Anime / ∀ Gundam

Turn A Turn! Turn A Turn! Turn AAAAAA!

The white wings of moon butterflies
Flicker down the streets of the city,
Blushing into silence the useless wicks of sound-lanterns in the hands of girls.

—H. P. Lovecraft, Poetry of the Gods.

An Alternate Universe of the Gundam meta-series. Actually, it is THE Distant Finale to the meta-series.

In the Correct Century, the people of Earth are living in a world roughly at the turn of the 20th century. What they do not know, however, is that they are not the first incarnation of mankind. Far in the past, there were humans living on the moon who, after a great catastrophe, were forced to go into cryo-stasis and await the time when it is safe to return to the Earth. In the meantime, they occasionally send scouts to the Earth to see if it has returned to a state where people can live on its surface once more. Among these scouts is a young boy named Loran Cehack.

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 Cehack, who had been living on Earth a few years ahead of time, has grown attached to the people there and, after Falling into the Cockpit 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.

A... a... V... this series (which is pronounced "Turn A Gundam"—because that symbol's an "A" ''turned'' upside down, 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 Gundam work by creator Yoshiyuki Tomino for fifteen years (until he came back with Gundam: Reconguista in G, itself mentioned as taking place at some point after the Universal Century), his first outside the Universal Century timeline begun by the original series, and arguably one of his best efforts. It also came after he finally 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 Blade Runner, Johnny Mnemonic, and TRON.

After years of No Export for You, Bandai Entertainment announced that it would be licensed for a Fall 2011 release, which was confirmed at Comic-Con 2010. After years of back-and-forth involving Bandai's withdrawal from the US market entirely and some re-negotiating of licenses, Turn A is finally available in English subtitles from the Right Stuf anime web-store as of Summer 2015. The series' characters are also represented in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam (which is the only place they are voiced in English).

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This anime provides examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:
  • Both Eye Catches are a CGI transformation of Earth into either the Gundam's head or the whole mobile suit.
  • The asteroid colony Mistletoe is 3D computer animation as well, despite being in the otherwise 2D world.
  • While most of the weapon effects are 2D animation, the Moonlight Butterfly is clearly CGI (which may help its otherworldly effect).
• Aborted Arc: About two thirds through the series, Phil overthrows Dianna and is set up to become the Big Bad. A few episodes later, the protagonists head to space and Phil and his ambitions are forgotten until the final arc, where he is forced to ally with the heroes to stop the Ghingnham Fleet.
• Action Girl: Sochie Heim, Poe Aijee, Cancer Kafka, Mayolito.
• After the End: If you believe the backstory, there's actually been quite a few.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Some Militiamen on the Willgem attempt to ride back to Earth in a whiskey barrel. It should go without saying that said barrel had only recently been emptied.
• All Myths Are True: Many old legends turn out to be corruptions of events from the Dark History. For example, the "Bough of Ades" in Adesca refers to its mass driver and the space catapult in orbit above it.
• Ambiguously Brown: Loran, Miashei and Guin Lineford. Many of the background characters are like this too, probably as a result of all the intermarriage that happens in ten thousand years, plus some likely bottlenecking after various wars and the Moonlight Butterfly.
• Ancient Conspiracy: While the Moonrace is more aware of what happened in the Black History, the real truth was kept hidden even from themselves out of fear that it would reawaken humanity's warrior potential and shatter the "never again" status quo that's kept the Moon peaceful. Queen Dianna however simply considers the excuse as prejudice.
• The Alliance:
  • While the series starts with just the local Inglessa Militia fighting against the Moonrace, they soon join with the Luzianna Militia and Navy as well, forming the first alliance. Eventually both of them join with the forces of the Moonrace being led by Queen Dianna as they head to the moon and return to Earth. Once returning to Earth they then add the Dianna Counter forces that stayed behind, which Dianna had lost control of shortly before leaving the Earth. Furthermore, it's mentioned at different times that there are a number of other militia across the planet, some of which show up when alliance returns to Earth and are shown being attacked by Gym and the Turn-X. It's then implied that these other groups join the alliance as well.
  • Guin's final plan is to create one of these, with himself at the head. Though whether he wants to create this or The Federation, The Empire, The Good Kingdom, is subject to debate. Sid and the others note that he's basically attempting to make himself a dictator, with all the forces of Earth under his leadership and fighting against those of the moon. Regardless, Guin does make it clear that he plans to be at the forefront of whatever results from his machinations, leading the world in a new Industrial Revolution.
  • Agrippa and Gym form this while Queen Dianna is away from the moon. Notably, their two families, along with Dianna's, are noted to be part of the moon's ruling class. This gives them an incredible amount of authority as Gym's family controls a portion of the army and Agrippa's monitors the moons life support.
• And I Must Scream: A Fridge Horror version of Gym's ultimate fate. According to supplementary materials, the Turn A, and presumably the Turn X, are capable of regenerating themselves and their pilot endlessly. Given that the Moonlight Butterfly is just an extension of the Turn units' nanomachines, there is every reason to believe that Gym will be trapped in the Moonlight Butterfly's cocoon, fully conscious, for all time.
• Animation Bump: The animation is good throughout, but it becomes especially high-quality during the Final Battle.
• Artistic License – Geography: This map◊ places many of the important landmarks much farther apart from each other than they seem in the show. For example, Vicinity and the Mountain Cycle are within one night's walking distance in the show, but on the map they're in central Jersey and West Virginia. It also suggests that the negotiations between the Earth and the Dianna Counter were pointless, because the region that the Moonrace landed in, partially colonized, and tried to open talks with, was not in a nation whose territory they wanted.
• Archaeological Arms Race: All the major Earth-bound factions are trying to dig up and salvage old mobile suits from previous Gundam Eras.
• Armchair Military: A good chunk of the Moonrace's military forces (particularly Gym's faction) don't have any actual combat experience outside of simulations. As a result, they have no idea what war is really like, let alone how to wage a real one. On the other hand, it's strongly implied that others like Harry Ord and the Royal Guards avert this out of neccesity, given how skilled and competent they are.
• Ascended Fanboy: Gym, of all people. He finally gets to wage a war and give meaning to his life as a soldier. After playing wargames for 2000 years. This may also be a tongue-in-cheek reference to his voice actor, who was a long time Gundam fan before landing various roles in the franchise.
• As You Know: An amusing justified example - Dianna and Kihel use these sorts of conversations to brief each other on their roles when one's impersonating the other.
• Asshole Victim: Midgard, after getting a mobile suit-scale Bright Slap from Harry Ord. Not even Queen Dianna, despite her comments about the law, is particularly saddened with his demise.
• Attack Pattern Alpha: Subverted. The Mahiroo Team used such tactics in their simulations, but they just don't work on actual opponents like Harry and Loran.
• Authority in Name Only: 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, the fall of Inglesia likely would not have happened if the Militia had understood that "your lord has ordered a ceasefire" meant "cease firing 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.
• Award-Bait Song:
  • After All, sung by Donna Burke is definitely one, though some of the other songs also qualify. But considering who composed the soundtrack...
  • Another would be Tsuki No Mayu, the ending theme.
• Beam-O-War: Given how much he hates killing people, Loran's favourite use for the Turn A's rifle is not to blow up mobile suits with it, but to disrupt and redirect enemy beam attacks.
• Becoming the Mask: Of a sort. After 2 years of living on Earth and adapting to life there Loran, Keith, and Fran all note how they are happy with their new lives and how they do not plan to live with the rest of the Moonrace after they arrive on Earth.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation:
  • One of the songs is named "Puff The Pussy Puzzle". That said, some of the songs with vocals are done in fluent, English, with a number of them done by native English speakers.
  • Subverted in the case of the "mountain cycles." While one may think that "silo" was intended rather than "cycle," it refers to the act of digging up and using weapons used in past wars as a vicious cycle.
• Book Ends: 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.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: The eponymous Gundam and other mobile suits that are dug out of mountain cycles. Loran tries to do this with the weapons cache that came with the White Doll, but they're so old and ravaged by nanomachines that only one of them works.
