Turn A Gundam/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alas, Poor Villain: Teteth Halleh, retroactively.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Agrippa as the Only Sane Man. When he explains his actions and motivations, not only are they reasonable, but Dianna has a Heroic BSOD when she realizes that her actions may have doomed the Moonrace.
    • Somewhat related: Dianna as an imperious flake.
  • Complete Monster: Gym Ghingnham.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: THIS. Also a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
    • Anything with Bruno and Jacop after their Heel Face Turn, particularly when Jacop tries on Harry's glasses.
    • In episode 22, a disguised Harry confronts Loran about his disguise as Laura. When Loran replies that it isn't exactly a disguise, Harry mistakes the reply that Loran means that he likes cross-dressing...
    • Fran also takes the piss out of the dramatic entrance of the Turn-X by noting that a turned X is still an X.
    • In the last episode Lily Borjarno finally gets fed up with Guin calling Loran "Laura", and suggests he put on a skirt and chase after Loran. Guin notes that society hasn't progressed to the point where someone wearing a skirt can rule the world. Mere minutes later, he is forced to flee into exile and Lily declares that she will take over control of America Ameria in her skirt.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome (The second ED, Tsuki no Mayu (Cocoon of the Moon) and BLACK HISTORY)
  • Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy The Black History kills every happy ending or advance humans make. Humans make contact with aliens? We have absolutely no explanation for what happened but The Black History means something went terribly wrong. Descendants of your favorite characters? Probably dead. The end of the season and peace at last? Meaningless because of The Black History. And a lot more. Ironic for a metaphor for overcoming depression.
  • Fan Dumb: Even on this very website, where most of the critics are derided as people bent out of shape by the machine designs. Incidentally, the machine designs, in conjunction with the story, are what make this one of the most acclaimed series of the franchise.
    • Nevertheless, it is true that many people have refused to even watch the series simply based on the titular Gundam's design.
  • Fridge Horror: Minor villain Teteth Helleh gets some humanization just before she dies. 30 episodes later, we see the reason for her humanization (her mother) come out of Hibernation looking for her. Two characters nearby comment that they've heard the name she's calling out for before.
    • The Reveal about the Black History means that the struggles in every other Gundam series you've watched ended with the Moonlight Butterfly centuries later. It's worse if the series had an idealistic ending, because it means that all their struggles and hope for the future just ended with humanity falling back into devastating wars.
  • God Mode Sue: Arguably the Turn A. Arguably because while powerful it still comes across as if a good Zerg Rush or Death of a Thousand Cuts could do it in.
  • It Was His Sled: The Reveal that the Black History refers to the events of previous Gundam series was a major plot twist; nowadays, just try to discuss Turn A without it coming up at some point.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Guin Sard Lineford.
  • Magnum Opus: Most Gundam fans consider either this or Zeta Gundam to be Tomino's masterpiece.
  • Memetic Badass: Harry, who the fandom describes as "Char minus ambition plus awesome".
  • Tear Jerker: The absolutely beautiful ending in the final episode on its own, and especially if you've seen the entire series. Here it is for those of you willing to see it. Spoilers abound..it IS the ending.
    • The funeral of Dylan Heim in episode three. Sochie and the two house servants are absolutely overcome with grief, as is Loran over the death of a nice man who really did nothing to deserve it. To make matters worse, he is one of so many casualties that they have to rush to bury him right away, even before contacting his wife and daughter.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The design of the Turn A Gundam, by American Syd Mead was very different from the standard Gundam look, and a lot of fans didn't like it.
  • What Could Have Been: At one point in the draft of the ending, Dianna was supposed to be showing obvious signs of age. (She ends up using a walking stick, maybe, and sounds a little older in the final version.)
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