New Dawn Raisers

Gr 5–8—Van Yamano's father invented the LBX (Little Battlers eXperience) toy robots and then disappeared shortly afterward. Van channels his trauma over the loss of his father into his obsession with the LBXs. Then a mysterious woman risks her life to give Van a very special LBX, through which he learns that his father might not be dead after all. There is an ongoing plot thread about Van's father, but these books primarily consist of fight scenes between different characters' robots. There's lots of action, explosions, weaponry, and expositional yelling about what the robots are doing during their fight. There are often so many things going on at the same time that readers may have difficulty following along. The story reads and feels like a toy commercial, which makes sense because LBX started as a video game (PlayStation and Nintendo) and features an anime series and action figures.