∀ GUNDAM

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MOVIE ActionTurn A Gundam I: Earth Light
MOVIE ActionTurn A Gundam II: Moonlight Butterfly
SPECIAL Mecha30th GUNDAM PERFECT MISSION
ANIME DramaKidou Senshi Gundam
MANGA ActionTurn A Gundam
NOVEL ActionTurn A Gundam
MANGA MechaTurn A Gundam: Tsuki no Kaze
NOVEL AdventureTurn A Gundam Episodes
MANGA MechaTurn A Gundam
MANGA ActionGundam EXA
NOVEL ActionTurn ∀ Gundam: Tsuki ni Mayu - Chi ni wa Kajitsu

REVIEWS

• 

  JellySnake

  80/100
  An ambitious and unique adventure, driven by it's beautifully crafted setting.

  Turn A Gundam, stylised as ∀ Gundam, is Gundam's 20th Anniversary project, helmed by Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino. Though relatively unknown, Turn A Gundam is what I consider to be the quintessential entry in the franchise, as well as a unique and beautiful series on its own.

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  Story 8/10

  Narratively, Turn A Gundam is a Gundam-ass Gundam series. It tells the story of two opposing human factions engaged in a war and the stories of those affected by it as told through the eyes of a boy who by chance becomes the pilot of the eponymous robot. In this regard, Turn A isn’t really anything special. While it does have its specific twists and turns, it’s a mostly standard adventure war drama that is told competently.

  What sets it apart from other similar shows is its somewhat unusual setting. Heavily inspired by late 19th Century and early 20th Century America, the majority of the series takes place on an Earth on the verge of industrialization. Gone are the typical space colonies and futuristic megalopolises of science fiction anime and replacing them are expansive fields of grass and towns of Victorian-esque architecture. These hapless Industrial-age folk make up one faction of the war.
  The other is the Space-age Moonrace who, like the name suggests, live on the moon and wish to reclaim their mother planet. The huge societal and technological disparity between the two factions creates an interesting heavy contrast dynamic and the image of giant mechanized war machines going to town (figurative) on an Industrial-age town (literal) is a novel one. The gap isn’t just used for novelty though, playing a central role in the development of the story and to great effect.

  

  Another area where Turn A succeeds is the pacing. Being 50 episodes long, the show has a fairly lengthy run time and it balances the world and character building with the plot development nicely. Unlike other Gundam series, Turn A doesn’t seem to adhere to the ‘battle of the week’ formula so strictly. As a result the pace can feel slow in comparison, though I feel it makes the war flow more naturally with it gradually escalating from small scale skirmishes into all-out warfare later in the series. This slower pacing also leads into what I think is the most fully-realised incarnation of the franchise’s anti-war and tree-hugging themes.
  Nearer to the end the pacing gets a bit more hectic and maybe even a little messy, but the finale feels satisfyingly climactic and all the plot lines wrap up neatly, finishing off with one of the more memorable epilogues I’ve seen.

  _BJ Theater is an 18+ establishment, all persons pictured are of legal age_

  Turn A’s cast is a large and colourful one, both in design and personality. All of them get a good amount of characterization and the significantly smaller main cast get a good deal of development for the most part. An unfortunate outlier to this is the main character, Loran Cehack. From episode 1 to episode 50 he remains pretty much the same shining beacon of level-headedness and pacifism, going through ups and downs but staying roughly the same throughout. While I consider this a flaw, it’s a minor one, as the main story isn’t really a personal one and Loran acts more as a window through which to experience the external conflict than to be the story himself. Besides, even if a little flat he’s an enjoyable, completely inoffensive character and a top tier qt.

  I’ll also note that this series was conceived after the director Tomino’s recovery from depression and as such is very colourful and fairly upbeat and adventurous in tone, especially in comparison to earlier Gundam series.

