The Legacies of the Turn A Gundam Sequel(s) That Never Came to Fruition

It’s Turn A Gundam‘s 25th anniversary! What a milestone achievement for such a culturally relevant anime. I want to do something special to celebrate—a deep dive into the sequels that never came to fruition. This article will replace my outdated What do we know about Turn A Space? article, but I’ll leave the link active and redirect readers to this page. Bear in mind that this is a work-in-progress. New details will continue to surface as time goes on, but I figured I had accumulated enough to write an updated article.

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On August 10, 1999, while Turn A Gundam was in-between episodes #18 and #19, Director Yoshiyuki Tomino was informed by Sunrise producer Masuo Ueda that Turn A Gundam would NOT be greenlit for a second year of broadcast. A sequel story had never officially been in the cards, but Tomino had hoped that one would be made. He had already been planning scenario ideas, after all, and this news didn’t necessarily stop him from continuing to expand on them. In fact, planning documents and memos for a sequel concept were on display at The World of Yoshiyuki Tomino exhibition (2019-2021). Sadly, due to photography limitations, photos haven’t surfaced on the internet.

According to pseudonymous staff member Brikiso, a tentative title for a sequel was Turn A Gundam: Galia Senki (∀ガンダム ガリア戦記, i.e. Galia War Chronicles or Record of Galia War).^[1] So, let’s backup a little bit. What is Galia? It’s a nation or continent that’s presumably located across the Atlantic Ocean. If Ameria is a metaphor to America, then you can think of Galia as representing Europe. It derives its name from the European region of Gaul—the classical Latin pronunciation of the word is “Gallia”, which the Japanese katakana matches (ガリア). Galia is primarily brought up in the first few episodes, as a potential threat to Ameria’s security. Guin and his team have been in communication with the Moonrace, and he wants to beef up Ameria’s military capability in the case of an impending conflict. Remember, Guin’s an industrialist at heart. The idea is sold to the public in the guise of possible aggressions brewing from Galia. That’s why when the Moonrace do invade, it’s initially seen as a Galian attack by some characters. After things subside and the show’s plot is well-underway, Galia is mentioned only in passing and few details are ever provided. Even supplementary books don’t have much to offer.

Here’s what we do know about Galia Senki:

• In the Blu-ray audio commentaries, moderator Ryota Fujitsu mentions that the epilogue was left open-ended in hopes of a sequel show set on the Galia continent, and Romi Park (Loran’s VA) immediately verifies the claim.
• In a pamphlet distributed at showings of the Turn A Gundam movies, Gou Aoba (Guin’s VA) mentions that Guin and Merrybell are traveling to Galia in the epilogue.
• According to character designer Akiman, Director Tomino would often say that if anything happens next, then it’ll be on the Galia continent.^[2]
• The native people of Galia might have been more barbaric, almost Viking-like in nature, when compared to the industrialized peoples of Ameria.^[3]
• In conversations with Tomino about a sequel, Brikiso would often suggest a story with characters from “Yapan” (Japan). They might excavate mobile suits from a Mountain Cycle and then travel to the European continent where they’d then meet Loran and Dianna, kind of like a Zeta Gundam situation.^[4] Parts of this concept may have been repurposed in King Gainer and Gundam Reconguista in G. In King Gainer, the idea of “Yapan” is very much present, and G-Reco‘s ending has Bellri starting a new journey from Mt. Fuji.
• In discussing the framework of the Dark History, Director Tomino suggested that people might have escaped beyond the Moon, possibly to the Venusian atmosphere, with colonies surrounding the planet. He also suggested that perhaps those colonists were not allowed to invade Earth per some treaty or dogma. But the Moonrace broke said rule, and that causes the Venusian forces to move. Most of these ideas were repurposed in G-Reco.^{[5] [6]}
• Akiman has mentioned a handful of times that in his ideal sequel story, Loran and Dianna covertly travel to Galia to solve a conflict or save the world.^{[7] [8]}

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On September 1, 2002, at Anime Expo New York, Director Tomino revealed to Western audiences that he’d like to create stories that are close to the Gundam world but not necessarily part of it. He directly namedropped a work called Turn A Space and mentioned that it would require help from Sunrise and sponsors to make it a reality.^[9] At this point, we can presume that the Galia Senki concept was either dead or had transformed into something entirely new. Remember, the conceptual plan behind Galia Senki had never been greenlit. King Gainer also aired late in 2002, and some ideas may have been repurposed into its conceptual planning.

Gundam True Odyssey ~The Legend of the Lost G~ (MS Saga: A New Dawn in North America) released on June 30, 2005, for the PlayStation 2 home console. According to Akiman, it originally started as a Turn A Gundam sequel project that was shelved, but Sunrise later resurfaced it for this game.^[10] In practice, what this likely means is that ideas from Galia Senki were further repurposed into True Odyssey. The game has character designs by Akiman and features mobile suits from the Universal Century, G Gundam, and Gundam Wing—harnessing the spirit of Turn A Gundam. The plot even takes you to the Moon at some point.