• Breather Episode: Episode 8, "Laura's Cow", is a subversion. While most of the episode consists of a fairly silly plot about finding animals to help a Moonrace settler provide for his family, the ending has Loran confess to everyone that he's one of the Moonrace.
• Broad Strokes: The Dark History explicitly is/includes the Universal Century, but we also see elements from completely different continuities (random clips from previous shows play on holoscreens, there are blueprints for Fuunsaki and the Nether Gundam from Mobile Fighter G Gundam, the Gundam Corin Nander remember fighting is the Wing Zero from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing). While this could be interpreted as them all occuring in a single universe, their exact events are wildly incomptabile. More likely, the periods of the Dark History just resemble the other continuities—given the lack of context they're shown in, it may just be the mobile suits in common, not the actual events or characters.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Corin Nander is pretty loony and at the same time one of the first opponents Loran faced that gave him serious trouble. He's not charming or evil enough for Affably Evil or similar tropes. He's also too down-to-Earth (no pun intended) to be a Cloud Cuckoo Lander.
• But What About the Astronauts?:
  • It's revealed in the Black History that at some point prior to the Moonlight Butterfly, those Spacenoids who hadn't gone to the Moon simply took off for greener pastures across the stars, their homes becoming impromptu Generation Ships. But by the time the series takes place, there's still a handful of debris still floating around the Earth Sphere, presumably the remains of Colonies unlucky enough not to get out in time. They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves out there, considering they created the Turn X as a general purpose mobile suit.
  • This is later referenced in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED with the GENESIS device, the doomsday weapon Patrick Zala intended to use to destroy the Earth, which is actually a repurposed nuclear booster intended to be affixed to space colonies. We get to see one used for its intended purpose in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray.
  • A sidestory manga for Mobile Suit Victory Gundam shows this happening as well in the Universal Century, with a specially modified colony filled with Newtypes on the verge of setting off to Proxima Centauri as a Generation Ship. We also learn that the whole thing was a decades-long gamble by Judau Ashta.
  • The fate of Newtypes meanwhile, for all their roles in the Black History is left open. Odds are they've either left with the aforementioned Colonies, gone extinct or assimilated into the general population at large. This is less ambiguous in the novelization, where Guin is one by implication of his ability to control the fearsome Psyco Gundam.
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: The Moonlight Butterfly, which has the power to destroy all technology, and essentially cause an apocalypse, forcing the reconstruction of human civilization. It took millennia for humanity to get back on its feet after that. Additional materials state that the Moonlight Butterfly's nanomachines, after becoming sand, also reseed the earth with nutrients and resources, so without that leg up it may well have taken longer. The quote at the top of the page is extremely appropriate after this is revealed.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The Earth forces use the term "mechanical doll" rather than "mobile suit". Because of their early 20th century civilization, this is what they literally view the mecha as.
• Call-Back:
  • One Dianna Counter soldier's terror at lightning mirrors that of a Zeon soldier from Mobile Suit Gundam.
  • During the final duel between the Turn units the Turn X's head slams into the Turn A in a way reminiscent of Amuro and Char's Sword duel at the end of mobile suit Gundam
  • Loran and Ghinganham also have a sword duel after abandoning their respective mobile suits
• Cast from Hit Points: The SUMO's I-Field barrier is powered by the pilot's life force. Fortunately, using it doesn't seem to harm the pilot beyond rendering them physically exhausted.
• Chastity Couple: Loran & Dianna.
• Chekhov's Gundam:
  • The Turn-A Gundam itself. It's the first mecha excavated, but soon the series is swimming in old mecha. However every once in a while there will be an indication that there is something different about the Turn-A Gundam. Only as the series nears its end does it truly become an important plot point.
  • The Turn-A Gundam's targeting system. Every time an enemy mecha comes within sight a small window will appear with its name and vital statistics: initially everything Loran fights is unknown. However, when Loran encounters the Turn-X for the first time, the system identifies it right away.
  • In episode 39 Loran uses the nuclear bombs that he's been carrying around in the White Doll's chest for over 10 episodes to destroy the falling debris of a colony headed towards the moon.
• Chest Blaster: The Turn A's entire torso block houses multiple missile launcher tubes, with six flip-up hatches. Loran initially uses them for transporting cows, but also later uses them to contain some nuclear missiles after he consficates them, holding them for a good while before finally using them to destroy an abandoned derelict colony that had fallen out of position and was on a collision course with the Moon's own still-inhabited colonies. In addition, it also has a pair of smaller hatches covering a pair of multi-function beam emitters (which are demonstrated to be weapons during the Turn A's appearance in Super Robot Wars).
• Colony Drop: Naturally. This time, it's an abandoned asteroid colony, Mistletoe, that has been knocked out of its lunar orbit, heading right for the moon's capital. Loran finally gets rid of those nuclear bombs by using them to destroy it.
• Combat Pragmatist: The Militia; they really can't afford to be anything else.
• Combining Mecha: The Turn X is a single unit, but it separates into segments (so it's more like a splitting mecha). Corin Nander makes a very crude one by jury-rigging three Kapools into one unit and adding a Rocket Punch.
• Conflict Ball: A lot of the conflict in the series appears just for the sake of it with characters starting to fight against all common sense and reason. A lot of tragedy could have been averted if such a large section of the cast simply weren't so trigger happy.
• Continuity Nod: See Mythology Gag below.
• Continuity Snarl: The Black History makes it hard to explain how even though human civilization keeps getting destroyed and re-built they keep having New York Cities, Romes and other such places in spite of regular Monumental Damage or how no else noticed the mecha storage units in previous series, or how the word Gundam keeps coming up in every series and everyone acts like they invented the word and SO much more.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Corin Nander survives getting knocked out of his mobile suit a few meters above a lava pit. Then again, he is Corin Nander. Once you've survived fighting Wing Fucking Zero nothing is impossible.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Happens between the Turn-A Gundam and various other Mobile Suits throughout the series. The quality of the enemies Loran faces increases as the series goes on, so you'd expect this to happen less, yet it is balanced out by his Gundam gaining new weapons and him discovering new abilities that it has. Were Loran more prone to violence or not as pacifistic it is likely that things could have gone quite differently.
  • Given that at the start of the series, Earth's tech base is circa 1930 at best, locally manufactured weapons don't stand a chance against Moonrace tech.
• Cute as a Bouncing Betty: The Moonlight Butterfly sounds poetic, and in a way looks beautiful even. Never mind that it's an nigh unstoppable system of nanomachines capable of reducing any technology to sand and bringing about apocalyptic destruction. It's still a fitting name though for what amounts to the most deceptively powerful weapon in the franchise.
• Dances and Balls: One is arranged by Guin as an attempt to foster goodwill between the Earthrace and Moonrace , the same one Loran "attends" as Laura. Judging from Harry Ord and the others in attendance, it's implied that the Moonrace are no stranger to old-fashioned waltzes and galas either.
• David Versus Goliath: The Earthrace militias are at a severe technological disadvantage. Even when they augment their WWI-era equipment by excavating mobile suits of their own, the ancient models they repair are still barely enough to stalemate the advanced Moonrace equipment. And it turns out to be an inversion whenever the Turn A fights anything.
• Days of Future Past:
  • Why does the post-apocalyptic future look like a cross between The American Civil War & World War I? Maybe those scheming Innocents or Magus were obsessed with old Pre-WWII nostalgia pieces... Turns out to be justified by the deployment of the Moonlight Butterfly at the end of the last war, which dissolved most technology to dust.
  • Apart from the Industrial Neo-Americans, there are Neo-Mayans in Adeska (who worship a mass driver). It's not hard to imagine post-apocalyptic humanity reverting to old cultures.
• Dead-Hand Shot: After Will Game dies in battle against the militia and the Turn A, the last thing we see are his hands clutching the hatch of his cockpit. When Sochie wants to go over and help him, Loran tells her "I don't think those are anything but hands anymore."
• Death Seeker: Quaoutl, Adesca's king, goes to the foot of the mountain to await death when he realizes that nuclear weapons are again being used by humanity.
• Did Not Get The Guy: Gavan dies halfway through the series and provides angst for Sochie. Then at the end, Loran chooses Dianna (who everyone else thinks is Kihel, including possibly Sochie herself) over Sochie and the last we see of them together is Loran giving her a kiss as she cries. The last scene with Sochie has her throwing Loran's toy fish into the river where they met, screaming in anger. Soundtrack Dissonance to the max.
