The Turn A Gundam was selected by fan poll in 2007 to have the honor of being the 100th release of the Master Grade line of Gundam model kits. It was released in August of 2007. The booklet includes a message by Turn A Gundam‘s director, Yoshiyuki Tomino. Below is a translation.
Continuing my series of articles detailing the history and production of Turn A Gundam! My goal is to provide an accessible source of context and knowledge for reference purposes, and to improve community discourse. This is the culmination of research I’ve done and continue to do over the past decade. It’ll be divided into four parts for easy reading as follows. I highly recommend you read and familiarize yourself with the previous parts, as there is a lot of overlap between them.
Without further ado…
Continue reading “The History and Production of Turn A Gundam: Part IV – The Era of Turn A Gundam”The Turn A Gundam movies were released on February of 2002 to much excitement. The Winter 2002 issue of Gundam Ace features a 4-page retrospective one-shot by Hajime Yamamura. They recall their thoughts about the TV show and look forward to the release of the movies.
Simoun ~Denpa DE Ri-Maajon~ was an online radio program about the anime Simoun. It was hosted by Rieko Takahashi (Neviril’s VA) and Mikako Takahashi (Rodoreamon’s VA). As you might know, Rieko Takahashi is the voice actress of Dianna Soreil & Kihel Heim. Her role as Neviril is notable because it’s her only other anime role as a main character. She isn’t particularly active in the anime industry, opting instead to focus on her theater career. Takahashi continues to be an active performer at the theater troupe Yen, which she was originally recruited from to audition for role(s) in Turn A Gundam. She was colleagues with Romi Park and had a fast friendship with her; Park would reprise her membership at Yen for years after Turn A Gundam finished airing, finally retiring in 2017. In the radio program, Rieko Takahshi often advertises her upcoming performances to listeners.
Anyhow, in radio episode #23, Turn A Gundam is briefly discussed as part of a recurring segment in which listeners write in and create their own “Ri-Maajons”. In Simoun‘s world, these are trajectory rituals that the Simoun aircraft perform with varying destructive effects. In other words, it’s how they do aerial battle. I’ve translated and created a subtitle video of the segment for your viewing pleasure. To better understand the clip, it’s worth mentioning that there’s a running gag that Rieko Takahashi is rather forgetful about things of all nature, including works she was previously involved in. It’s a fun little conversation!
Turn A Gundam‘s fiftieth episode was broadcast on Fuji TV on April 14, 2000. This is the final episode of the show and the last entry in this blog post series. This is a behemoth of a finale with a very unique and memorable epilogue sequence. It features stunning animation by Masami Goto, Atsushi Shigeta, Kenichi Yoshida, among others, and Yoshihito Hishinuma and Masami Goto served as animation directors. This episode’s broadcast date was postponed due to the eruption of Mount Usu on March 31, 2000.
Naturally, the finale was selected by fan-poll to receive an audio commentary track for the Blu-ray release.
Turn A Gundam‘s forty-ninth episode was broadcast on Fuji TV on March 24, 2000. This episode was selected by fan-poll to receive an audio commentary track for the Blu-ray release.
Turn A Gundam‘s forty-eighth episode was broadcast on Fuji TV on March 17, 2000.
Gundam character heights have been a hot topic lately due to The Witch from Mercury‘s Suletta being unusually tall for a protagonist. She’s 170cm, which places her as the tallest TV protagonist in her age group (mid-late teens; she’s 17). This has prompted people in both Western and Japanese fandoms to create height comparison charts, mostly in good faith to poke fun at the oddity of the situation. What I have noticed, however, is that Loran is often either absent from these charts and/or his height is misrepresented. One such chart from a content creator listed him as 161cm, which is factually incorrect. Turn A Gundam character height information isn’t readily available online for some reason, so I figured I’d use this opportunity to rectify that. My sources include official character settei that I own, along with settei reproductions from the supplementary “Turn A Gundam Art Works” book, and Newtype Magazine character data profiles. I should note that my collection of settei is nowhere near exhaustive and as a result I don’t have confirmed heights for all major characters.
The Sunrise Festival is an annual event held by Sunrise in collaboration with Japanese movie theaters. The festival has been active since 2010 and screens popular anime episodes, specials, movies, concerts, etc., mixed in with guests and talk shows to attract large audiences. This year’s festival runs from January 9th-29th, featuring many of Sunrise’s popular titles, such as Tiger & Bunny, Kyoukai Senki, Love Live, and Zeta Gundam. Most relevant of course is the fact that they’re showing both Turn A Gundam movies and all five G-Reco movies in an all-day event!
Turn A Gundam‘s forty-seventh episode was broadcast on Fuji TV on March 10, 2000. This is the last episode with scenario by Tetsuko Takahashi.
Moon's Cocoon 