Mastodawn

and so ends my 2nd gundam show, this time it's Turn A's.. turn

easily the best gundam entry I've watched thus far, for as much as it pains me to say it, zeta (let alone 0079) just doesn't hold up nearly as well

unlike with previous entries, presentation oddities are completely out of the window this time - great animation, very distinctive mobile suit designs, and finally great sound design that makes MSs FEEL heavy

the mobile suits here (with special exceptions I can't spoil) look very different both from each other and from anything the first couple gundam entries ever had, with common sights like WaDs and WaDoms outright trashing the humanoid silhouette for something entirely different¹
the Turn A gundam itself just looks awesome to me, the face has some weird appeal with the orange eyes, the crest-like feature on the head, the more dynamic shapes and all² (not to throw shade at more traditional gundams, the Turn A is just so different there's no direct comparison)
the pronounced textures on several mobile suits also look really cool, like the leg vents/thruster things on the Turn A and the extreme roughness of WaDoms' legs (Wodoms according to the wiki?)

production values aside, unlike the entries I watched prior to it, proper mobile suit battles not only take a long while to show up in Turn A, but they remain relatively uncommon (for most of the runtime at least) compared to 0079 and zeta, with characters getting far more attention instead

I've gone on several times about how I love most of the character designs here, they're a huge upgrade from differently colored spacesuits and they're also woven deep into the unusual steam-age setting of the show
the characters themselves feel more interesting, with even a few gimmick characters I originally dismissed as.. well, gimmicks, eventually redeeming themselves by actually having plot significance and just being fun to watch³

(1/5)

#driftiniwatches #gundam #turnAgundam

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Driftini May 27

instead of a "look at us we're evil" macrofaction, there's plenty of morally gray figures on both sides of the cast
I found that most of the time, instead of characters themselves being dis/agreeable it was their isolated viewpoints that were, it's nothing new from zeta but here it's a way more prevalent aspect⁴
the boundaries of every faction in Turn A, however big or small, are also extremely hazy and there's plenty of radical team-switching which is to be expected in the utter shitstorm that builds up as the story progresses

uncharacteristically for what I've seen of the franchise so far, the tone in Turn A is actually quite lighthearted a lot of the time, I appreciated that more than I'd expect

recently I heard about tomino expressing his disappointment with an apparently large swath of the gundam fandom who completely misses the anti-war message of the franchise, and.. while you definitely gotta be a little dense to miss them, I honestly kinda get it if people miss the hints in the first couple gundam entries, what with their huge focus on constant battles and far less morally ambiguous enemy factions

on the other hand, besides making battles less frequent, Turn A has a protagonist that doesn't just disagree with fighting like kamille in zeta, but who often actively resorts to less-lethal attacks (if any) and who repeatedly questions, be it in thought or out loud, why both sides don't just talk instead of killing each other, as much as that's an overly optimistic way of thinking

overall I feel like loran is a much better living and breathing pacifist message than 0079 or zeta as whole shows/movies had ever been, and in general there's a lot more messaging of that type across earthers and moonrace alike

and much like zeta, Turn A periodically shows the consequences of war on the civilians of both sides, which at times works better here as there are quite a few characters in the cast who aren't fighters or other military personnel (and are actually interesting unlike fraw or fa)

(2/5)

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Driftini

the fewer battles in Turn A are much more entertaining to watch, partly due to most of them being set on the ground instead of in the vacuum of space, but also because attacks have serious impact and cause real damage this time, making the moment-to-moment action quite tense
battles also escalate pretty slowly across episodes, and it takes a long while for both factions to finally be evenly matched, so every time you see something new in the first 10 or so battles it really is exciting to see the bar get raised higher and higher

recontextualization of technology as mythology and viceversa is a recurring theme that runs deep throughout Turn A, I thought it's quite fitting in a timeline where earth isn't that technologically advanced yet
I loved how those legends were also leveraged to hint at future plot points without really showing you anything until much, MUCH later, it really hyped up what was to come as I approached the last 10 episodes⁵

as for critiques, I don't really have many? I guess there are a couple character designs that are overly out of place, and that loran is way too clueless at times, almost annoyingly so, but not much beyond that
if I had to name a petty issue I have with the show it'd be, surprise surprise, the length - while I think it uses those 50 episodes much better than zeta, it's still quite long for my standards, but this time I'd actually be hard-pressed to call out episodes that should've been cut, even the side-stories are that good

if you're looking to get into gundam without investing too much time on "context entries" you're not specifically interested in, Turn A seems to be one of the best (and most overshadowed???) places to start, and still offering plenty of fun even if you're already well into the franchise

oh yeah the openings start getting more typical but they're both good (the goofy TURN A, GUNDAM. announcer eventually grows on you as well), and the endings are 0079 trilogy-grade awesome

as with last time, SPOILERS FOLLOW

(3/5)