From 2004-05, Akiman serialized a Turn A Gundam prequel manga titled Wind of the Moon in Gundam Ace (read here). WotM features mass produced Turn As (called Turn Bs), along with the idea that humanity had expanded their civilization throughout the universe via spatial leaping technology. In The Memory of First Wind companion book, it’s suggested that people might have left the solar system via interstellar travel, and that this technology was lost over time. Akiman essentially expands on this idea, which also ties into Tomino’s suggestion that people could have escaped beyond the Moon during the Dark History. With Galia Senki officially out of the cards, it’s no surprise that Akiman was involved in works like True Odyssey and his own take on a Turn A Gundam story in WotM.

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So, Turn A Space (stylized as ∀S). This name has floated around in Gundam communities for years, and there are many rumors surrounding it. One such rumor in English fandom is that it would include mecha from Tomino’s works outside of the Gundam sphere, i.e. Turn A Space would “unify” his filmography as a whole. I believe this is a consequence of the comments made by Director Tomino at AXNY 2002. It’s also possible that Ring of Ideon might have spurred on some of these rumors; a canned Ideon sequel that served as an influence on Turn A Gundam‘s conceptual planning. It’s also always been surmised that Turn A Space was necessarily a sequel to Turn A Gundam, but we don’t know that for sure. What we do know about Turn A Space is that it was an intermediary project between Turn A Gundam and Gundam Reconguista in G. Basically, Turn A Space became G-Reco.

The Gundam Reconguista in G Mechanics & World book released in 2023 sheds some light. In an interview, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane mentions that he was involved in a number of conceptual projects since 2007, such as Gaia Gundam and Turn A Space. He doesn’t remember all the details, and he doubts even people who were involved in them do either. My guess is that Gaia Gundam became Ring of Gundam (2009), and we know that Turn A Space became G-Reco. Yamane drew an early concept sketch called “Early Concept for Reconguista”, a Gundam design that evokes the spirit of the Turn A Gundam and Syd Mead’s design style. He also drew a prototype design of the Crescent Ship from G-Reco, back when the project was still called Turn A Space. Tomino stopped Yamane in the rain and asked him to draw a spaceship for his new project. He wrote “scimitar ship” in his notes, along with Moon motif, and that influenced the design. The “G-Reco” outline began to formally take shape when Producer Naohiro Ogata joined the Turn A Space project, presumably sometime in the late 2000s. This article isn’t a breakdown of G-Reco‘s own production history, so I’ll leave it at that.

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Let’s next discuss two key structures: the Sackträger and the space elevator. The Sackträger is a device introduced in Turn A Gundam. It is essentially a skyhook (a real-world proposed concept), a tether used to “fling” objects into space via angular momentum by rotation of the cable around the center of mass. It’s different than a space elevator in that it’s much shorter and does not come into contact with the Earth’s surface. As a result, it requires a launch device to reach its lower end; in this case, it’s the Manupichi mass driver. It’s meant to be a fuel-efficient system that launches and returns massive payloads into satellite orbit and further beyond. It can be similar in application to a gravity assist used by real-world spacecraft to leave the Earth’s atmosphere. A skyhook does not exist in real life, but it’s generally considered to be more realistic and cost competitive idea when compared to a hypothetical space elevator.

The Memory of Second Wind companion book discusses a space elevator, as a kind of predecessor to the Sackträger. At some point in history, people built several space elevators, and that created an era of lasting peace. Manupichi (from Turn A Gundam) appears to have been one of the locations of these elevators. However, after hundreds of years, war broke out and these symbols of peace were destroyed, and the wreckage of the space elevators caused severe damage to the planet. It’s said that some of the debris that fell was later used to create the Sackträger. This lines up with the Manupichi legend of the “World Tree” (the space elevator) and “The Bough of Ades” (Sackträger). Yet, it’s not clear if this is necessarily true or not. It’s possible that the Sackträger was built by a much later generation, and that it simply became an interesting legend to pass down to the Manupichi people as tradition. This type of muddling of historical events is at the core of the concept behind the Dark History. The word Sackträger also has a Germanic origin, which may indicate a connection to Galia/Europe.