  Visuals 9/10

  To put it shortly, Turn A Gundam looks terrific. Airing in 1999, it was the last Gundam series to be made with traditional cel-animation and in the 2014 Blu-Ray release the colours and linework come up looking great. Given the setting, many of the hand-painted backgrounds are absolutely stunning but there are also a fair amount of significantly less-inspired locales.

  The real highlight of the series however, is its amazing designs. Mechanical designs for the titular Turn A Gundam and a few of the Moonrace mobile suits were created by renowned American mechanical designer Syd Mead, known primarily for his work on Tron, Blade Runner and Alien. While some of the designs are radically different to any mobile suits before them, they make the Moonrace feel more alien and highlight the gap between the two forces. The Turn A Gundam is also impeccably designed; regardless of whether you like it or not, it features many visual throwbacks to the original RX-78-2 and manages to be entirely unique while still very clearly being a Gundam. Coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, that sentiment also perfectly describes the series as a whole and this consistent design coherence is very much appreciated.

  

  Character designs are provided by Akira Yasuda, known for his work for Capcom on series like Street Fighter and Darkstalkers and who would later go on to do mechanical designs for Code Geass, King Gainer and G-Reco. These are also top notch, with the simplistic caricaturised facial designs perfectly matching the series’ light tone. More important than the faces though, is the costume design. Being set in a very class-based period, outfits have huge variation from Loran’s patched up trousers to Lily Borjarno’s extravagant red dress and they add greatly to identification and characterisation. In my opinion, the outfitting is the final touch that really makes the setting, which in turn makes the series.

  

  As with any long running series animation quality varies, though even then I’d say that Studio 1 did a good job making Turn A Gundam look better than most series of similar length. Particularly the action sequences, each one is unique and the amount of reused footage is very low for 50 episodes. In addition to being generally well choreographed and animated, the colouring during action sequences is amazing, with highlights and tonal shading being used really effectively to render the robots. The colouring is pretty great all around, but the high intensity scenes are where it really stands out.

  _Focus on the gorgeous colours, not the nonsense physics_

  Sound 9/10

  The soundtrack is composed by Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop, Stand Alone Complex, Escaflowne) and is pretty great. While there is a good amount of repetition, there’s a great degree of variation in the tracks too, though most are pretty upbeat and adventurous. There’s one recurring track composed of tribal drums and chanting that’s very memorable, though I’m still somewhat unsure of its fittingness in some scenes. There’s also some really good insert song usage, which is something I can always get behind.

  Like most Tomino-directed series, for whatever reason some lines of dialogue can feel particularly awkward but other than that voice work is fine. The main cast features some recognizable names like Romi Park, Jun Fukuyama and Most Based Koyasu, but the most outstanding performance to me was by Rieko Takahashi, who voices two very similar characters and does a good job of differentiating very slightly between the two which is almost only noticeable when they interact with each other.

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  Overall

  Turn A walks the line between too different and too similar well. It makes for an ambitious and somewhat quirky adventure, drawing from some surprising external samples while still maintaining the link to its predecessors. Hands down the best (read: my favourite) Gundam series and a fantastic stand alone adventure anime.

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• 

  Pockeyramune919

  93/100
  With themes of beauty and uplift, this Gundam entry marks a turn for the series.

  This Review Contains Spoilers for Turn A Gundam

  As of this writing, I’ve watched four-hundred-forty-four episodes as well as six movies of the Gundam series. This information isn’t to boast, it’s simply to let you all know that when I say that Turn A Gundam is the best Gundam entry that I’ve seen, it’s not a light declaration. Turn A Gundam has the glorious combination of a grippingly fresh story, interesting mecha designs, memorable music, beautiful art, and great themes to make it stand above its many, many series in the Gundam family that’s been going strong for forty years now. It’s one thing to be a favorite, and it’s another to be the best. Compared to one another, the latter implies that you’re liked, though not necessarily that you have good qualities. Sure, you probably have-decent enough qualities to gain favor, but the latter has more connotations of objective excellence, that you do something so well, so much better than others that there is no question that you’re a shining example to look up to, to aspire to be. It’s telling if we look how big the ‘favorites’ club is compared to the ‘best’ club. My favorite Gundam shows are Zeta Gundam, Turn A Gundam, Iron-Blooded Orphans, G Gundam, and 08th MS Team. The best Gundam shows I’ve seen are Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Turn A Gundam.

