Story (7/10) Good
More Specifically (7.50/10) Good+
The story for Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season was good. It doesn't try to follow in the foot steps of previous Gundams and it tries it's own thing, other than the Gundam itself there's barely any resemblance to any alternate universe that had come before it. No lasers (except that one the mobile armor used), No beam weapons and no haro, sure there's a mask character and a char and even a garma clone. But it still does things that aren't seen before in an actual plot in a Gundam story. Like I said I thought it was good but I do indeed think it could have been better as far as making some of the loose ends not so loose. For example the biggest one is the mobile armor situation that Bartbatos Lupus fought that whole ordeal was introduced but went nowhere. It's like they wanted to take the story somewhere by introducing the mobile armors but then focus on the war conflict and then the anime concluded.
Art and Animation (9/10) Great
More Specifically (9.75/10) Great+
The art and animation in Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season was great. When Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season wanted to showcase come nice ass looking animation they can deliver some, the mobile armor fight alone is probably one of the best mech animated fights I've ever seen and I will never forget it, after that the last episode of this second season and the McGillis vs Gaelio's final fight was amazing. A nice handful of nicely non-cg mech fights and I appreciate and would love more of in the future of the mech genre as a whole not this cg stuff.
Sound (9/10) Great
More Specifically (9.75/10) Great+
Just like Season 1 Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season brings the sound to high standards now I wasn't too found with the second ending outro but literally everything else sound related in this entire anime was outstanding.
Characters (8/10) Very Good
A lot of the characters get characterization and this anime doesn't give anyone plot armor. Anyone had the potential of dying which I felt they handle nicely that suspense is what made it good. Now some characters did disappoint me because I was expecting more from them before the anime was over like I wish Orga ended up piloting his own Gundam alongside Mika (never happened), or that the new character of Season 2 Hash Midey was an interesting character which I thought would rise to top tier the way the anime had him talking at the start of the season but it basically felt like a waste of characterization, development and overall screen time by the time the anime ended I was quite disappointed he really didn't amount to a damn. Now Gaelio on the other hand surprised me especially doing what his original counter-part Garma could not his rivalry with the char clone is something I love to see in a Gundam anime. The main character Mikazuki was a beast until the end and I haven't seen a Kill em all Tomino style ending in a while although I felt it was handled better than how Tomino himself handles it in some way but worse in others.
Enjoyment (8/10) Very Good
My enjoyment for the series was very good, I was indeed expecting more enjoyment out of the series though to be quite honest. It does succeed in story building and characterization and some of the best mech fights I've seen in a long time. For me though some of the build up and pay off was not worth it. For watching it on a weekly release I feel it was not enough pay off when it was "pay off" time. I'm sure binge watching this one probably would not notice as if you were watching the episodes in bulk you most likely wouldn't feel this way.
Overall (8/10) Very Good
More Specifically (8.60/10) Very Good+
I will be honest Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season is a very good installment to the Gundam Universes but I'm not going to lie I was expecting more from this series. I do not feel satisfied and it's current rating on this site is still higher than Gundam 00 which I feel is a far superior alternate Gundam Universe anime to this one. Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans will be missed sure but not too much. If anything I would love to get a spin off prequel movie or something showcase the Calamity War or something to do with the Mobile Armors since they were not used alot in this series. Anyway Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2nd Season is very good but even with the many many good things I can say about it I do feel Season 1 was better from a story standpoint, Season 2 sure does a lot of things better but it has the burden of the conclusion of the overall series to live up to and I feel disappointed by how it ended which did not help in the enjoyment, character or story categories.