• Die or Fly: The Turn A gains the ability to fly in order to avoid falling into a river of molten lava.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Agrippa Maintainer is built up to be the main antagonist for most of the series, only to be killed six episodes from the finale. After his death, Dianna regains control of the Moon and Gym is forced to seriously consider surrendering the Turn X to her. However, Guin forms an alliance with Gym, assuming the position as the villain that lasts for the rest of the series.
• Distant Finale: The show itself is one for several, if not every Gundam timeline.
• Divided States of America: Well, they do start working together once the Moonrace invasion hits and the Earthlings find out how far behind they are.
• Doomed Hometown: Vicinity. It's not destroyed, but it's pretty well trashed by Dianna Counter.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Due to its immense power, the Turn A gets several. At first, it's Loran's inexperience, an unintuitive user manual, and the machine's own poor condition after getting buried for thousands of years. Then Loran is forced to hide a pair of nuclear warheads inside the chest, requiring careful piloting lest they go off. Then the Moonlight Butterfly is revealed, and suddenly nobody sane wants to know what the Gundam can do at full power.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Loran's entire crossdressing saga can be attributed to Guin's insistence that he looked and acted more like a Laura.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Otherwise nondescript Moonrace soldier Ralfa fighting off multiple mobile suits so that the Dianna Counter does not get their hands on the nukes he discovered.
• Easily Forgiven: The Dianna Counter force on Earth is never held to account for its mutiny.
• Easy Logistics: It isn't elaborated on how the Earth Militia manages to keep their Kapools and Borjanons in working order, despite how maintenance-intensive Capules and Zakus have proven to be in Universal Century. The Turn A and the Turn X handwave this via the use of nanomachines. Possibly the Zakus and Kapools are modified reproductions which aren't so fussy.
• Empire with a Dark Secret:
  • The Moonrace, while not exactly villainous themselves nonetheless have one in hiding the real truth and entirety of the Black History, even from themselves in an attempt to maintain the peaceful status quo and keep mankind's warrior tendencies in check.
  • Though not to the same degree as the Moonrace, the Earth countries aren't entirely without fault given that their leaders had been in secret albeit futile communications with the Moonrace, while the rest of the public is utterly oblivious to the fact that the impending invasion is coming from the Moon.
• Enemy Mine: Loran and Harry team up when Dianna Counter's forces attack the Willgame excavation site, where Dianna is posing as Kihel, and again when they outright mutiny against Dianna.
• Energy Absorption: The Turn X is quite possibly the epitome of this. In its debut episode its activation required absorbing the energy of the entire Moonrace city of Genganam, and in its fight against Harry and a team of SUMOs, it absorbs the energy of their I-Field barriers, allowing it to use the Moonlight Butterfly that it learned from the Turn A.
• Eternal English:
  • Even though the series is set thousands of years in the future, people on Earth (at least) still seem to use modern English. On the other hand according to 2001 Correct Century, A Bibliographical Study of "Black History", which is included in the UC Gundam Officials Encyclopedia, it's stated that Universal Century humanity spoke a language possibly derived from English that's still discernible enough to translate.
  • Beyond even that, there's Corin Nander, whose fluency in the same language as both the Moonrace and Earth peoples is even less explicable. Not only is he much older than the rest of the cast, as a former OZ soldier he may not even have spoken English, or whatever they're speaking in America now, as a first language to begin with, seeing as most of OZ came from Continental Europe. Then again, he appears to be an albino black man rather than European, but that's neither here nor there.
• Everybody Lives: Well, almost everybody. A large number of the secondary characters do die, but compared to Tomino's other works....
• Evil Chancellor: Agrippa Maintainer. Too bad for him that Gym is his right hand man...
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Anyone who thinks they can use the Ghingnham faction. They find, to their cost, that they are not Dumb Muscle who can be easily ordered to attack whoever's inconvenient—they will attack anything and everything, including people or locations that their supposed ally wants to preserve, and follow no rules of war. And Gym, while a Blood Knight, is also dangerously intelligent and operating with his own agenda.
• Expy:
  • Will Game was modeled after Brad Pitt.
  • Interestingly, the ship named after Will Game resembles A Star Destroyer painted like an A-Wing. Aside from the requisite White Base-class influences like the conning tower-style bridge and rounded yellow external hatches, anyway.
  • Harry Ord is a subversion. While obviously A CHAR, he's different enough that he's his own character and only shares some basic elements from Char.
    • Harry Ord is definitely more a QUATTRO than a CHAR. Obvious jokes aside, he wears shades rather than a mask, and pilots a gold Mobile Suit. Whereas other CHAR characters opted to imitate MSG Char and CCA Char, Harry is one of the few that really takes Zeta Char and runs with it.
  • There's a pretty good argument for the Borjarnons and Kapools being replicas of the original Zaku II and Capule.
  • Considering their incredible power and reputation as well as their ability to wipe out human civilization via the Moonlight Butterfly, both the Turn A and Turn X are arguably the Gundam equivalent of the Ideon.
    • The Turn A itself has some similarities with the V2 Gundam: Both are among of the most advanced and most powerful Gundam-type MS of their respective factions and timelines, emits bright-colored wings that are actually classified as weapons, and lastly, both are piloted by kind-hearted young men.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • The Amerian nations are pretty much the late 19th Century United States with elements of World War I thrown in for good measure. Although there also seem to be some Native American and Shinto influences in their religion, among other things.
  • Luzianna, in its names and people, also seems to have Italian influence, although the name itself could be a corruption of "Louisiana." When the Militia travels south to launch the Willgame, the festival with the Turn A float is located in a place that seems to have Mexican-derived clothing, food, and phenotypes.
  • And even further south, there's the nation of Adeska, which is largely Mesoamerican in nature.
  • "Canadan" is mentioned to be north of Ameria, with a disparaging comment that they're still using horse-drawn carriages. Galia is also mentioned; its name (derived from Gaul/Gallic) and location as "across the Atlantic" indicate that it's the major European nation; however it doesn't end up playing a role past it being the public reason for Guin's military buildup in the first few episodes.
• Fantastic Racism: Some among the Dianna Counter forces (and Moonrace in general) tend to see Earth people as primitive barbarians, though most get over that as the series progresses.
  • Many people from Earth also develop this towards the Moonrace as a whole, going so far as to specifically identify people as being from the Moonrace before speaking to them. The racism between the two sides becomes one of the main themes throughout the series.
• Fish out of Water:
  • Dianna Counter has a number of challenges on Earth: the higher gravity, the weather, assuming that lightning is a weapon rather than a natural phenomenon...
  • And when the Willgame launches into space, it's flipped with the Earthrace being the fish.
  • Subverted with Loran and company when they first arrive on Earth. While they do find everything strange initially, the mere fact that they're provided with appropriate-looking outfits to make themselves fit in better suggests that the Moonrace already has at least some knowledge on what's happening on the ground. After all, they weren't the first ones to make planetfall, what with the Red Team and the first Will Game coming long before them.
• Flash Step: One of Turn A's abilities. It's actually more like a cloak step—the Gundam briefly becomes invisible, so wherever it appears next is a surprise.
• Foreshadowing: In episode 34 both Miashei and Josepg make comments about how Fran seems to be getting fat. In episode 49 its revealed that she's pregnant.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: During the discovery and broadcast of the Dark History documents, numerous clips and stills are shown from previous Gundam shows, which viewers can meticulously pick out if so inclined.
• From Cataclysm to Myth:
  • On Earth, much of what's known about the Black History (or the pre-Correct Century past in general) come from old legends and whatever could be scrounged from archaeological finds until the real truth is revealed. Though given what the Moonlight Butterfly apocalypse did, it's very much justified.
  • The Adeskan legends in particular surrounding the Bough of Ades aka, the Zacktraeger, which recount how giants took down a tree reaching to the stars, are evidently a corrupted retelling of 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 Gundam 00. Epic foreshadowing?
• Future Imperfect:
  • In the anime itself, knowledge of the Black History even among the most educated Terrans is incredibly fragmented at best, being based on legends and whatever intact records they could find from the Mountain Cycles.
