It sinks its hooks in before you've decided whether you care about card games. Everyone writes off a TCG tie-in on sight, and this one spends twelve episodes quietly proving you wrong: Shin Kyoto is a city where every argument, grudge and desire gets settled at a table, and the King at the top of it can rewrite whatever you want most. Teruto Kurabe should be an insufferable shonen archetype and instead he's a goofball with weird little mannerisms you start imitating, dragged forward by Sakura Banka, who clearly knows more about him than she's saying. The opening is the flex, the kind of sequence you stop skipping around episode three and then just let run. Redemption and choosing your own road are heavy themes for a show built to sell packs, and it earns them anyway. Nobody watched this. Their loss.

In Shin Kyoto, the card game Build-Divide settles everything, from personal disputes to social standing, and the King rules the city from the top. Rumor says anyone who beats the King will have their deepest wish granted. Teruto Kurabe wakes up in the city remembering only his name and holding a deck for a game he no longer knows how to play. The mysterious Sakura Banka helps him relearn Build-Divide and recall his purpose: he must reach the King. The two join Rebuild, a tournament where the player who gathers twenty-one tokens from rivals earns the right to challenge the throne. As Teruto keeps playing, returning memories begin to cast doubt on what Shin Kyoto really is. The result is a twelve-episode action and sci-fi series built around card battles.