So why is this relevant to the discussion? It’s because a space elevator is at the heart of G-Reco! The above explanation might have influenced G-Reco‘s early premise—at least, the history of humanity surrounding space elevators clearly drives its framework. Capital Tower is the de-facto center of the world, and people have even formed a pseudo-religion around it (SU-Cordism). But just because The Memory of Second Wind book outlines a logical follow-up to such a premise (i.e, humanity will bring down these space elevators as war breaks out), that doesn’t necessarily make G-Reco a precursor to Turn A. While it might have been promoted as a prequel story, according to Director Tomino G-Reco takes place 500 years after Turn A. If it was set before Turn A, shouldn’t there be more space elevators? The only known one is Capital Tower. Also, if Turn A Space was presumably a sequel story to Turn A, shouldn’t G-Reco logically be one too? According to Brikiso, G-Reco was initially intended to be an extension to the Turn A world, so the two works are undoubtedly connected.^[12] Either which way, this background information can be used to support both positions (before vs. after). The “500 years” Tomino mentioned is most likely just a number he threw out in an interview, and not a chronological detail people should obsess over. He probably just wants to indicate that it takes place in a vague “new era”. As I discussed in my Dark History article, the Correct Century timeline isn’t exactly set in stone either. It’s also worth noting that Turn A Gundam and G-Reco presumably have the same overall world map. For instance, Ameria exists in both worlds, while Galia has been renamed to Gondwan. Most notably, Capital Territory in G-Reco is located in the same general vicinity as Manupichi is in Turn A Gundam, which supports the detail that it serves as a location to house a space elevator. Maybe people found blueprints of the Manupichi space elevator in a nearby Mountain Cycle and decided to rebuild it in the same location. That supports the perspective that G-Reco takes places after Turn A.

According to Brikiso, many of Director Tomino’s ideas surrounding the Earth sphere, Ameria, and the Moon at the end of Turn A‘s production were repurposed in some way, shape, or form in G-Reco.^[11] As mentioned earlier, Tomino suggested that people might have escaped beyond the Moon, possibly to the Venusian atmosphere. The Venus Globe serves as an expansion to this concept, and the characters from those colonies even begin to move once they feel that dogmas have been violated. The idea of a “Reconguista” is even similar to the Earth Return Plan from Turn A Gundam, and the G-Lucifer has its own version of the Moonlight Butterfly. Bellri going on a new journey starting from Mt. Fuji might be a gesture to Galia Senki, almost as if Director Tomino is coming full circle and putting a cap on the Turn A saga. Bellri even meets Tomino (as a character) himself before setting out on his journey. See you in Galia, Bellri! Or Gondwan, as it’s called in G-Reco.

What I’m getting at is that G-Reco serves as a spiritual successor to Turn A Gundam. What began as Galia Senki dispersed into other projects like King Gainer, Gundam True Odyssey, and Wind of the Moon, and the bulk of the ideas settled into Turn A Space. The production timeline between all these transitions is unclear, but we do know that by 2002, the Galia Senki no longer existed and was replaced by Turn A Space. And sometime in the late 2000s, G-Reco was born from Turn A Space. G-Reco features many key carryover staff members from Turn A Gundam and King Gainer, primarily the trio of Tomino, Akiman, and Kenichi Yoshida. It also wasn’t originally intended to be a Gundam work and was first revealed as “G-Reko”. Director Tomino has said multiple times that he doesn’t view G-Reco as Gundam, and this is part of his philosophy to remove the “Gundam” from Gundam. It’s why Turn A Space didn’t have “Gundam” in its title either. He has even made similar comments about Turn A Gundam in retrospect. In this regard, G-Reco embodies the spiritual place of “Gundam” contentment that Tomino has been seeking ever since Turn A Gundam. They’re also often viewed as “sister” shows in many respects, with official events even pairing them together. For instance, the 2023 Sunrise Film Festival had an entire day dedicated to screening ALL of the Turn A and G-Reco movies, with special guests Tetsu Inada (Harry Ord), Takuya Satō (Mask/Luin Lee), and Hisakazu Naka (G-Reco production desk staff). Plenty of fan art fuels the fire too.

I often tell people that if they like Turn A Gundam, then they should probably check out shows like Brain Powerd, King Gainer, and most notably, G-Reco. I hope this article provides some perspective as to why. There’s still so much to uncover, and I’ll continue to examine the nitty-gritty details of the Turn A sequels that never truly came to fruition.

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[1] https://twitter.com/brikiso/status/1765579351867949141
[2] https://twitter.com/akiman7/status/1619972601065119744
[3] https://twitter.com/brikiso/status/1765616299961643440
[4] https://twitter.com/brikiso/status/1765609631177637915
[5] https://twitter.com/brikiso/status/1716721994354589782
[6] https://twitter.com/brikiso/status/1716992432620142827
[7] https://twitter.com/akiman7/status/1619972601065119744
[8] https://twitter.com/akiman7/status/1765593824229994642
[9] https://web.archive.org/web/20021004000900/http://www.animejump.com/cgi-bin/go.cgi?go=features/axny/tomino1
[10] https://twitter.com/akiman7/status/565896673759485952/
[11] https://twitter.com/brikiso/status/1619977879470870528
[12] https://twitter.com/brikiso/status/1779683973645680935