  • The 2001 Correct Century, A Bibliographical Study of "Black History", meanwhile, suggests that even after generations of archeological research, Terrans are stymied due to how overly specialized or biased surviving records are. One scholar, for instance, is mentioned as being perplexed by how the author of a preserved book about the One Year War seems too fixated on the military to be of much use to historians.
• Gender Is No Object: Certainly true for the Moonrace. Dianna is the clear political leader, and there are many female pilots and technicians in the military. This is less true of the Earthrace—they are shown to have decidedly more equality than their ancestors did in the 19th Century or World War I (for example, there are numerous women serving in the military forces) but society would be reluctant to put a woman in political office.
• Genetic Memory: Episode 44 has Kihel musing that Terrans might have retained instinctual memories of the Dark History, which slowed their scientific advancement as a kind of safety measure against repeating it. This might also provide one explanation for why humanity was apparently devastated time and time again, but kept rebuilding the exact same cities and landmarks.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Loran tries to do this when Sochie wants to run off to Nocis on foot and tell the rest of her family what happened to their father. It doesn't work; she simply curls up on the ground to keep screaming in grief.
• Ghibli Hills: No wonder the Moonrace want Earth so badly. Of course, it's been millennia since the Moonlight Butterfly apocalypse. It's implied that Ameria is one of the few places where this is true and other places around the world are still too scarred for people to live in.
• Going Native: Loran and quite a number of Moonrace folk undergo this as they adjust to life on Earth. The Red Team had also long undergone this as well, albeit becoming more "tribal" compared to the civilized Earthrace nations.
• Gorgeous Period Dress: Girls wear these in special occasions... as does Loran, to great effect.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Will Game, depending on how literal Loran's being when he says, "I don't think those are anything but hands anymore, Sochie..."
• Government Conspiracy:
  • 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.
  • The real truth about the Black History was kept hidden by the Moonrace even from themselves, ostensibly as a gesture to never repeat the mistakes of the past.
• Gratuitous English: "LOVE & PEATH"
• Gray Goo: The Moonlight Butterfly, perfectly capable of spreading its nanomachines a great length (in supplemental materials, all the way from Earth to Jupiter), destroy all technology... and thus cause a Class 1 apocalypse, Societal Collapse included.
• Great Offscreen War: "Armageddon", humanity's final war which lasted for hundreds of years.
• Guile Hero: The mobile suits used by the Earthrace militia tend to be dated compared to the Moonrace, so they do things like get the Moonrace soldiers drunk or lay black-powder boobie traps first.
• Happy Ending Override: The Moonlight Butterfly essentially resets Earth's technology back to medieval times every time it's activated, it happened so many times that the Universal Century, Future Century, After Colony and After War time periods were thought to be parallel timelines instead of the distant past. 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...
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Unusually, this comes about because the setting is so idealistic. Horace and his Moonrace technicians have no qualms about helping the Earthrace excavate and restore the Gallop and Willgame; they're more interested in their work than the conflict.
• History Repeats: Retroactively applied to the Gundam series as a whole, with everything being mushed into one big timeline that keeps bombing everything back to early post-industrial revolution. The nth earth/Terrans-who-emigrated-generations-ago war is waged this time almost entirely with weapons left over from previous conflicts.
  • This is really the underlying message of the Dark History and the overarching message of the series as a whole.
• Heel Realization: Over the course of the series, Queen Dianna discovers that her policies and army have actually caused quite a bit of suffering.
• Heroic Dolphin: There is a healthy population of dolphins and whales in the Moon's canal system. Loran's hometown friends marshal quite a number of them to help the Turn A fight the Mahiroo squad so that the battle won't cause collateral damage.
• Hidden Elf Village: The Moonrace, after a fashion. Given that most are descended from the remaining Spacenoids whose technological civilization was spared from the same Moonlight Butterfly apocalypse that devastated the Earth.
• Home Field Advantage: Downplayed. Despite their woefully inferior technology, the Terrans still manage to hold their own, if just barely, though ambushes and using the environment to their advantage. It's not until they find Mobile Suits of their own, however, that the odds stop being one-sided.
• Human Popsicle: Cryostasis is how the Moonrace are able to live for several hundred years. Some have even been in stasis from the Black History, such as Corin Nander being a veteran from the After Colony era. This is done to keep overpopulation from overwhelming the Moon's limited resources. People are frozen and un-frozen in shifts, meaning that children can physically age more than their parents, such as when a little old lady refers to a young woman as "Mama".
• Humans Are Warriors: This is the basis of Gym's beliefs.
• Humongous Mecha: Turn A Gundam sports some of the franchise's biggest. In particular, the WaDOM is fully twice the size of any other mobile suit mechanical doll, comparable to mobile armors.
  • It also has the smallest mecha in the entire Gundam Franchise, at least among Mobile Suits. The WaD only stands tall enough to reach Turn A's knee. That means the WaD are the same size as an average Knightmare Frame or Scopedog. They're also just as durable.
• Identical Stranger: Kihel and Dianna. It becomes a major plot point later on.
• Idiot Ball:
  • If either side had sat down and talked to each other before getting the military involved, the whole Earthrace/Moonrace conflict in the first part of the show might have been avoided. Although that said, the mess with Agrippa Maintainer and the Gingnham faction would still have been there, not to mention the secret talks with the Moonrace before the conflict didn't work out so well either.
  • Guin Rhineford seems to have been holding this at the start of the series and during the years before. It's revealed fairly early on that he had been in contact with the Moonrace for at least 2 years before they ever arrived on Earth, yet outside of the people directly under his command had informed no one else of this fact. Had he done so the planet could have not only put more resources towards building up a credible army/militia to take part in any conflict with the Moonrace, they also might have been able to come to some sort of agreement about allowing a small number of people from the moon to begin coming to Earth in a steady fashion. Instead, Guin's negotiations went nowhere and the Moonrace invaded with a massive force, that people weren't prepared for. As a result, he loses most of his authority when Inglessa falls, causing negotiations to completely collapse and leaving the militia to do whatever they wanted (and they just wanted to fight, while Guin wanted a peaceful resolution). Notably, Kihel calls him out on this.
  • The Inglessa Militia as a whole. They continually try to fight against the Moonrace without the aid of Loran in the Turn-A Gundam, and fail to make any dent in their enemy time and again. Yet they keep trying. It would be somewhat noble if them doing so didn't include ignoring ceasefire orders and the fact that negotiations were still going on with the Moonrace to achieve a peaceful solution. Inevitably, them attacking the Moonrace leads to the loss/destruction of Nocis, the capital of Ingelssa.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Teleth is somehow sniped in the head while being flipped upside down.
• In a Single Bound: The Moonrace's mobile suits are capable of jumping absurd distances, even the colossal Walking Dome.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Poe for the first half of the series, Corin Nander for a few episodes.
• Insane Troll Logic: During the brief mutiny in episode 36, after Loran points out that mobile suits on their own do not have enough fuel to reach the Earth from where the Willgem is in space, Colonel Michael argues that Earth can't be too far away from the ship since it appears to be so large in front of him. He directly compares this to how a mountain can be visible from a city. As Loran points out, this makes no sense because Earth only looks close because of how massive it actually is, not due to actually being close. (Granted, Michael is suffering from Space Madness at the time.)
• Just Think of the Potential!:
  • Guin Rhineford in many ways embodies the spirit of can-do innovation that's driven human progress. Unfortunately, the same drive that brought mankind to the Moon in the first place also helped bring about the horrific marvels of the Black History. He eventually embraces both, believing that the destructive potential of something like the Turn A is worth the risk for all the amazing wonders that come with them.
  • Horace and his Moonrace engineers gently defect to the Militia because they're fascinated with all the Lost Technology coming out of the Mountain Cycles. They join Sid's operation just to see if they can get the stuff working again. When they get the Willgem's cannon operational against Dianna Counter, Colonel Michael admits that they're trustworthy—until he wonders if there are other Mountain Cycles on the moon that would entice them back to their original side.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Both Guin Lineford and Merrybell are alive, if not well off, at the end of the series.
  • Colonel Michael is apparently never punished for joining Guin's Heel–Face Turn either, or for any of the numerous acts of insubordination he performs in the first half of the series.
