I had a few issues with how the anime went but design wise the suits of Iron Blood Orphans were innovative and unlike anything previously seen in Gundam. The 2nd season elevated this with various improved designs including the seemingly most popular version of the protagonist’s Gundam.

Since this is the first Gundam Weapons released after the show concluded it focuses mostly on builds of the 2nd season kits and various designs that were never officially made into models.

Unlike other Gundam Weapons there is no fold out poster at the front, instead we go directly from the contents page to the first out of 5 sections based on pivotal moments in the 2nd season of the show.

The first builds are 1/144’s of the Gundam Barbatos Lupus, Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City, the Shiden, and the Shiden Custom Ryusei-Go. All are cleaned up and slightly modified for better detail with the Lupus getting significant more pages dedicated to it.

The next 6 builds are also 1/144’s with various levels of modification starting with the Garm Rodi which was a full conversion, two different types of Hugo’s with modded details, both Julieta’s and Iok’s Reginlaze with numerous mods to improve the proportions detail and weapon differences, and finally a Graze in Arianrhod fleet colors.

To finish out the first part of the book there are 7 1/144 builds all of which are grunt suits with multiple conversion types as well as a seemingly 1/35 vehicle build. First is the Landman Rodi conversion of the Man Rodi which included some scratch built legs, A Geirail followed by a Geirail Scharfrichter conversion with numerous mods and detail work on both, a Hloekk Graze conversion, Gilda SAU conversion, a Gilda standard conversion, a detailed up Mcgillis’s Graze Ritter, and finally a non scaled Tekkadan mobile worker released by Megahouse.

The second part of the book showcases the half way point of the 2nd season where they are fighting against the mobile armor Hashmal. This short section only has 4 1/144 builds first the Gundam Vidar, the Gundam Flauros Ryusei-Go, the mobile armor Hashmal, and the Helmwige Reincar all of which mostly have modifications in order to deal with tricky seams and missing detail.

The third part features 4 more 1/144 builds with significant modding to clean up seams and detail issues they are the Gundam Barbatos Lupus Rex, the Hekija, the Rouei, and the Reginlaze Julia.

The fourth part basically rounds out most of the rest of the series with 5 more 1/144 builds. First is the Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City full equipment with a few extra custom parts, the Raiden-Go and Orga’s Shiden both of which are slightly modified Shiden’s, a detailed Gundam Bael, and finally a significantly modded Gundam Kimaris Vidar.

The final part of this Gundam Weapons is about the last episode of the series and 1/100 IBO kits. The first is a diorama called Karera no Ibasho named after the last episode of the series and depicts the end of the Barbatos, the second is a heavily detailed 1/144 Gundam Barbatos Lupus, a detailed and modded 1/100 Gundam Barbatos Lupus, a 1/100 Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City conversion of the normal Rebake, a modified 1/100 Gundam Vidar, an amazing 1/100 Gundam Flauros Ryusei-Go conversion of the Barbatos, a 1/100 version of the battle damaged Gundam Barbatos Lupus during the fight with the Hashmal, a 1/100 Gundam Barbatos Lupus Rex, a 1/100 Gundam Bael, a 2nd 1/100 Gundam Bael but with very different proportions, and the final build of the book is a 1/100 Gundam Kimaris Vidar conversion of a Vidar that just like the Flauros has a ton of scratch building.

Just like the lack of poster in the beginning this Gundam Weapons also bucks the trend and has no line art at the end. I was fairly satisfied with this issue especially the custom 1/100’s even if there was too many grunt suit builds for my liking.

NOTE: Just to be clear because I get this every time I post one of these I will not scan the entire book, this is meant to be an informative preview so you know if the book is worth purchasing or not.