Florence (@justflorence.bsky.social)

I watched Turn A Gundam in a Discord server with about 10 other people. The server had soundboard clips of Turn A's OP, so every time we started a new episode it sounded like this

Bluesky Social

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Driftini May 27

¹the throwback mobile suits like the borjannons/zakus actually didn't feel at all out-of-place, hell I thought the kapools were a Turn A original but seems like they come from ZZ, which I skipped
the last bunch of mobile suits don't earn many points for novelty, mahiroos and bandits look fine but I don't think they hold up to the boldness of something like FLATs (I loved FLATs)
the Turn X is exempt from this cause the body splitting gimmick is a really cool evolution of the turret pods idea from haman's qubeley in zeta, and the resemblance to the Turn A is its whole point

²I think the Turn A also looks less distinctly "heroic" than other gundams (positive), there's something that makes it feel somewhat ambiguous in that regard which makes in-universe sense considering it destroyed earth in the dark history... or maybe hindsight is just gaslighting me

³corin, jacop and bruno started off as very annoying in such a grounded setting but it was cool to see them change for the better over time
jacop and bruno just kinda stopped being hostile whereas corin just went insane after that battle and suddenly turned way more interesting (especially if you take to face value kihel's remark about how it might've been the effects of repeated cryosleep) and actually entertaining
the rett team was definitely the best gimmick character glowup some 35eps into the show... then there's teteth who was mostly annoying cause everyone around her was gullible af and whose death I actively reveled in cause it meant I no longer needed to feel second-hand embarassment for everyone getting manipulated by her

⁴I liked keith in particular, as he was (initially) just kinda hanging between earthers and moonrace trying to sell bread for a living and couldn't be bothered with taking sides just yet
and yes I know my point there breaks down a lot as the story approaches its end, what with phil going full wannabe-dictator mode as everyone departs for the moon, and gym just being a bloodthirsty maniac

(4/5)

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Driftini May 27

⁵I already went over this in the reaction thread but it was awesome to see the sacktrager for the first time only after tons of nebulous mentions and adescan legends about it
the same.. doesn't go as much for the moon cause the landing just wasn't overly dramatized? no specially crafted wow-inducing epic shot or anything? that was kind of odd

done with the clarifications, now for miscellaneous spoilerful thoughts

cold take here but the dianna-kihel swap was peak
it not only developed two characters at once, but also shed plenty of light behind the moonrace's frontlines in an organic way, as slightly goofy as it is that nobody ever notices one is much paler than the other
having the two characters slowly become eerily ambivalent stands out not only amongst Turn A's cast but even outside the show, it's really original

I think the final earth return arc kinda rushes too much at the expense of some of the very things that made Turn A great, but the intense dramatic battles keep things fun and cathartic after a whole show of much tamer fights

I also wish the show had the courage to actually kill off some meaningful earthers besides diran and gavane but oh well

I.. really don't have that much to say that involves spoilers?? it'd nearly all be intended highlights of the story and I'm kinda sad I don't have much more noteworthy stuff to say about an entry I liked as much as this one lol, so I guess that's a wrap for the ""review""

as for how I'll follow up on Turn A, I started seed a few days ago and am aiming to watch 00, maybe unicorn, origin, iron-blooded orphans, witch from mercury and maybe gquuuuuux next
after war gundam x also seems interesting but I skipped it for now cause I wanted to give priority to the others first

(5/5)

Driftini (@[email protected])

new day, new gundam thread, this time it's turn A that was a great first episode??? also at a glance you'd absolutely NOT guess this is gundam with the old-looking setting, this is super intriguing nice ed theme too, super looking forward to ep2 this evening #driftiniwatches #gundam #turnAgundam

Wet-Dry World