Turn A Gundam

Our Review

Yoshiyuki Tomino’s late masterpiece and the strangest Gundam, set in a distant future where the Universal Century is ancient history and Earth has regressed to roughly World War One technology. Loran Cehack, a Moonrace scout sent to assess Earth for resettlement, ends up piloting the Turn A, a mustached Gundam, trying to prevent the war he was sent to start.

The Turn A’s design gets jokes, and the show quietly ignores them and becomes one of the warmest, most humane entries in the franchise. There is more farming than fighting in some stretches, and the anti war themes have never been gentler or sharper.

Fifty episodes, 1999, with a soundtrack by Yoko Kanno. The connoisseur’s Gundam, and the one industry people name when asked for the best.