ModelArt magazine is a Japanese publication that covers all genres of plastic models. Besides its regular journal articles, it also has special books covering a single subject, in this case IJN Battleships between 1913 and 1945.

Be aware that the full book is in Japanese. There are some very limited English captions, however they are very useful as they list the type of weapon, ship name, timeframe, etc.

This book is divided in 3 main sections.

The first section deals with the weapons of the different battleships, from the heavy cannons in twin and triple turrets, to smaller guns and finally anti-aircraft weapons. Each weapon includes some line drawing(s), period pictures and also an assembled plastic replica, typically in 1/700 scale.

The second section includes photographic, step-by-step builds of the Nagato (in the 1927 and 1944 configurations), the Yamato, the Hyuga, the carrier ship Ise, the Kongo and the Fuso, all of them in 1/700 scale.

Finally the third section has line drawings for all the ships in each class (Kongo, Fuso, Ise, Nagato and Yamato). The line drawings show the configurations at different times for each ship in each class, making it an excellent reference.

Despite being written in Japanese, this book is an excellent reference guide for the modeler and the photographic, step-by-step build articles are easy to follow and self-descriptive.

Highly recommended.

I would like to thank ModelArt and IPMS/USA for the review sample.