  

  Debuting April 9, 1999, Turn A Gundam marked the return of series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, who’s last Gundam show was 1993’s Victory Gundam. Tomino had high ambitions with this series, for he said it would tie together every Gundam series thus far. I think he did a pretty good job.

  Turn A Gundam details the conflict between the citizens of Earth (with technology roughly on par with our world circa 1918) and the military force of the Moon (with technology roughly on par with what we’ve come to expect from a typical Gundam show ), who’ve landed on the planet claiming that, as their ancestral homeland, they have a right to it. The story is primarily focused around Loran Cehack, a member of the moonrace who has lived on the Earth for the past few years and considers it home and its inhabitants his people. Loran must try his best to de-escalate the conflict using the weapon he stumbled upon. Thanks to its sheer power, the weapon is the Earth militia’s best bet against the moonrace. That weapon, colloquially known as the “White Doll,” is the eponymous mobile suit, the Turn A Gundam.

  

  There are so many things that make this show so great, I’m not sure where to start. Perhaps I’ll start off with someone a bit strange: the music. I say it’s a strange place to start because with few exceptions, the music of a Gundam show isn’t really notable to me. While there’s always at least one track that I enjoy, the soundtrack as a whole generally doesn’t make an impression on me. This couldn’t be farther from the case with Turn A Gundam. This is thanks to the talented Yoko Kanno, the composer of the OST. The tracks are so varied, from the ethereal Moon, to the rock-influenced Air Plant, the soundtrack never sounds homogenous. I suppose one thing that the songs share is that, in general, they sound very beautiful. There aren’t many tracks that sound violent or intense. A lot of the tracks seem to speak towards the inherent beauty of Earth and life itself. On the flipside, the ethereal nature of Moon also serves to paint the moonrace as beautiful, but in an inherently alien way - this is helped by the fact that Moon is rendered in Yoko Kanno’s fictional language. By the end of the series, the moonrace as a whole has been humanized, and thus, Moon’s Cocoon, a reprise of moon is sung in Japanese. But I love the music on a purely surface level, too. It just seems like a lot more care was put into the OST than most Gundam shows. If you couldn’t tell, I absolutely love Moon, which becomes somewhat of a leitmotif. It never fails to tug on my heartstrings.

  The art design is similarly beautiful. The art reminds me of a painting, and looking at the covers for the original DVDs, it’s clear that’s what they were going for.

  

  While the show’s art isn’t quite, that painting-like, it’s still lovely, with its soft edges and colors. Particular attention is paid to the backgrounds, which often do resemble watercolor paintings. This show is an absolute treat for the eyes. I’ve heard Turn A Gundam described as “if Ghibli made a Gundam show” and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

  There’s of course the beautiful music and art that I’ve described, but I’d say Turn-A is also Ghibli-esque in tone and theme. As I hinted at, Turn A Gundam is quite pastoral, moreso than any Gundam show that came before. Instead of the gorn or urbanization that is associated with Earth in prior shows, Earth is absolutely lush. We spend a lot of time going through the show’s beautiful mountains, forests and plains. This show, unlike many other Gundam shows, seems to tell us, “this is what the Earth looks like without war,” not “this is what the Earth looks like because of war.” The sentiment is roughly the same, but the former creates a much more positive, welcoming viewing-experience. Like (most) Ghibli films, the tone is relatively lighthearted. Although the show does have menacing elements, they’re a lot less emphasized than other Gundam shows. Death is similarly de-emphasized in this show. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still there and it still looms, but I feel this is more due to the precedent set by previous shows than by the tone of the show itself. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of a bloodbath at the end of the show. The lighthearted tone of the show also colors its very structure. Unlike the brisk, continuous Zeta Gundam, Turn A Gundam meanders, with episodes being quite self-contained during the first 2/3rds of the show. The pace picks up later, but there never really is much in the way of cliffhangers. While some might find fault in this, I think it really well for this particular show. It’s just one way that it ends up being a more unique Gundam show.

