History Anime / TurnAGundam

* CharClone: Well, duh. Harry Ord.

** Harry Ord is a subversion. While obviously [[CharClone A CHAR]], he's different enough that he's his own character and only shares some basic elements from Char.

* BroadStrokes: Towards [[spoiler:non-UC shows. The only concrete AU references are the infamous horse and windmill Gundams from ''Anime/MobileFighterGGundam'' and Corin Nander's memories of Wing Zero, which only appear for a second. The rest are just random clips from previous shows played on holoscreens.]]

* WomenAreWiser: Invoked with the Moonrace. Their ruler is very specifically a ''Queen'', not a King. One wonders if they might be taking [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Paptimus Scirocco]]'s philosophy seriously...

* BookEnds
** The first episode has Loran speeding downhill on a bicycle by moonlight, happy and laughing. The finale has Sochie doing the same thing, but in a much different mood.
** The FLAT that Loran, Keith and Fran rode down to Earth in the first episode [[spoiler:is the same one that Sochie pilots into the final battle and uses to rescue Loran from being caught in the Moonlight Butterfly cocoons]].

* BookEnds: The first episode has Loran speeding downhill on a bicycle by moonlight, happy and laughing. The finale has Sochie doing the same thing, but in a much different mood.

At the start of the series, the people of the moon (descriptively dubbed "The Moonrace") decide that they and their superior technology wish to return to the open air and full gravity of Earth. This, understandably, leads to some confrontation with the people already there. Loran, who had been living on Earth a few years ahead of time, has grown attached to the people there and, after FallingIntoTheCockpit of a mobile suit that has been buried in the earth for millennia, proceeds to defend the Kingdom of Bostonia as tensions build between Earth and the Moonrace, and the threat of war spirals ever higher.

** While most of the weapon effects are 2D animation, the Moonlight Butterfly is clearly CGI (which may help its otherworldly effect).

* ButterflyOfDeathAndRebirth: [[spoiler: The Moonlight Butterfly, which has the power to destroy all technology, and essentially cause an apocalypse, forcing the reconstruction of human civilization. It took millenia for humanity to get back on its feet after ''that'']]. The quote at the top of the page is extremely appropriate after this [[TheReveal is revealed]].

* LightIsNotGood: The Turn-A Gundam. With a design with white as one of the core colors and the rest of it being filled out by bright colors like red and yellow a person could be forgiven for assuming that the Turn-A was a force for good. From a meta standpoint this becomes even more true, since Gundams typically ''are'' used by the protagonists, the good guys, of their respective franchises. That's the case here as well. However, this is turned on its head in the way that many of the Moonrace's citizens, and the Adeskans, react to the Gundam, citing it as a bringer of destruction that nearly caused the end of the world in the past. This is different from similar instances in other series, where the antagonists come to fear or hate the Gundam because of how effective it is on the battlefield. These people are thrown into a panic by the sight or mention of it, not because of its current actions, but because of what it might have done in the past. With the revelation of the Dark History it turns out that all of these people were absolutely right too. The Turn-A ''did'' cause an untold amount of destruction, destroying countless civilizations with its Moonlight Butterfly. It's also played with however, because, as Loran points out to Gym, the White Doll is a machine like any other. It did not use the Moonlight Butterfly and destroy people and cities on its own. It is the people who were using it that did that. [[spoiler: It therefore has the potential to be used for either good or evil, with Loran choosing the former. This allows him to stop Gym in the final episode, trapping the Turn-A and the Turn-X, and Gym, in a cocoon made by the Moonlight Butterfly.]]

* GhibliHills: No wonder the Moonrace want Earth so badly. Of course, it's been millennia since the [[spoiler:Moonlight Butterfly apocalypse.]] It's implied that Ameria is one of the few places where this is true.

** The Moonrace made contact with Earthrace leaders such as Guin, providing him with communications equipment so that they could negotiate, and that they had been in talks for some time before the series. Diplomatic efforts stalled over the Moonrace demands for territory to recolonize, which is when Dianna Counter decided to invade outright.]

* TheReveal: The Black History, a.k.a. [[spoiler:''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' through ''[[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Gundam X]]'']]. [[AllThereInTheManual The manual]] for the Master Grade Turn-X model [[spoiler:implies ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED SEED]]'', ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 00]]'', and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamAGE AGE]]'', and further series could be included, but model kit manuals are dubious canonical at best. ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn]]'' is the only recent series that could conceivably and definitely occur before Turn A, due to explicitly being series that takea place during the UC timeline. However, Tomino has gone on record to explicitly state that ''[[Anime/GundamReconguistaInG Reconguista in G]]'' takes place ''after Turn A''.]]

* TheReveal: The Black History, a.k.a. [[spoiler:''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' through ''[[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Gundam X]]'']]. [[AllThereInTheManual The manual]] for the Master Grade Turn-X model [[spoiler:implies ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED SEED]]'', ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 00]]'', and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamAGE AGE]]'', and further series could be included, but model kit manuals are dubious canonical at best. ''[[Anime/GundamReconguistainG Reconguista in G]]'' and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn]]'' are the only recent series that could conceivably and definitely occur before Turn A, due to explicitly being series that take place after and during the UC timeline, respectively.]]

