Great Pretender

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 23

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 9, 2020 to Dec 17, 2020

Premiered: Summer 2020

Broadcast: Thursdays at 00:55 (JST)

Producers: Production I.G, Fuji TV, BS Fuji, TOHO animation, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: Wit Studio

Source: Original

Genres: Action, Adventure, Mystery

Themes: Adult Cast, Organized Crime

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 8.21¹ (scored by 320,186 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #355²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #310

Members: 661,546

Favorites: 9,953

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@GrePre_anime

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Netflix

8.21

Ranked #355Popularity #310Members 661,546

Summer 2020TVWit Studio

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Episodes: /23

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Synopsis

A series of unfortunate events has led Makoto Edamura to adopt the life of crime—pickpocketing and scamming others for a living. However, after swindling a seemingly clueless tourist, Makoto discovers that he was the one tricked and, to make matters worse, that the police are now after him.

While making his escape, he runs into the tourist once again, who turns out to be a fellow con man named Laurent Thierry, and ends up following him to Los Angeles. In an attempt to defend his self-proclaimed title of "Japan's Greatest Swindler," Makoto challenges his rival to determine the better scammer. Accepting the competition, Laurent drops them off outside a huge mansion and claims that their target will be the biggest mafia boss on the West Coast.

As Makoto becomes increasingly involved with the cunning Laurent, his colorful associates, and the world of international high-stakes fraud, he soon realizes that he got more than what he bargained for as his self-declared skills are continually put to the test.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Great Pretender
Sequel:	Great Pretender: Razbliuto

Hirakawa, Daisuke
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Okada, Maiko

Producer

Saitou, Masaya

Producer

Itou, Hitoshi

Producer

Kaburagi, Hiro

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

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Opening Theme

"G.P." by Yutaka Yamada

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Ending Theme

"The Great Pretender" by Freddie Mercury

Reviews

Sep 20, 2020

SingleH

Recommended

What we have here is an expression of love for art. It’s a treat in every sense of the phrase, being sweet to the taste beyond expectation and a dietary rarity worth your appreciation and indulgence. As time goes on, television ad rates plummet, and production committees get stingier and stingier with their limited funding and man power, impossibly ambitious original anime become more and more financially harrowing to fund and logistically nightmarish to create. Yet somehow, here we have it, the beauty to behold: Great Pretender.

How much of what I’m about to tell you which you find completely obvious is entirely dependent on how ... blind, deaf, and senseless you happen to be, because if you ask even such a staunch critic as myself, this is the hardest masterwork to overlook and the single most broadly appealing triumph of entertainment I can name. From the drop dead gorgeous artwork and animation to the surprisingly thoughtful, endlessly amusing storyline, and from the delightful cast of lifelike characters overflowing with charisma to the fantastic music which itself is just as charming and built with just as much personality as any one of the characters, every facet of the show is delivered with expert craftsmanship awarding its audaciously dedicated production values. Given just how expressive, experimental, and downright weird the roots of anime are, most of the standouts which you can find therein are just as esoteric, and Great Pretender stands to be an exception the likes of little before. Inspired by Western crime dramedies which it swiftly outclassed in a single debut episode of exceptionally clever episodic structuring and excellent visual direction, Great Pretender follows amateur swindler, Makoto Edamura, as he gets swept away by the real deal, a gang of con men with whom he exploits others and entertains himself all whilst reaping the seeds of trickery they’ve all sown together…which is what I meant by “broadly appealing.” Yes, I conveniently left out the show’s thought provoking themes, all its discussions and ideals on social injustice justifying an individual’s turn to crime, but my basic summary of the plot is no lie, and it is such a cliche setup as to be almost embarrassing, so the fact I can even get close to calling it the masterpiece which I nearly have already speaks to the brilliance of all involved in its peerless creation. Great Pretender is solid proof a simple concept can write its way to a classic. It’s exploding with life, love, and lavishness in every way it can, and anyone unable to appreciate the monumental effort and unrivaled talent necessary to deliver on such a beauty or empathize with the unflinchingly human psychological core behind all its scheming and hilarity is simply beyond my comprehension, or somehow just contrarian enough to deny it all.

