::: spoiler even more gundam autism oh, sorry to disappoint you. turn a is just obvious undertones, but like. enough that i do just straight up she/her the main character. due to a misunderstanding the enemy faction believes the gundam pilot is a woman, so when there's a big party where they're hoping to sign a peace deal (in like episode 7, not really a spoiler) loran goes as a woman and gets really into doing all the necessary feminine things, and continues doing so at several later points. when asked why she didn't say no she goes "well it's my duty, right? so i'll do it :)" and looks really happy as the other person looks kinda skeptical but decides to help, and when asked if it was a disguise goes "uh, no" and can't elaborate on what exactly dressing up like that means. it helps that there are zero transphobic man in dress jokes made.

combined with the rest of turn a's gender politics (good! the women are all super interesting and compelling and have complex relations to the gender roles of their society) and the way it handles other issues of identity, i do think it's bordering intentional? like, it is objectively doing Gender with loran, and if i were to say to tomino "i think loran is a transgender woman" i doubt he'd deny it, but no, it is in fact something you have to read into it, as sad as that is

yeah it's a bummer. a lot of them don't lib out though, none of the tomino gundams (0079, zeta, zz, cca, victory, turn a) do that, and 0080 and ibo also definitely don't do that. all of them have endings that may involve amounts of psychic stuff but do not say "and now the whole world is fixed :)" like some of the others do and are at best bittersweet. but after watching 00 (which EXTREMELY libs out) and being stuck on g gundam (boring as sin) i am burned out on gundam, hence me watching star trek

i wouldn't say not to watch zeta, but i wouldn't blame anyone who didn't want to. and that's just my opinion on it, there are a lot of people who love it and don't think it's a slog at all and have genuinely interesting reads on the way the misogyny happens as being commentary, which though i don't personally agree with i don't think it's out of the question. but yeah (even though i liked it!) i think it's kinda weak. but it leads right into zz which is much better.

if you wanna watch gundam and aren't going to watch the whole thing, my 3 series recommendation is 0079 -> ibo -> turn a. i think the three of them are all excellent and probably aren't ruined by unjust depths. 0079 gives you a strong idea of what exactly the whole thing is based around and on its own has basically everything relevant to unjust depths, and is a very good story in its own right if you aren't turned off by the 70s animation. pretty basic war story but told very well. iron blooded orphans has some weird stuff about gender in the first ~third but mostly gets over itself. it's got really interesting politics that it handles very well, an incredibly strong ending ~10 episodes, and is probably the best the franchise gets in terms of cool mech fights. it's also got some bits that you don't NEED to have seen 0079 to enjoy but you'll definitely get more from them if you have. finally, turn a is just incredible, i cannot say enough good things about it. the whole cast is compelling, it's a beautiful show with a beautiful ost, the setting is incredibly unique, and the themes make a great capstone to what gundam as a franchise is all about. it's a very meta, introspective show by a team at the top of their game making a show that's complex while still being easy to parse