* [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's]] [[IncrediblyLamePun Gundam]]:

* LampshadeHanging: Fans breathed a [[IncrediblyLamePun down-to-earth]] sigh of relief the first time the Turn A is referred to in-series as "the thing with the mustache," and later on when someone asks, of the Turn X, how an inverted X is any different from a regular X.

** The Kapool combines several {{Mythology Gag}}s in one - it's derisively called the 'Ball', referencing the best known [[TheScrappy Scrappy]] mech of ''Gundam'', AND the way it unfolds into mech mode brings to mind the Haro. The original [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ Capule]] was colored blue, but the ones in Turn A are Haro green, completing the illusion.

* HappyEndingOverride: [[spoiler: The Moonlight Butterfly essentially resets Earth's technology back to medieval times every time it's activated, it happened so many times that [[EvenTheCalenderFeltIt the Universal Century, Future Century, After Colony and After War time periods were thought to be parallel timelines instead of the distant past.]] [[YankTheDogsChain This meant that the struggles of every protagonist in those periods was all for naught.]] And that's not counting the possibility of works that were made after this falling victim to the Moonlight Butterfly as well...]]

[[LuckyCharmsTitle A... a... V...]] ''[[PorkyPigPronunciation this series]]'' (which is pronounced "Turn A Gundam"--because [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turned_A that symbol's an "A" ''turned'' upside down]], [[DontExplainTheJoke get it? So this is not to be confused with 'how you turn (around) a Gundam']]) premiered in Japan in 1999. It's notable as the last original ''Gundam'' work by creator Creator/YoshiyukiTomino (before he came back for ''Anime/GundamReconguistaInG'', itself mentioned as taking place at some point after the Universal Century), his first outside the Universal Century timeline begun by [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam the original series]], and arguably one of his best efforts. It also came after he finally [[CreatorBreakdown won his years-long battle with depression]], thus rather stunningly averting his Kill 'Em All reputation. It's also notable for its lead mechanical designer being Syd Mead, the renowned and influential neo-futurism concept artist who also designed for works such as ''Film/BladeRunner'', ''Film/JohnnyMnemonic'', and ''Film/{{Tron}}''.

* IntimateHealing: Harry, on Poe.
* JapanesePoliteness: The Japanese dub is full of {{Keigo}}, 95% of it from Loran.

** One of the songs is named "Puff The Pussy Puzzle". That said, some of the songs with vocals are done in [[SurprisinglyGoodEnglish fluent, English]], with a number of them done by native English speakers.

* AuthorityInNameOnly: A chronic issue is that subordinates rarely seem to obey the instructions of their superiors if said superiors aren't physically present, be it military to civilian leaders or sometimes military to smaller military units. For example, [[spoiler:the fall of Inglesia]] likely would not have happened if the Militia had understood that "your lord has ordered a ceasefire" meant "don't launch attacks until further notice". Had any of the leaders of any of the factions actually been in charge of their faction rather than just paid lip service to in public, most of the problems in the series could have been avoided.

** The Adeskan legends in particular surrounding the Bough of Ades [[spoiler:aka, the Sacktregar]], which recount how giants took down a tree reaching to the stars, are evidently a corrupted retelling of [[spoiler:how a once-functional mass driver and a space elevator was torn down at some point by mobile suits]]. Funnily enough, this exact event ''happens'' in [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]. Epic foreshadowing?

* ProphecyTwist: The legends of the Adeskans claims that the sky will turn red and the White Devil (the Turn A Gundam) shall claim the Bough of Ades ([[spoiler:the Sacktregar]]). While the Adeskans assume that this is a warning of the apocalypse, King Quautol realizes that the prophecy does not claim that the White Devil will cause the red sky or that the White Devil claiming the Bough is a bad thing.

* RagnarokProofing: Many of the machines excavated from the various mountain cycles are in perfect working order despite having been buried for millennia. Of course, this is because of [[spoiler:the protective coating of nanomachines that they were already covered with. Everything else not protected as such during the Moonlight Butterfly apocalypse, on the other hand...]]

* SpaceClothes: Deliberately invoked. The Moonrace at large are portrayed in both fashions and technology as futuristic and a tad alien, in sharp contrast to Earth people. That said, they're recognizable enough that know what they're supposed to be--unless you're Harry Ord and think opaque red sunglasses and wasp stripes are the best look for a party.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Plenty--Cancer of the Red Team, the King of Adeska, and Gym Ghinganham.

* TheReveal: The Black History, a.k.a. [[spoiler:''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' through ''[[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Gundam X]]'']]. [[AllThereInTheManual The manual]] for the Master Grade Turn-X model [[spoiler:implies ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED SEED]]'', ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 00]]'', and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamAGE AGE]]'',and further series could be included, but model kit manuals are dubious canonical at best. ''[[Anime/GundamReconguistainG Reconguista in G]]'' and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn]]'' are the only recent series that could conceivably and definitely occur before Turn A, due to explicitly being series that take place after and during the UC timeline, respectively.]]

*** The Turn A itself has some similarities with the [[Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam V2 Gundam]]: Both are among of the most advanced and most powerful MS of their respective factions and timelines, are equipped with [[PowerGivesYouWings bright-colored wings that are actually classified as weapons]], and lastly, both are piloted by [[NiceGuy kind-hearted young men]].