• Kiai: Harry's UNIVEEEEERSEEE!!!!
• Killed Off for Real: Will Game, Gavanne Goonney, Teteth Halleh, Agrippa Maintainer, Midgard, Corin Nander, Gym.
• Large Ham:
  • Gym GhingnHAM Really, Takehito Koyasu's performance as Gym must be seen to be believed as the man is clearly having the time of his life chewing the scenery with gems such as the famous "GEKKOUUU CHOUUUUUU DEARU!!" Thanks to this, Gym is considered one of the most enjoyable and entertaining villains to watch simply due to the sheer ham he brings to any scene.
  • Harry Ord has his moments. Like this.
• Lampshade Hanging: Fans breathed a 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.
• Latex Space Suit: Played straight with the Turn A's white spacesuit, but averted for most of the spacesuits used by the Willgame and Dianna Counter. Explained by the fact that the technology had to be reinvented after the catastrophe caused by the Turn A.
• Leeroy Jenkins: The Militia in general. They constantly attack the Moonrace with complete disregard for how their "mobile dolls" are largely outclassed by the Moonrace's mobile suits, or the fact that since they only just dug the things up, they have no clue how to actually use them to fight.
• Lighter and Softer: Than all of the previous Gundam works done by Tomino.
• Lightworlder: Oddly, the fact that the Moon's gravity is only 1/6th of Earth's and as such it would take time for people who had lived their entire lives on the Moon to adjust, is brought up precisely once in the entire series. Apart from that one incident with Corin Nander, none of the Moonrace have any difficulty in functioning on Earth, and none of the Earthers seem to be noticeably stronger than them due to being relative Heavyworlders.
• Light Is Not Good: 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. 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.
• Lost Technology: Much of what drives the plot. Although the conflict is kicked off by the Moonrace's attempt to forcibly recolonize Earth, much of the show revolves around the mystery of the "White Doll," which reactivated after centuries as a stone-covered statue. The Earthers spend a lot of time excavating old mobile suits that were used in the "Dark History" of previous wars, and other, more dangerous weapons (such as nuclear warheads) are rediscovered as well.
• Lucky Charms Title: ∀ Gundam.
• Lyrical Dissonance: After All, sung by Donna Burke sounds like something out of a Don Bluth or Disney film. The lyrics on the other hand come across as melancholic and a tad apocalyptic for an otherwise wistful song.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: Played for Laughs when Gavane and Sochie decide to get married. Sergeant Yanni bemoans the apparent lack of effort by Inglessan men, while Malligan doesn't want The Ace of Lousana's armed forces to marry a mine owner's daughter.
• Matriarchy: According to Dianna, in episode 41, the moon has always been ruled over by a queen.
• Mayincatec: Adeska seems to have returned to the original Meso-American cultures, but it's not specifically recognizable as Aztec, Mayan, etc, most likely due to the lengthy period of time between them and the Dark History. The harvest festival that Corin and Dianna find also takes place in what looks like a blend of modern Mexican and indigenous costume.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Merrybell Gadget and Dian(n)a.
  • The symbol "∀" is a mathmatical symbol meaning "all items in a set". Some assume that this is Tomino's way of bringing all the Gundam series thus far into one universe.
  • The Heim sisters' name is an anagram of hime, Japanese for princess. Additionally, it's pronounced the way somebody unfamiliar with how romanized Japanese works might say it, making it almost an example of Alternate Character Reading, or as close as you can in romaji.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: The first Gundam TV series since the original to avert this. Though given the multiple reveals about the Turn A, it's safe to say that it doesn't need any upgrades in the first place. Though the Turn A itself can absolutely work as an upgrade if Loran started with a different suit instead.
• Military Maverick: Both the forces of the Moonrace and the different militia of Earth seem to be filled with these. In fact, it could be said that the entire reason an actual war breaks out and negotiations fail is because of this. Forces on both sides continually ignore the orders of their superiors, or fly off without informing their superiors, and attack their enemies. Notable followers of this trope include Phil and Poe on the Moonrace's side and Sochie and Miashei on the Earth's side.
• Mirroring Factions:
  • The Moonrace and the people of Earth at the end of the day. Beyond being descended from the same group of ancestors, the two had no contact for centuries, yet still developed in such a way to allow for similar societal prejudices and social classes to develop.
  • Taken even further, members of both sides take part in actions that lead to the conflict between the two growing worse, disregarding the orders of their superiors, taking part in mutinies, looking down on members of the other race, etc.
• Motion-Capture Mecha: Parodied by Harry Ord in episode 35. Aboard the Zacktrager, Midgard and Dianna see Harry's SUMO "adjusting" its sleeve as Harry normally does. Dianna mentions that it's one of Harry's bad habits, thinking that it's "dandy," while Midgard says that it's funny for him to make his SUMO do such a thing.
• Multiple-Choice Past: The Turn-X's mysterious origins. It's vaguely implied to have been created by aliens in the series, but the videogame G Generation F seems to indicate that it was a descendant of the Devil Gundam, as the Original Generation unit Devil Gundam Junior bears an uncanny resemblance to it. Or both.
• Mundane Utility: Gundam washing machine! Gundam cow carrier! Gundam forklift! This becomes especially mundane when you realize that the Turn A was designed to fight against an entire planet's military armed forces. And be expected to win.
• Mutual Kill: Although they themselves don't die, Loran and Gym destroy each other's Gundams in the final episode. Both machines are enveloped in nanomachine cocoons.
• The Mutiny:
  • Major Phil leads one against Dianna halfway through the series, feeling that she is too weak a leader to properly deal with the resistance on Earth. The fact that Kihel was interfering with more aggressive policy while posing as Dianna contributed to this.
  • Another mutiny occurs in the Militia when they freak out over space travel. They resolve it by the end of the episode.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Probably one of the things this series is most famous for. Hovering between Continuity Nod and Mythology Gag, the entire Black History is everything from Universal Century to After War. However, it is unconfirmed and unlikely that series such as SEED, 00, and AGE are included, which makes sense due to there being a better trail of history between the mentioned time lines. This is especially noticeable when the Militia starts digging out Neo Zeon Capules and Zeon Zaku I's and II's.
  • Both openings make use of this. Freeze-framing the first opening, for instance, reveals the RX-78-2, the RX-93 Nu Gundam, the Gundam Mk. II, the NT-1 Alex, Gundam Deathscythe, Double X...
  • In episode 17, a Moonrace panics and mistakes lightning for a Militia weapon, similar to a Zeon soldier's reaction in the original Mobile Suit Gundam.
  • Fat Bastard Sweatson Stero attributes Loran's ability to beat him to his superior mobile suit, just like Ramba Ral, but after Loran has already handed him his ass thrice.
  • The Kapool combines several Mythology Gags in one - it's derisively called the 'Ball', referencing one of the most infamously-useless vehicles in the franchise, AND the way it unfolds into mech mode brings to mind the Haro. The original Capule was colored blue, but the ones in Turn A are Haro green, completing the illusion.
  • Episode 43 takes this to its logical conclusion, where, as the Black History is revealed, clips from all previous Gundam series are shown; in the famous scene where Amuro in the RX-78-2 spears a Zaku II through the cockpit with his beam saber, Miashei notes that it's the Turn A and a Borjanon, but Sochie notes that the RX-78-2 looks much older.
  • And later the Turn-X makes a SHINING FINGER.
• Naked First Impression: Loran first meets Kihel and Sochie when he's bathing in a river and gets swept away by the current, eventually taking him to where they're bathing in the same river further downstream. So all three of them were naked when they first met, though Loran was too focused on not drowning to peep.
• Nanomachines: The Turn A and Turn X use these both for repairing themselves, and as an attack.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: The Red Team resemble this. Apparently, your ancestors getting stranded on Earth does that.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: The Turn A itself. Loran suddenly gets a lot more familiar with the features in the last ten or so episodes. Were you expecting the Core Fighter?
• Nicknaming the Enemy: The Militia has their own names for the Dianna Counter's mobile suits: munchkins, High Heel, scarecrow, etc.