  

  And if I had to describe Turn A Gundam in a word, that would probably be it: unique. The mechanical designs of Syd Mead are odd, yet intriguing. The Turn A certainly won’t be mistaken for any other Gundam and the new mobile suits don’t look like mobile suits, but that’s why I love them. Harry Ord is a well-rounded, fresh character who is a Char Clone by the barest of technicalities. This show’s primary setting is Earth as opposed to space - it begins and ends on Earth; only a short fragment of its runtime takes place off of it. Yet we don’t have to hear how humanity is “weighed down by Earth’s gravity,” the show seems optimistic that mankind will do just fine on Earth. Another unique aspect of the show is the general goal of the main characters: instead of trying to end a war, they’re trying to prevent it from occurring in the first place. The fact that this Gundam show is less about fighting is perfectly encapsulated by its partaking of mundane tasks such as transporting livestock and doing laundry. Then there’s the fact that Loran, the protagonist, at a certain point, stops being the main character because his arc finishes. Turn A Gundam then becomes much more about the changes we see in Diana and Kihel. It’s a small point to make, but I appreciate it since it makes the anime more complex than just primarily focusing on Loran throughout.

  

  I can talk about uniqueness until the cows come home, but it would amount to very little if the uniqueness didn’t do anything for the show. In the context of the greater Gundam meta series, Turn A’s uniqueness is what makes it so great. All the things I talked about, serve to make Turn A Gundam subservive. That can seem like a dirty word to some. Subversion inherently involves a breach of trust, but in the subversion laying in the very loose series of Gundam, rather than in the show itself, the subversion feels like a relief instead of a betrayal. Not bound to ideas of what a Gundam show should be, Turn A Gundam feels very fresh. All of its attributes create a feel-good show that offers something that most Gundam shows don’t. I should stress that I think Turn A Gundam holds up on its own. As a show celebrating the goodness of man, Turn A Gundam should prove effective and uplifting even if you’re new to Gundam. Still, I believe that Gundam fans get a lot more out of the show and its themes were specifically catered to serve as a counterpoint to dark shows such as Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Mobile Suit Victory Gundam. I can assure you the joy I experienced when watching the ending would not be possible without watching every Gundam that released prior.

  The characters are a treat to watch. As I said before, people besides Loran get a chance to shine and I mean a lot of characters. (Nearly) everyone has depth and get some chance to develop. Harry Ord is one of my favorite characters. How can’t you love someone who dresses like this and says stuff like this?