If I had to oversimplify it, what makes Great Pretender so good in a single phrase is the tact with which each episode is handled and the way in which they are uniquely cared for by whichever member of the directorial staff headed its careful creation. Despite being an arc structured show which does not hesitate to grab you with low-stakes, hardly annoying cliffhangers, the true method to the narrative’s madness is every single episode feeling like an open and shut case nailing the finish and leaving you as gratified as you are dying for more, whether you be left hanging on the cathartic conclusion to a resonant character development, the satisfying resolution to an episodic or overarching plot point, or simply on the butt of an actual joke, landing yet another delightful punch line driving home the show’s damn funny comedic identity just a little more. Unlike most anime and, quite frankly, most entertainment in general, Great Pretender is self-aware regarding all its metatextual eccentricities and in-universe contrivances, so no matter how hysterically outrageous nor matter how artistically bold the story goes about presenting itself, it will always be tongue in cheek enough to come across as jest as opposed to being an irksome logical conundrum, and while not every episode is as perfectly balanced as the last, the show as a whole certainly is. Most anime which aren’t made for TV find themselves with the privilege to be as uncensored as they’d like, and by extension, they often end up leaning too hard on their freedom to finally incorporate vulgarity and nudity to their heart’s content, but Great Pretender stands as a complete and total exception. Accompanying its boisterous comedy and sensational personality is an incessant sense of realism offered by—yes, those brands of obscenity—but also by its deftly paced character time and nuanced characterization sewn throughout the hijinks. Comparable only to the best of Shinichiro Watanabe’s works from Cowboy Bebop to Space☆Dandy, Great Pretender has mastered the art of endearing and repulsing the audience with its duplicitous adult cast, the push and pull which invests viewers in the among the most human yet still the most entertaining on-screen individuals one can find in the most natural way one can find them.

What makes building a character such a delicate science is you want to make them worthy of the screen by having their actions be somewhat absurd enough to be entertaining, but you also want to keep their passions down-to-earth enough to be emotionally engaging as relatable human beings, and this is where Shinichiro Watanabe truly excels. No one just throws on episode one of Samurai Champloo immediately invested in characters as ostensibly ridiculous as Mugen, Jin, or even the comparatively normal Fū, but given how well-written and smartly characterized these misfits are over the course of the show—the show which itself makes a point to show them at their lowest, most vulnerable points in life and at their happiest, most unapologetically free spirited—even the most jaded among viewers will finish the journey completely immersed in their stories, assuming, of course, they weren’t cynical enough to drop the show before then. Great Pretender is not only a master of the exact same craft, but one which has just as handily mastered the accompanying craft of outstanding voice acting. Complementing the prepossessingly sharp character designs of industry legend, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, every character is deftly brought to life by a cast of talented actors and actresses who’s voices embody their respective characters to a tee. As Makoto and his compatriots march along the vibrant parade which the animation staff has made their lives, skeletons start falling out of closets just as you’d expect them to from the secret histories of real people, and the characters subtly progress in intimacy as they overcome problems of life and love alike. Be it Laurent, the mastermind fueling every fire under everyone’s asses; Abby, the blunt, stoic braun serving as the honest counterbalance to Laurent’s conniving brains; or Cynthia, the absolutely badass, electric heroine who you’ll be wanting as a best friend for life or desiring as a wife by the end of the show depending on your sexual preferences; every single one of the colorful personalities on screen has just as much to learn and love behind their beautiful faces as does the cover of the show itself. And speaking of having a colorful personality, Great Pretender is one hell of a feast for the eyes!