• Non-Indicative First Episode: The first episode is mostly a slice of life story about alternate early 20th century America, with the only scifi elements being how Loran and his friends are from the Moon. In the second episode, more Moonrace arrive and the show starts to become the scifi war drama that most Gundam anime are.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Earthrace militia aren't put off by the David Versus Goliath nature of their conflict with the Moonrace, but they are so unnerved by space travel that they try to mutiny and bring the Willgame back to Earth.
• Novelization: Turn A is unusual in that there exists two separate novel adaptations. The first was the standard type by Shigeru Sato that just adds a few extra details in but is otherwise the same. Whilst a second one by Harutoshi Fukui (who would go on to create Gundam Unicorn) is an adapatation of Tomino's original script of Turn A before it got changed into the making of the anime and thus differs in both plot and tone.
• A Nuclear Error: Averted. While nuclear weapons are treated as being at risk of going off by being bumped too hard, this is Truth in Television since it is possible that the warheads seen in the series were impact-fused, or a timer set to an impact fuse; after all, some Real Life nuclear missiles are specifically designed to penetrate bunkers several hundred meters underground, or are impact-fused. Besides, would you want to risk it?
• Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Explicitly avoided. Some nukes are dug up, and after five kill off Gavan Gooney, Loran hides two inside the Turn A to prevent them from being used until he can properly dispose of them. Both of which he uses to blow something up - though it was an uninhabited falling satellite.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: When she brings up the Moonrace occupation whilst disguised as Kihel, Queen Dianna gets a faceful of angry Sochie. Then they drive through a bombed-out neighbourhood. Then they visit Kihel and Sochie's mother, who went insane when her husband died. She's understandably horrified.
• Of Corsets Sexy: Kihel dresses Loran up as a girl, then adds a corset for a better effect.
• Official Couple: Dianna and Loran are an ambiguous example (see Platonic Life-Partners), but Harry and Kihel, Joseph and Fran, and Keith and Verlaine are definitely official.
• Off with His Head!: Actually a safety mechanism for the Moonrace's enormous WaDom mobile suit. The cockpit is in the abdomen and all the weapons are in the head, so if the suit takes too much damage and the ammunition stores look like they're about to cook off, the pilots can jettison the head and run away to a safe distance before everything goes boom.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Midgard gets an absolutely glorious one when the Turn A first uses the Moonlight Butterfly.
  • Everyone who sees the eponymous "sunrise at midnight" in Episode 27 has this reaction. Very appropriately, since about half a dozen nuclear bombs have just gone off—everyone in the Moonrace was visibly terrified beforehand, to the point Loran ordered a retreat.
• Only Sane Woman: Invoked with the Moonrace. Their ruler is very specifically a Queen, not a King. One wonders if they might be taking Paptimus Scirocco's philosophy seriously...
• Ojou:
  • The Heim sisters, though Kihel follows the trope more closely.
  • And then Dianna when she and Kihel switch places.
  • Even Laura pulls this off quite well.
• One-Woman Wail: The soundtrack piece Black History.
• On The Next Episode Of Catchphrase: Loran narrates a quick teaser for the next episode, then ends with a short phrase related to "wind" somehow. Eg: "The wind blows", "The winds of battle blow", "The wind and the ephemeral wings of dreams", etc.
• Pastoral Science Fiction: The first two-thirds of the show are set in what appears to be America's south, complete with rural towns and vast fields.
• Perky Female Minion: Merrybell Gadget to Gym.
• Platonic Life-Partners: One possible interpretation of Loran and Dianna's relationship. They clearly like each other a lot, but there's pretty much zero evidence of it being romantic. In the finale, where Loran's caring for Dianna in peaceful obscurity, it's made clear that they sleep apart, if they even live in the same house as each other to start with.
• Prince and Pauper: Dianna and Kihel play with this, randomly switching places on a whim, without anyone being the wiser since they look almost exactly alike. The only differences between the two is Dianna's skin tone and eyes being slightly paler than Kihel's. Notably, unlike many other instances of this trope this charade runs through the rest of the series without most people ever being the wiser and the conclusion see's Kihel returning to the moon in Dianna's place, while Diana remains on Earth in Kihel's, with both women deciding that they like their counterparts life better than their original one.
• Prophecy Twist: 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 (the Zacktraeger). 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.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Much of the Will Game arc could have been avoided had Dianna been forthcoming about her true identity, though extenuating circumstances did prevent her from doing so.
  • In fact, a lot of the show itself could have been avoided if people listened to other people, both on their side and the opposing side, prompting Loran to wail "Why won't you people listen to each other?" during one of many pointless battles.
  • Averted or defied to some extent - both sides were negotiating at the start, and had been doing so for years beforehand.
  • This is really the cause of numerous conflicts throughout the series, on both the part of the Earth and Moon forces. At different points the armies/soldiers of both sides go off and start a fight with the other, without the support from their commanders and sometimes in direct violation of a previous ceasefire order. This leads to the leaders of both sides then assuming that the other gave the order to attack.
• Power Copying: The Turn Units are highly technologically advanced, being able to adapt to any number of situations. The Turn X, having been defeated millennia ago by the Turn A, learned at some point how to mimic its Moonlight Butterfly, but is incapable of doing so without sufficient power. That is, until Harry Ord and a team of SUMOs give it the energy to do so.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Gym Ghingham, the race being Humanity.
• Purposely Overpowered: Both the Turn A and Turn X are revealed to be in many ways the epitome of mobile suit technology. That they can also destroy an entire world's civilization through the Moonlight Butterfly nanomachines (and potentially wipe out humanity) only adds up to them being the most powerful mobile suits to date.
• Ragnarök Proofing:
  • Subverted in an early episode where Loran discovers a cache of the White Doll's old weapons hidden beneath a church. Everything he tries to equip disintigrates in the White Doll's hands except for a simple ball-and-chain (which only survives long enough for him to drive off Phil and Poe).
  • 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 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...
  • Despite the ravages of time and the Moonlight Butterfly, enough of the Bough of Ades remains recognizable as a mass driver and space elevator.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Plenty—Cancer of the Red Team, the King of Adeska, and Gym Ghinganham.
• Really 700 Years Old:
  • Dianna Soreil was in cryogenic storage for a good chunk of time. While she does go in and out of stasis occasionally, she is rather old, as she was able to meet Will Game both the grandfather and grandson and reminisces about the original members of the Rett team.
  • Gym Ghingnham is stated to have been conducting military maneuvers for roughly two thousand years. This is likely an exaggeration, though.
  • Corin Nander was the same, apparently for much much longer than Dianna as he apparently suffered some form of brain damage or other while in stasis. He's been around since the Black History, which occurs at least 2,345 years before the main story takes place. It's implied he's actually the sole survivor of the colony Quatre blew up with Wing Zero during his epic freakout.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: In episodes 27 and 28 Ralfa Zenoa shows himself to be this, warning everyone (Earth Militia and Moonrace alike) to stay away from the nuclear warheads. He even goes so far as to give them to Loran to keep them out of the hands of anyone in the Moonrace who might wish to use them as weapons, like Poe. The following words sum him up fairly well
  Ralfa to Loran, Sochie, and Meishie: This bomb doesn't care who its friends or foes are!
• Recap Episode: As with numerous other Gundam series Turn-A is not immune to this and Episode 16 is one.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Dianna Counter's standard colour scheme for its mobile suits. They start out as Anti Villains, if not outright Hero Antagonists, but then the war crimes start racking up...
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Sochie and Miashei.
• Reflectionless Useless Eyes: The Moonrace's otherworldly eyes. This serves as a way for the audience to distinguish Dianna and Kihel when they switch places.
• Reporting Names: In the same context as BattleTech, many Moonrace and some Zeon mecha get different names from Earth troops. At one point Miashei and a Moonrace soldier argue over whether to call one mecha a WaD or an Armadillo.
• The Reveal: The Black History, a.k.a. Mobile Suit Gundam through Gundam X. The manual for the Master Grade Turn-X model implies SEED, 00, and AGE, and further series could be included, but model kit manuals are dubious canonical at best. Reconguista in G and 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.