  Another aspect of Turn A Gundam that makes it so so excellent is also a major point of contention: the Dark History and the ensuing Moonlight Butterfly. Being as brief and simple as possible, Turn A Gundam reveals that all Gundam settings up to its debut(UC, FC, AC, AW) are connected. Furthermore, it’s revealed that human history came to an end at the conclusion of a long and arduous war where the Turn A Gundam unleashed its most devastating ability, the Moonlight Butterfly, which spread nano machines across the solar system, destroying all forms of advanced technology and sending humanity back to the stone-age. Furthermore, Turn A is supposed to be the Grand Finale for the Gundam franchise, so even installments that debut after are meant to chronologically proceed it. We’re not sure if all the series are part of a single timeline or if separate universes converged, all that’s known is, due to seeing various images/videos from various Gundam shows, all the proceeding Gundam shows were canon to the universe of Turn A. I love this, for one, because I enjoy the nods to all the shows that came before, making the show feel like it’s for everyone. It’s really cool to see that all these shows ended up being more connected than you think; being a way to loosely wrap up the franchise. I don’t write fanfiction anymore, but if I did, I’d probably write for Turn A, because the series opens up so many possibilities compared to other Gundam shows due to how many questions are raised after we’re given a framework of the world’s past and future. A criticism I’ve heard about this development is that it’s depressing: all of the happy endings of the various shows were overwritten by the fact that Turn A ensures that in the far-future of every Gundam show, horrific war will break out, followed by the cataclysmic Moonlight Butterfly. The problem with this argument, at least for me, is that I felt this way before watching Turn A. At least in regards to the Universal Century, the hopeful endings of Unicorn, ZZ, and Char’s Counterattack were mitigated by the fact that I knew, further down the line, come Victory Gundam, the Earth Sphere would be in shambles. Byy the time of G-Saviour, the Earth Federation will have collapsed. This feeling of hopelessness is less pronounced in the various AUs, but there’s always the possibility of another conflict breaking out. And even on a meta level, there will always be a new Gundam show. I think that Turn A actually ensures that Gundam as a whole ends on a high note because it’s meant to be the final show in the timeline and it ends on such a happy note. No matter how gruesome it gets, it’ll be okay in the end. I don’t like to think that everything the other Gundam protagonists do will lead to the Moonlight Butterfly, I like to think it leads to the end of Turn A.

  

  The ending for Turn A Gundam was great. I feared that the ending might be rushed or nonexistent. As the minutes of the final episode flew by, I imagined it would be like the ending of Zeta or the original Mobile Suit Gundam, which were quite abrupt. To my delight, Turn A treats viewers to an epilogue that wraps off the series nicely. We see all of the surviving characters carry on with their lives, each with a (relatively) happy ending (except for poor Sochie). During the scene, the powerful track, Moon’s Cocoon plays. The entire ending sequence made me pretty emotional. Fittingly for what’s supposed to be a finale to the Gundam series, this is a beautiful ending.

  You may be wondering why I’ve brought up Zeta Gundam several times. Simply put, prior to Turn A, I considered Zeta the Gold Standard in terms of Gundam shows. Nearly everything about it is exceptional and I looked for aspects of Zeta in subsequent shows. I see very little of Zeta in Turn A, yet I still love it. Why, you ask? I see Zeta Gundam as the pinnacle of what makes Gundam, Gundam. It’s the best of what Gundam is. Turn A, meanwhile, is the best of what Gundam can be. Turn A does such an amazing job of showing that the advent of a Gundam doesn’t bring with it strife. Turn A Gundam shows me the merits of more episodic mecha shows. Turn A Gundam shows me that I can still derive joy in Gundam shows without a bunch of spectacular battles. I acknowledge that part of my love for Turn A is that it’s novel. If another Gundam show does what Turn A does better, then I may have to reassess my score, but as is, I love its distinctiveness and its positive vibe given that it’s canonically the last Gundam show. In short, there’s a time and place for dark shows and there’s a time and place for light shows. Zeta does the former really well while Turn A does the latter really well.

  

  For all the praise I heap on this show, it does have some distinct downsides. For one, as much as I love its uniqueness, naturally, if you have very particular feelings of what you want your Gundam show to do, you might not like the liberties that this show takes with the formula. It’s really hard to gauge if someone else would like this show or not, considering I love both Zeta and this show. I suppose if you love everything in an archetypal Gundam show does and dislike anything that errs from that either in aesthetic or tone, then you might not like Turn A Gundam.

