afterward, Franziska accompanied Edgeworth and supported him in the final confrontation with the mastermind behind all the recent events that Edgeworth had encountered. ADVERTISEMENT Personality Turnabout Big Top ENOUGH OUT OF YOU... ONE MORE WORD AND YOU'LL GET A MOUTHFUL OF WHIP. NOW. WHEN DID I EVER BRING UP MY PAPA'S NAME IN THIS, OR ANY OTHER CONVERSATION...? Franziska HD Mugshot Mugshot. Franziska generally comes off as very unrelenting, cold, and headstrong, and tends to view trials and investigations as competitions. This has garnered her a certain reputation as a "megalomaniac" and a "wild mare". When she was younger, her short height was a real sore point for her, and she would react negatively even to a mere allusion or implication to it. Perhaps not coincidentally, as an adult, she is always seen wearing shoes with fairly high heels. All this largely stems from being constantly compared to her father, not helped by her often using dubious methods in court herself. However, her conception of perfection is markedly different from her father's. Manfred viewed victory as his singular goal, eschewing anything else that would get in the way of finishing his trials as quickly and efficiently as possible. In contrast, Franziska aims for a "perfect" victory, allowing the pursuit of every line of reasoning that the defense could possibly come up with, the end goal being to crush every possibility. As long as she never lost, this would have made no difference to her, as she would be able to conflate the two approaches in her mind. All this changed with Franziska's losses to Phoenix Wright, culminating in Edgeworth's return and her shooting. Immediately after being shot by de Killer, she was described as being in a pitiful state of panic and terror, which lingered for a time even after her surgery. Even after a year, Franziska has been shown to recoil a bit at the mere mention of her assailant. Furthermore, due to having idolized her father for much of her life, it seemingly took Franziska a considerable amount of time to fully acknowledge the reality of his guilt, and even when it sank in, it left some mixed feelings behind. Outside of the "competition" of a trial, Franziska is, at her core, fiercely determined. Even when she is forcibly taken off a case, her willingness to go to great lengths to see it through remains. Through her ordeals in America, she has been able to develop somewhat friendly relationships with those whom she had considered her enemies and incompetent obstacles. She has even been able to investigate alongside Wright himself, perhaps relating to him through their near-perfect win records and their shared connection to Edgeworth. Franziska has also begun to show a caring side more often, though still not in a very outwardly visible way, with a particular leaning towards children and people in delicate situations. Franziska likes to use her whip to assert dominance, easily compensating for her smaller stature and age. She once commented that it seems to have a mind of its own after suddenly whipping Gumshoe. She later whipped him again, claiming that it was her "reward" to him. The whip is notable for revealing much of her attitudes toward others and herself, as well as being a metaphor for Franziska herself. She abandoned it while trying to run away from her life, and her one public emotional breakdown occurred as Edgeworth was giving it back to her. Pearl Fey also told Franziska that she was simply a little girl without it. She has also befriended Adrian Andrews and taught her how to use the whip. ADVERTISEMENT Name Japanese - Mei Karuma (狩魔 冥): "Mei" (冥) can mean "dark", "gloomy", or "night". "Karuma" (狩魔) in pronunciation terms is the Japanese transliteration for "karma". In kanji terms, "karu ma" (狩 魔) means "a demon who hunts". English - Franziska von Karma: "Franziska" is the female form of "Franz", the German equivalent of "Francis", which comes from the Germanic tribal name of the Franks, and means roughly "frank" (as in open/honest) or "free". It was probably chosen to match the Germanic influence of her father's name. "Karma" likely comes from the bad karma her father had built up over the years from his questionable tactics. "Von" is a German preposition which approximately means "of" or "from". German names containing a "von" are usually names of aristocrats. Her full name can be read as "free from karma", similarly to her father's name. ADVERTISEMENT Unofficial Brazilian Portuguese - Franziska von Karma: No change from the western version. Russian - Franziska Karma (Fan-translation by Dant):[5] Only the preposition "von" is missing. Development Although Miles Edgeworth was originally intended to be the primary prosecutor in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All, the development team caught wind of the character's popularity during production. Feeling he couldn't have the popular "prodigy prosecutor" continue to lose every case against Wright, Shu Takumi decided that Edgeworth should instead be used more sparingly, and so Franziska was created to fill the rival role for the game.[6] Both Franziska and Manfred are Japanese in the original versions of the games, but Franziska studied and was raised in America. Franziska is given a slight German accent for her "Objection!" voice clip in the French localization of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations. ADVERTISEMENT Design Franziska has short silver-blue hair. She wears a black dress with blue gems and yellow decals, long, puffy white sleeves with blue gems, black gloves that go to her wrist, brown thigh-high stockings, black ankle boots, blue dangly earrings, and a white bow on her chest with a blue gem in the center. She also has a beauty mark underneath her left eye. Franziska's hair and eyes are blue in development notes and game sprites for the first three Ace Attorney games. However, in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection games, they are more grey-blue. The 13-year-old Franziska seen in Turnabout Reminiscence and "Sound the Turnabout Melody" has longer hair. She wears a long black coat with yellow decals and blue buttons over white pants. She also has black gloves that go to her wrists, black knee-high boots, and a white jabot around her neck with a blue gem in the center. Franziska has some animations that are similar to her father's, including one in which she crosses her arms with her eyes closed while every so often clenching her hand. Like her father, Franziska was also shot in the right shoulder. However, unlike Manfred, she had the bullet removed. In a parallel, Manfred was shot just after a trial whereas Franziska was shot just before one.

The courthouse hallways are bustling with activity after a high-profile trial. Franziska von Karma, having just secured a flawless victory, is storming through the corridor with her signature intensity. You, a defense attorney, happen to be nearby, and she spots you—the perfect target for her pent-up competitive energy. The atmosphere is thick with her arrogance and the sharp, rhythmic snap of her whip against the floor.