• Riddle for the Ages: Where exactly did the Turn X come from? Background material notes that the Turn A was built after the Turn X, using reverse engineered technology from the latter, but nobody has any clue where the Turn X came from. It was just found floating in space one day, its technology way ahead of any other mobile suit in existence. Given the cockpit design, it was clearly made by (or at least for) humans, but who built it, and why they built it, remains a total mystery.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: One recurring issue is that the militaries of both sides keep planning and executing operations without talking to their civilian leaders (or sometimes even their own superiors in the military), continually wrecking the politician's efforts to de-escalate the conflict and resolve things peacefully.
• Rock Beats Laser:
  • Averted. Biplanes and foot soldiers don't do much against Dianna Counter; it's not until the Inglessa milita finds its own mobile suits that they start putting up a decent fight.
  • There are some exceptions - Po's Wadom is described as having its beam cannon hatch damaged early on, for example, apparently through heavy Militia attacks. It's also mentioned that solid munitions can bypass I-Fields and that the Earth forces know their environment enough to stage ambushes. Still, it's only after the Militia begin fielding their recovered mobile suits that the conflict becomes anything but lopsided.
  • The Adeskans take out miniature mobile suits from Dianna Counter with spears.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something:
  • Dianna's position is anything but ceremonial—she sets policy and makes the original decision to recolonize Earth. She also does a lot of hands-on work over the course of the series, such as nursing in a military hospital.
  • Lily Borjarno is also a skilled politician who knows how to work an angle and frequently does so.
  • Heck, if we're counting the rich and well-off, Sochie counts, too, as she was a member of the Inglessa Militia before the conflict started. (Both sisters made it clear that they intended to avert the trope.)
• Running Gag: Loran just keeps getting his crotch smashed in early on when Sochie's around. It foreshadows the 'loveless relationship' with Dianna down the line, in a way.
• Security Cling: Poe's hapless second-in-command won't stop grabbing her in fear when flying through lightning, much to her irritation.
• The Siege: The Militia finds Manupichi unexpectedly fortified by Dianna Counter, forcing them to park outside the city to try and break through heavy gun emplacements before they can reach the mass driver within. Loran and Sochie turn up just as Guin loses patience and orders the use of the Willgem's Wave-Motion Gun to break through regardless of the civilians in the area.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: A meta-example. Much of the soundtrack is comprised of pastoral, period-piece and tribal music with a dash of techno and orchestral set-piece themes. There are even songs that wouldn't be out of place in a Studio Ghibli or Disney production. One would be mistaken for thinking that they're not from a Gundam show.
• Second-Hand Storytelling: The end of the Black History, including: The discovery of the Turn-X Gundam, the building of the Turn-A Gundam, and the resulting conflict. Probably impossible to show anyway, since it took place in all of the previous continuities instead of just one of them. It's All There in the Manual and is also an Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
• Shout-Out:
  • Not surprising, considering the not quite insignificant amount of references to already existing Gundam timelines. Most prominently in the mecha, which include designs (overall and cockpit) and model numbers that reference all the previous Gundam works.
  • The Turn X deserves specific mention for its Shining Finger Attack. At one point, Gym even takes down a WaDOM by picking it up and performing an Erupting God Finger on it.
    • HEAT END!
  • There are also references to other series that Tomino has worked on, which makes sense since the original pitch for the series was to be a sort of Super Robot Wars: Tomino, featuring every mecha show he's worked on.
    • In the first episode Guin discusses the possibility of war with the continent of Gallia, the main setting of Xabungle.
    • The White Doll statue the Turn A comes out of bears some resemblance to the launch sequence from Brave Raideen.
    • Not directly a Tomino reference, but the Royal Guard SUMO team's paint jobs (white and red with a gold leader) are identical to those of the Mirage Knights (who are also royal guards of a sort) from The Five Star Stories by Mamoru Nagano, co-creator of Heavy Metal L-Gaim, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Brain Powerd.
  • A Militia soldier apparently thought Lily Borjanno's name was Lalah...
• Skyward Scream: Courtesy of Harry Ord in episode 34 and it's pretty amazing.
  Harry Ord after Queen Dianna is kidnapped and taken back to the moon: MIDGARD! MIRAN! If any harm comes to Queen Dianna, or any tears pour from her eyes...You'll taste the wrath of a man whose hatred will survive even if I'm killed and reborn a million times!
  • The above is made all the more epic due to the fact that, due to the flame from the spaceship with Dianna on it reflecting off of his sunglasses, his eyes appear to be on fire as he's saying this.
• Southern Belle: Kihel & Lily.
• Space Clothes: 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 Terrans 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.
• Space Madness: A portion of the crew of the Willgem suffers from this when they first arrive in space and combined with them getting drunk this leads to them attempting to flee the ship. They manage to steal a few mobile suits and head out into space, not accounting for the fact that they 1)do not have the fuel to reach Earth, 2)do not have enough oxygen to reach Earth, and 3)have even less oxygen than they would usually have because they are panicked and have about 5-7 extra people inside a single mobile suit.
  • Guin notes that even Colonel Michael isn't acting like his usual calm self during this period.
  • Notably, Loran actually points out the fuel issue to them, but they completely blow him off. Could also fall under Too Dumb to Live.
• Space Station: The Zacktraeger is revealed to be the an orbital platform and space catapult originally made for the space elevator that became the Bough of Ades.
• Space Whale: There's quite a large number of cetaceans living in the Moonrace's sublunarian canals.
  • Not to mention that Dianna's flagship for returning to Earth after Guin betrays them is named the Whales and has whales painted on it...
• Spanner in the Works: The Twin Switch between Dianna and Kihel first happens because Dianna wanted to know what she looked like in her favorite dress from the back. That's right, one of the biggest plot elements in the series got started over a matter of women's fashion.
• Spell My Name With An S:
  • The Kapool is romanized differently than its Universal Century counterpart from Gundam ZZ, where it appeared as the "Capule". There's actually a reason for this. Despite retaining the Capule's model number of AMX-109, it's actually a different unit, possibly a reproduction, as there are a few physical differences. For one, it's a couple of meters shorter...
  • "Loran" or "Rolan"? It's "Rolan Cehack" according to the official website and the Turn-A artworks. When the character in question gives someone an autograph, it is written as "Rolan Cehack".^note But bear in mind that at least one Gundam series has spelled "Lock On" as "Rock On." On the other hand, his name is "Loran Cehack" in all official English translations, and the 2015 English subtitles have kept with that.
  • Most of the human characters have this problem. Seriously... Loran/Loran, Lineford/Rhineford, Corin/Colin, etc. Meshy/Meshie/Miashi probably gets the worst of it, and let's not even get started on her last name...
• Spirited Young Lady: The Heim sisters follow this in different ways. Both of them are high-status young ladies just entering society. Kihel declines the offer to go to university for an MRS Degree and instead takes a job as Guin's aide because she wants to do something that will be useful in society. Sochie, meanwhile, joins the Militia as a pilot even before the attack on Nocis because she's not interested in being the wife to some merchant or politician.
• Spiritual Successor: To After War Gundam X. Both post-apocalyptic stories involving the moon and Gundams with hidden doomsday weapons. But then, this show may actually be a proper sequel.
• Stock Footage: Completely and utterly absent (well, with the obvious exceptions). This is surprising for a Gundam series.
• Straight Gay: Guin Lineford, the first (and until Mobile Suit Gundam 00, only) character officially outta the closet in the franchise. Then again, he might be bisexual, but his onesided love for Loran is carefully held off until the last few episodes.
• Strawman News Media: Luzianna's is Type 2. They censor any news stories that say the war is, well, not going well. They don't do so by menacing journalists, however—they just buy the stories and photos without printing them.
• Stylish Sunhats:
  • Lily Borjanno is the daughter of the Duke of Luzianne. Despite her petty nature, she cares about politics and travels to the moon to negotiate with her fellow leaders about peace. She wears a large, white-and-red-striped, wide-brimmed hat with a giant feather sticking out from the left.
  • Kihel Heim is the oldest daughter of the Heim family. She has volominous Ojou Ringlets that reach her waist and a sunhat so large it obscures her eyes.
• Superpower Lottery: This is a common joke on most mecha/Gundam forums. The Turn-A at its theoretical full power has more potent abilities than even the infamous Zeorymer. Only the most Super of Super Robots are unquestionably more powerful, like certain Gurren-Laganns, Getter Emperor, or RahXephon. Therefore, most Gundam vs Gundam arguments end up solved with "Turn A kills them both." Everything else is basically competing for second place.