  The pacing is a sticking point. The show starts off slow and while it picks up, it generally stays slow. Like I said, the show fosters a bit of a relaxed tone, there aren’t ay cliffhangers, and the episodes are relatively self-contained. This might lead to viewers being a bit bored if they’re used to a show that blazes forward instead of cruising along. The fact that one might feel as though they don’t need to watch the next episode might cause them to not watch it at all. If you’re not devoted to finishing it, you might get bored. Granted, the characters and plot are still interesting, just perhaps not the most gripping at the beginning. I will say that hindsight is 20/20; the ending really colored my view of the show and while I certainly liked the show during the beginning, I couldn’t have predicted I’d like it more than Zeta. While I felt this was a lot more interesting than previous episodic Gundam shows (for one, I liked the characters and setting more), it should be noted that I completed three manga and eleven anime in the time it took me to get around to finishing Turn A. As I acknowledge it wasn’t the most engaging at times, I’ll have to dock some points.

  

  But at the end of the day, it’s not enough to kill my enjoyment of the show by any measure. This is the pinnacle of Gundam and I’d implore any fan of the series to give it a shot. The mega franchise of Gundam isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. New movies, shows, games, gunpla, ang manga are just beyond the horizon. When the day does come, however, Turn A will remain a great way to finish things off. It’s a perfect show for the end of such a long franchise dealing with war: bitter, but sweet. The storm is over. The streets may be flooded, the buildings on fire from the lightning, but there is rainbow, water for the new plants to drink, and most importantly, hope for the future after a past filled with strife. I hope this review makes it clear not only how much I love this anime, but how it makes me feel so good inside.

  
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• 

  Gennvieve20

  65/100
  An above average show that I did find enjoyable

  I honestly do not know how to start this review. I will say that the action scenes especially the artillery scenes to be very good! They are quite fun and exciting! The aesthetics were also quite good as well. The mix of sci fic and Victorian era technology makes it feel like a 1920s pulp novel or something. Besides that, I will focus on three main things on this review.

  1. The Story
  2. The characters
  3. The music
     Let’s begin, shall we?
     The story starts off pretty simple it’s a Earth vs Moon war that at first kind of reminded me of the Israel and Palestine situation though the metaphor does break apart by the end ha-ha. It does get more complicated by the end, and I still have a lot of questions that I am still not sure if it was answered in the anime. Like what was Guinfords plan at the end? The question about whether the moon race goes to the earth or not is still not really answered. The aspect about it being the conclusion of all Gundam shows makes little sense and it is not really expanded upon on any detail. It does make me wonder what exactly was going on in Tomino’s head during this. I guess he just wanted to wrap Gundam up and you know that’s fine and all but it’s not like it’s just him anymore. But that begs the question how well does it work as an ending to Gundam? I would say it is average it is certainly sad that war continues for this long but that is just human nature. I will say that it is certainly is a beautiful ending and that is one thing the show does is it’s focus on beauty and peace. It makes for a very peaceful ending especially as a lot of tomino’s endings go. So overall I guess I did enjoy the story of this anime.
     Now on to the characters. The main character is Loran Rola. Personally, I find him quite boring I mean he has some cool elements. Namely his femininity and how they play with it during the show. I do find his motivations to be boring though his only motivation really is to protect Queen Diana and Lady Kireal. It does get annoying after a while and his ending pissed me off to be honest. Speaking of Queen Diana and Lady Kireal I am not sure what is the point of their characters besides serving as the motivation for loran. I actually enjoyed the side characters especially Sochie (boy does she get a bad ending). They are pretty likeable and they have pretty interesting motivations that make sense. I like the main villain as well his motivation made a lot of sense to me (though that is true of me for most shows ahaha.) And I was actually sad but not surprised that he lost.
     The music is probably the best part about the show though especially the first opening it is so stupid but it is very catchy and epic. The second opening is pretty good as well. The endings are a bit too slow for me and they can put me to sleep sometimes. The background music does fit with the show though at least. Which is always a good thing. So overall I would classify the music as a success.
     So to end this review the show did leave me feeling something I am not really sure what exactly but it is an emotion I think of peace. Overall I would say this show is above average I did like it but I wouldn’t say I loved it not really. I give this show a score of 6.5 out of ten.
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