Danball Senki is an PSP RPG developed by Level-5. Players assume the role of Ban, a young boy who is a fan of LBX, or Little Battler eXperience, a line of toys which are equal parts model kit and fully functioning robot. They are most commonly used to battle each other in miniature diorama arenas. One day, he is approached out of the blue by a mysterious female scientist who hands him an attache case containing a prototype LBX called "AX-00", which the scientist claims is "the key to saving the world". Unbeknownst to Ban, however, is the fact that the model is wanted by a mysterious group, and he soon finds himself being hunted by the group's masked agents.
An
Updated Re Release titled
Danball Senki Boost was available in 2011.
The
anime adaptation already finished its run and a sequel, titled
Danball Senki W, began in January 2012.
This series contains examples of:
- A Boy And His LBX
- Ace Custom: The norm for good players. Also LBX producers hire test players, for whom special models are produced.
- Action Girl: Ami.
- Ambiguously Brown: Ryu.
- Anime Accent Absence: Foreigners speak perfect Japanese in W.
- Anime Hair: In fine Level 5 tradition.
- Anime of the Game
- Arc Words: "Sekai o sukuu no kagi"/"The key to saving the world".
- Awesomeness by Analysis: An important quality of good LBX players. Ami, Ban, and Jin are prominent examples.
- Bare Your Midriff: Saki.
- Beyond the Impossible: What the LBX can do just gets crazier as the series progresses, repeatedly breaking in-series technological limits.
- Calling Your Attacks: By both the players and the remote controls.
- Conspicuous CG: The LBX battles in the anime are rendered with 3D models, while the characters are in 2D.
- Cleavage Window: The female member of the Terrible Trio.
- Coat, Hat, Mask: The agents.
- Crazy-Prepared: The assassination plot in W. After the main signal router LBX is destroyed by Ban and Hiro, it turns out there is yet another back up one. Also the assassin avoids being found by putting dummy signal transmitters all over the stadium where he's working.
- Defeat Means Friendship: How Ban gains some of his most powerful allies, most noticeably Kaidou Jin
- Disappeared Dad: Ban's father was supposedly killed in an airplane crash, but is actually alive and working for the Innovators, the group that wants Ban's AX-00.
- Enemy Mine: During the final of Artemis, Jin asked for Ban's help to save Haibara Yuuya
- Evil Knockoff: Jin's LBX The Emperor to Ban's LBX Achilles.
- Expy: Don't let anyone tell you that Ban doesn't remind them of Endou.
- Expressive Mask: The Terrible Trio seem to have them.
- Exty Years From Now: The anime takes place in 2050.
- Fake Crossover: Ban teams up with Endou to promote both their shows.
- If you look closely you can see a Professor Layton poster on one of the buildings in one of the commercials.
- Feelies: The PSP game actually comes with an actual LBX model, made by Bandai.
- Level-5 are going all out, producing not only a model line, but an anime and a manga to go along with the game.
- Finishing Move: All LBX have this.
- First Name Basis: For the kids and even some of the adults.
- Friendly Sniper: Most prominently Kazu's LBX.
- Full Name Basis: Opponents like to call each other with full names.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: The Hacker Corp, Yagami and his subordinates, and later Jin showed up to help with the siege at Tiny Orbit
- Heel Face Turn: Most opponents become allies later. Jin and Yagami are the most prominent ones since they originally work for the Innovators.
- Hollywood Hacking
- Improbable Aiming Skills: An LBX, which is essentially a six inch tall toy robot, can be tuned to perform an assassination when the target is several blocks away through a glass building.
- Lightning Bruiser: Ban and Jin use this type of LBX. Especially when they get Odin and Zenon
- Limited Wardrobe: A character wears the same outfit throughout the series.
- MacGuffin: Ban's AX-00. Its core skeleton contains a mysterious item called the "Platinum Capsule", inside which is contained data on how to create a device called the "Eternal Cycler" that could theoretically produce infinite energy. Naturally, the Innovators getting their hands on it would be a Very Bad Thing.
- Man Behind the Man: Lex assassinates Kaidou Yoshimitsu and replaces him with an android
- Mid-Season Upgrade: All main characters get one, or two in Kazu's case.
- Mood Whiplash: Two instances. After Ban's victory in the Artemis final, and after the successful defense against the siege of Tiny Orbit
- My Little Panzer: LBX definitely won't be approved as children's toys in the real world. Lampshaded in the series when it's stated that there have been safety concerns in the past until the creation of fortified cardboard.
- Name's the Same: The enemy organization is called the Innovators.
- Never Trust An Opening: The game's opening movie shows what seems to be a relatively light-hearted, standard Real Robot anime... until the very end, where you see that the robots that you've assumed are several feet tall are actually around six inches tall.
- Ninja Maid: The theme of the LBX used by Akihabara's Hacker Corps.
- Otaku: Ban and co. first encounter one of them in Artemis, and then a whole group in Akihabara Tournament.
- The Power of Friendship
- Rapid-Fire Typing: On both computer keyboards and the cellphone-like remote controls.
- Say My Name: Players call their LBX's names when deploying them.
- Serious Business: The LBX toys, apparently. The business is SO serious that at one point Ban and his friends are asked by the brother of the CEO of a major LBX manufacturer to help him stop an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister of Japan, which is ALSO being carried out by an LBX.
- Stalker with a Crush: Mika is often seen following Gouda and/or taking pictures of him.
- Super Mode: V-mode for Achilles, Extreme Mode for Odin, and Alternative Mode for Zenon.
- Talk to the Fist: How Jin wins some of his battles in Akihabara Kingdom.
- Theme Naming: Most of the prominent LBXs are named after figures in mythology, mostly Greek.
- Tournament Arc: Three of them in first seasons. Ban has to win them to access various information.
- Wave Motion Gun: Often functions as Finishing Move.
- Wise Beyond Their Years
- Wooden Katanas Are Even Better: Riko and Hanzou.
- X Meets Y: Virtual On meets Pokémon
- Younger than They Look: Gouda and Sendou are jr. high schoolers.
- Your Princess is in Another Castle: When Ban together with Ami and Kazu first tries to rescue Professor Yamano, the bad guys simply move the target to a new location.
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