First, let's start with the story. While I do consider Tomino to be one of my favorite directors, I will admit that one of the common criticisms about him, that his narratives can be rather difficult to understand, does ring true a fair amount of the time (for me, the most notable case would be Zeta, although that could have been due to the depression he was experiencing at the time he made the show) - Turn A was an exception to that rule, since when I watched it, I was able to follow the events rather easily. I had the exact opposite experience with G-Reco; there were quite a few times where characters are captured by opposing factions...yet instead of being treated like POWs like you would expect, the characters were allowed to move around unrestrained. In all other Gundam series, when this happens (granted, it doesn't happen often), there is always an explanation - heck, even Gundam AGE did this right! It feels like this series was supposed to be the standard 49-50 episode length, seeing as how they try and cram so many factions into 26 episodes - yet at the same time, it felt like they somehow managed to drag a 13-episode plot out for too long. And the ending in particular made me appreciate Turn A even more - in Turn A, the ending was easily one of the best, if not the best, endings I'd seen in an anime. G-Reco has NO REAL ENDING TO SPEAK OF.
Up next is the art. The art in Turn A Gundam reminded me a lot of Cowboy Bebop's art style - while I would still say that Bebop has the better animation overall, there were a few moments in Turn A that made me reconsider my stance. G-Reco's artstyle is one I can only describe as a mixture between the animation in Victory Gundam and Gundam AGE - the former I consider to be the worst Gundam anime, and the latter was the first Gundam series that I considered bad (before anyone asks, I watched them in random order). I didn't like the animation styles in those series, so to say I didn't like it here was an understatement. I do like the character designs though.
Now, let's talk about the characters. Now, in most Gundam series, you have characters on both sides you can root for. For example, in Turn A, the Earth side has Kiel Heim, Lily Borjano, and Loran Cehack; the Moonrace, on the other hand, has characters like Harry Ord and Dianna Soreil. G-Reco has...to be honest, I couldn't think of any characters I liked (or for that matter, disliked) in G-Reco. I guess you could say that I liked the cast because I couldn't find anything bad about it...but by that logic, you could also say I hated them because I couldn't find anything bad about them either.
I guess if I had to pick one thing that I liked about G-Reco, it would be the soundtrack - now, admittedly, it's pretty much impossible for any composer to compete with Yoko Kanno, so it's pretty much no contest when comparing Turn A's soundtrack to G-Reco. The one part I would complain about is something that everyone else likes a lot, the ending - while I know that a lot of people find it pretty catchy, it reminds me too much of the second opening to Victory Gundam, and considering that that song currently haunts my nightmares, you can probably guess how I felt about this song.
When I watched Turn A Gundam, it started out okay at first, but it grew on me, and by the end of that show, I had a show that I was more than happy to add to my top 5. With G-Reco, on the other hand, I found myself seriously wondering why I had even bothered, since it was so boring that I nearly fell asleep a few times while watching it - now that would be fine if this was, oh say, Mushishi, but it's not. There were no moments where I was awestruck by how awesome the fightscenes were, or impressed with how much the characters had changed. I just found it incredibly boring.
If Turn A represents Tomino at his best, then I'm almost inclined to say that G-Reco represents him at his worst - key word being "Almost", since I have not completed Garzey's Wing (which I've heard is easily Tomino's worst work). I suppose if you're a Gundam completionist, it's worth a watch, but as for everyone else...you're better off skipping this one.