Great Pretender, visually, is straight fucking unbelievable. While you may get this impression immediately, credit to Takeda Yūsuke’s ever legendary background art, all facets of this anime prove themselves to be crafted to the perfection of a Production IG classic back from the days of the Kamiyama Team who shared the same art director. Be it the explosive yet expertly balanced coloration and its astoundingly consistent shading, the flawless character artwork and the intricately detailed linework required by those razor sharp designs, or the flowingly lavish animation elegantly weaving it all together, every frame of Great Pretender is laudable to some degree even at its very lowest points and worthy of a standing ovation at its mountainous heights. Everything is overflowing with personality and branded with an unforgettable artistic identity such that I can promise with complete confidence you’ve never seen anything quite like it at such a high production value, and I promise just as easily you’ll never see anything like it again outside the purview of Production IG. This is the first project handled by WIT Studio with the exception of their debut series with Mitsuhisa Ishikawa’s full involvement, and his intimacy with this endeavor is no secret given the amount of IG names inscribed on this gem. With Takeda Yūsuke having already been mentioned, Kyouji Asano, the now legendary graduate of Team Oshii and Animation Director for Psycho-Pass and the first two seasons of Attack on Titan, has made his return along with too many animators to count, and Ishikawa also seems to’ve organized the recruitment of the best of the best not already under the illustrious IG umbrella. From the criminally obscure genius color designer behind works such as Space☆Dandy and Redline, Yūko Kobari, to the industry veteran sound director who’s so prolific and who’s been around for so long that he worked with Chiaki Konaka in bringing to life the brilliant soundscapes of Serial Experiments Lain and The Big O, Shouji Hata, Great Pretender is stacked with more talent than you could ever imagine, and somehow, every little bit of it shows. Great Pretender is the first time WIT Studio has fully lived up to both the technical perfection and unflinching consistency of their founders at Production IG, and it never ceased to take my breath away.

The introductory paragraph of this review is worded in such a way to mirror the first anime review I ever read, which I’d directly quote if not for having unfortunately forgotten the address of whatever blog I saw it on. I only remember the impression its wordage left on me. Sentimental, I know. It was a review for an anime equally ambitious and equally outstanding as Great Pretender which shocked as many critics as fans it elated. It was a work also made at the dawn of a new decade, relatively speaking, and much like this decade, it was a time in which anime as a whole was on a downturn. Studio Madhouse had just thrown out Masao Maruyama in the face of their ambition fueled bankruptcy, and now, a decade later, their only remaining holdout of talent is Director Natsume, who’s work is the only excuse optimists have left to not call the studio dead. Gainax had been exposed for their toxic business environment which drove away Hideaki Anno only to then lose its remaining creative leads, who now, nine years later, are thriving in their own limelight at studio Trigger whilst proudly carrying the creative torch of the Gainax of old before it all went sour. More positively speaking, Kyoto Animation was redefining the word “polished” and winning award after award for their work on genres most powerhouse studios would scoff at, yet now, nine years later, a fifth of their staff was horrifically massacred in an inhuman arson which has gone down in history as the second most deadly mass killing on Japanese soil since the end of the Second World War. So much has changed since that review was posted, so much, except the studio which pioneered the anime it was reviewing. That’s right, the studio was Production IG, and the anime was Psycho-Pass. The reviewer offered his thanks to the pantheon of artistic prowess and creative genius which had, in such an incredible fashion and with such an epic production, restored their hope in an industry they saw as stagnating, and now it’s my turn to do the same. The son has grown into the shoes of the father, as WIT Studio has finally, unequivocally matched their founders at Production IG, and with their achievement, my own hope in the anime industry has been restored just as those of the cynics before me.

Thank you for reading.

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Sep 23, 2020

Cipher3030

Mixed Feelings

Man, in all of my years watching anime, I've never watched such a good show that left me with such a bad taste in my mouth. Before I get into the meat and potatoes of my review, let me first say that I will try to avoid spoilers for those of you who aren't watching the sub online off of Netflix, since the final arc isn't available on US Netflix yet. Furthermore, a lot of my harsher scores in the story, character, and enjoyment areas are heavily influenced by the final arc, and especially the ending, so if you don't want to be jaded before ... the final arc officially releases, just stop reading here.