• Super Prototype: Parodied. Gavan chose his personal Borjanon because it looked different from the other Borjanons that his men excavated. That would be because it's a Zaku I, while the other Borjanons are Zaku II production models.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Episode 6 has a bunch of the Turn A's weapons be discovered...and because they'd been neglected for an unknown number of years, they're in such bad condition that they crumble to dust.
  • Will Game reconstructs a mobile suit relic in hopes that bringing it to Dianna Counter will have them accept him and bring him to space, his long-held dream. He gets into a battle with Earthrace forces piloting Zakus. Outnumbered and with no combat experience, Will Game's mobile suit is taken apart within a minute and he is killed.
  • In episode 36, after finally managing to get to space, the entire crew of the Willgem, minus the members who are a part of the Moonrace, experience a lot of trouble adjusting to zero gravity. This makes sense since it is their first time in space and unlike astronauts from our world they didn't receive any training to prepare them for it before leaving Earth.
• Sweet Home Alabama: Tomino seems to have based the setting on Gone with the Wind. The fiefdom of Luiziana is the most blatant indicator here.
• Sword Fight: Loran has one with Gym after they abandon their suits in the final episode. It only lasts for a few clashes before Gym is pulled in by the Moonlight Butterfly and trapped in a cocoon along with the Turn A and Turn X.
• Taught by Television: The forces of the Moonrace play with this. They spent thousands of years with no contact with anyone but themselves and tehrefore had nowhere to fight. They did keep a sizeable army handy though. However, without any enemies to fight all they had to train their soldiers were battle simulations, which gives them no actual experience with real combat. The most notable example of this might by Gym, who is unable to understand why his flagship's shots are missing the enemy, as he doesn't grasp the difference between actual combat and a simulation where there aren't as many variables.
• 10,000 Years: Since the Dark History of space warfare ended in a catastrophe that nearly wiped out human life on Earth. It's taken that long for the land to recover enough to support a society analogous to World War I America.
• The Time of Myths: The Dark History
  • Considering that, according to numerous characters, the Moonrace was on the moon for at least 3,000 years they might fall into this as well.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: It's a damn good thing that Sochie's Kapool was meant for underwater travel, otherwise Loran and Turn A would've had no means of joining up with the others across the sea.
• Title Drop: Happens in episode 23, courtesy of Teteth, which is also the point when the Turn-A Gundam's actual name is stated for the first time.
• Title Scream: TURN A. GUNDAM.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Heim sisters: Sochie is a Tsundereish Action Girl. Kihel is a quiet Ojou.
• Too Stupid To Live: Numerous Earth militia soldiers when they first get into space. After suffering problems adjusting to zero gravity they proceed to get drunk, while also suffering from space sickness, which leads to them deciding that they will all float back to Earth in wooden barrels...Sergeant Yanny is the first, and only, person to try this idea and almost dies because he couldn't figure out how to close the visor to his helmet.
• Transforming Mecha: A bit thin on the ground for a late 90s Gundam show, but there's a few. The very first MS we see, the FLAT folds up into a space capsule, as does the oddly-named Muttowooo and Corin Nander's Eagle (Egail? Egil?), turns into a pachycephalosaurus of all things.
• Tsundere: Sochie Heim treats Loran like garbage most of the time, but is pretty obviously in love with him.
• Twin Switch: Dianna and Kihel, despite being not really twins. It actually serves as a major plot point of the series.
• Undying Loyalty: Harry Ord.
• Unknown Character: The Turn A's original pilot. Nothing is known about them or why they decided to destroy Earth's civilization.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Harry Ord is led to believe that Loran is actually a woman named Laura Rolla and there is some Ship Tease between the two. Subverted when its eventually revealed that Harry knew "Laura"'s true identity the whole time and was just playing along.
• The Vamp: Teteth Halleh.
• War Is Hell:
  • Although it's less pronounced than in other Gundam shows, the After the End setting and Dark History showcase this quite well.
  • The scenes that take place in the military hospital, with heaps of bloodied bandages and a soldier desperately begging the doctor not to amputate his leg, are also an effective illustration.
• Weak, but Skilled: The Militia forces can only hold their own against the Moonrace because all those I-Fields do jack squat in deflecting bullets and bazookas, the Militia forces have more experience with actual military actions, and they are familiar with Earth's terrain. Even so, most of their fights don't cause any major damage (if any damage at all) but they can at least hold out long enough for Loran to turn the battle with the Gundam.
• Wham Episode:
  • "The Fall of Nocis", where war finally breaks out between the Militia and Moonrace and Dianna and Kihel haven't had the chance to reverse their Twin Switch.
  • "Kihel and Dianna", where Kihel, still pretending to be Dianna, declares peace talks with the Militia against all expectations, Dianna reveals the Twin Switch to Loran, Harry reveals to Kihel that he knows about the Twin Switch but doesn't mind, and both Dianna and Kihel realize that they are content with living the other woman's life.
  • "Sunrise at Midnight." Zenoa, a Moonrace officer, is absolutely horrified to discover a cache of nuclear missiles. And at the end of the episode, we see why when five of them go off at once... oh, and there are two more. The stakes, they have been raised.
  • As its title suggests, "The Shocking Dark History" reveals the truth of the Dark History. Namely that it's actually all of the previous Gundam series. Furthermore, the Turn A Gundam is revealed to have a superweapon called the Moonlight Butterfly that destroyed all of human civilization.
  • "Guin the Traitor", where Guin forms an alliance with Gym. Loran tries to stop them, but he is ultimately forced to abandon the Turn A to Gym's clutches.
• Wham Line:
  • Harry's line at the end of Episode 18, which reveals that he knows that Dianna and Kihel switched places and strongly implies that he knowingly prevented them from reversing the switch earlier in the episode:
    Harry: "One can't keep a mlitary in line with noble ideals alone, Kihel Heim! Even a civilian like Kihel Heim, Guin Rhineford's personal secretary. wouldn't be as naively sentimental as you just were, Queen Dianna. I wanted to tell you that."
  • Two in quick succession towards the end of Episode 42:
    Agrippa: "According to our analysis, it was the Turn A that destroyed Earth's ancient civilization."
    Midgard: "That of the old Universal Century?"
• White-and-Grey Morality: There are very few people who are actually evil. Much of the conflict arises from a lack of understanding between the two sides when they first meet. And unlike the Universal Century, a strong effort is made by both sides to maintain the initial cease-fire after it's declared despite tensions.
• Who Needs Enemies?: The basic relationship between not only Dianna and Agrippa, but Agrippa and Gym as well. Both Gym and Agrippa come to work against Dianna's efforts for returning to the Earth and attempt to have her killed. Gym in turn ignores Agrippa's desires for negotiation with Guin and the rest of the Terrans, attempting to capture the White Doll. Notably, all three of their families basically make up the ruling class of the moon and are supposed to work together in harmony.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Loran Cehack, aka "Laura Rolla".
• Why Am I Ticking?: Prior to safely disposing of the nukes, Loran has to worry about the fact they are stored in the chest region of Turn A and they could go off if he's hit there.
• Worst Aid: The Militia hospital, but they're working with WWI-era medicine.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Mechanical variant. Both Turn units possess powerful nanomachines that can regenerate any damage, up to and including the pilot. Yet when they clashed sometime in the distant past, Turn A left an X-shaped gash on Turn X's chest, which it hasn't regenerated even centuries later.
• Wrench Wench: Miashei Kun, Merrybell.
• You Are in Command Now: After Gavane Gooney dies in the nuclear explosion, Aims ends up in command of Lousana's Borjanon (or Zaku) squad.
• You Can't Fight Fate: By Word of God, this is what will inevitably happen to virtually every Gundam series. They will be destroyed by Dark History and civilization resets.
• You Don't Want to Catch This: In order to scare Poe away from Zenoa (and the nuclear warheads), Loran, Sochie, and Miashei rush her SUMO while broadcasting cries of thirst. After she flees, Loran explains that according to historical records, victims of nuclear explosions die begging for water.

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