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Concept: An anime to sell a trading card game that focuses as much on mystery as on the power of friendship.

Plot: Aron is the owner of a failing family café and despite endless hard work the wind never seems to turn. His grandmother calls him to her deathbed to tell him a well-kept secret – the location of the fable deck.

This legendary deck full of elite cards could propel anyone to the upper ranks in the highly coveted master level of the annual tournaments – or so it is told. This is not due to the cards themselves, which are high tier but far from unique. No, it’s the power of the fable deck to grant its owner the luck of the draw – and equal luck in all other things in life.

Aron, whoever, doesn’t even think about entering the tournament. He’s not even sure he believes in the card soul like the old folk do. He wants to get the fable deck just to sell it and continue his life in slightly less misery.

JR and Ren were the second and third place winners of last year’s tournament. And the year before. And the year before that. The duo is determined to get first place and they will stop at nothing. When they overhear Aron’s conversation with his best friend at the café, they don’t realize Aron would have been willing to sell the deck and instead try to steal it.

It’s the aforementioned best friend, Minhyun, who catches the thieves.

Aron is strong-armed by the duo with colorful hair into dueling them for the right to ownership of the fable deck. To no one’s surprise, things go badly for Aron. But then he feels, for the first time, what can only be the card soul.

With newfound confidence and a new purpose in life, he handily beats his opponents and enters the tournament on the same day.

JR and Ren are not the only enemies Aron makes. His first serious match is against Baekho, who seems to realize who he’s going up against. Not ashamed to loose against the fable deck owner, Baekho is nonetheless shocked to find out that Aron is a complete newcomer.

Struck by greed, and perhaps a respect for the card soul, Baekho becomes a strange mix of rival and bodyguard. One the one hand, he doesn’t think Aron deserves to own the fable deck over him, but he trusts the card soul to have picked correctly and protects the “chosen one” wherever he can.

Is Baekho just waiting for his chance to strike or does he know more than he lets on? Do JR and Ren work only for themselves or is there a shadow looming, who makes sure the two have a vested interest in not turning on each other?

Reception: With all the force of a major merchandise behind it, the anime runs for many, many seasons. The core cast develops an uneasy truce as external enemies show up, who threaten not just the fable deck wielder but perhaps even the card soul itself.

The audience is treated to detailed explanation of the rules governing each card and, as normal for the genre, most episodes’ es happen to coincide with the resolution of a tournament battle.

Of course the fandom consists to a large part of players, but well-paced arcs and compelling, not totally absurd storylines help draw in a fan base greater than the core demographic.

[This is the picture that stared my journey to write these dumb Nu’est as anime things, as pointless as they are. You can’t tell me JRen don’t look like Jessie and James in this one.]