Story: 4
The story follows the exploits of Makoto "Edamame" Edamura, a two-bit scam artist who took advantage of old people in Japan until he meets Laurent, the first person to con him. After joining up with Laurent, an enigmatic and charismatic confidence man, Edamura gets roped into several schemes all targeting wealthy criminals who have used their influence to avoid justice. The series takes a mostly light-heated and fun approach to each of these cons, although there are moments of genuine emotion sprinkled throughout that help make the cast a lot more likeable and relatable. Furthermore, there are enough twists with each of the cons to keep them exciting, though some of them do require a good deal of suspension of disbelief. This fun story manages to stay consistent for 14 out of the 23 episodes before taking a sharp turn in the final arc. In order to avoid spoilers, I'm not going to talk much about this final arc, but basically the plot becomes silly at best despite the grim subject matter -- international child sex trafficking -- and the resolution feels like a slap in the face given how the story had played out up until that point. One of the interesting ideas of the show is that Makoto is one of, if not the only good person in Laurent's crew, and he essentially acts as the heart of the group comprised of manipulative narcissists. Because of his earnesty, Makoto ends up being taken advantage of constantly in Laurent's schemes, often finding himself completely in the dark about what's going on until the final minutes. The final arc deconstructs this aspect of Makoto in a really interesting way as well, essentially exploring the hypocrisy of Laurent's group and how their actions might actually push Makoto far enough to turn on them. However, in a massive cop out that I will not reveal, this whole character arc gets completely uprooted, leading to an unsatisfying conclusion that completely ignores the previous 3 arcs and just feels hollow. On one hand, I understand why the show did this, given that one of its core themes, especially in the final arc, is forgiveness. In every previous arc, one or more of the characters learned either to forgive themselves or one of the people they were scamming, so it makes sense that this theme continues in the final arc. Hell, you could even try and call the ending a subversion of expectations given how it really does subvert the viewers expectations; however, subversion for subversion's sake isn't inherently good, the payoff has to be satisfying, and it just isn't here. Furthermore, the way that this theme is explored in the final arc with Makoto just isn't satisfactory and honestly felt very contrived. There's honestly no reason for Makoto to forgive these people, especially considering what they put him through, and yet he does anyway. Maybe this speaks to my own poor character more than poor writing on the part of the show, but still, there are still examples of undue forgiveness past this moment in the finale that are even more contrived and a lot harder to rationalize for me. Finally, there's the post credit scene at the end of the final episode, which I don't even want to think about and I honestly can't make sense of. It seems like sequel bait, but it completely spits in the face of everything the final arc was about, making the last nine episodes feel like more of a waste of time. All this being said, the actual resolutions for each character outside of all of this are really sweet and pretty satisfying, though what comes before it is legitimately awful.

tl;dr: a great story that manages to drop the ball spectacularly in the final few episodes. If you're going to have a tonal shift in the final arc, at least follow through. Also, the way they pulled off the final con was stupid at best and reminded me of a quote from Community which I will paraphrase: So, according to the Sting, in order to pull off this grift, we need a full crew, a bunch of briefcases, and a fake hospital for some reason.

Art: 9
Yeah, the art is mostly really great and expressive, but the CGI looks genuinely awful. Even though the CGI is stylized, it still looks super jarring and it's even worse when characters are modeled with CGI. Everyone keeps comparing this show to Lupin, but Lupin's recent anime and films blow GP out of the water completely.

Muisic: 8
A pretty above average soundtrack overall, though there are quite a few tracks that blend in with one another. The vocal tracks are all pretty excellent, though.

Characters: 6
Again, for the first half of the show, the characters are all really great. Edamura is a likable lead, Laurent is incredibly funny and commands the screen when he's on, Abbie is one of the most charming characters of the year, and Cynthia just oozes with charisma. Plus, each of these leads has a really compelling backstory and character motivation, and each is given some genuinely superb character development throughout the series. The villains are all fairly one-note, but it works in the show's favor because it gets you to really despise them. The one stand out is Suzaku, the villain of the final arc, who is not only despicable, but sympathetic in a way because she develops a really compelling relationship with Makoto, almost becoming like a surrogate mother to him. Unfortunately, the main cast outside of Abbie all become genuinely insufferable during the final arc and that's when you realize that they've been self-serving, hypocritical narcissists for the entire series and have been insanely cruel to Makoto for almost no reason, seemingly enjoying his suffering and treating him as a joke throughout the entire series -- literally none of the characters actually call him by his proper name. As a minor spoiler, I think it's really telling that while Makoto is basically in the middle of a mental breakdown after a severely traumatic event, the rest of the cast is at a hot spring having the time of their lives -- it really shows how awful the rest of the cast are, which makes the resolution even more frustrating when none of them actually get what's coming to them in spite of Makoto's really passionate and eloquent rant about why he hates them all. Again, like the story, the characters are great until you realize that everyone but Makoto is a legitimate piece of shit who never gets theirs.

Enjoyment: 7
I think the one takeaway from my review is that it's a really enjoyable show and if you just ignore the final arc, the show's probably like a 9/10. Unfortunately though, you can't just pretend that almost half of the show doesn't exist. Maybe I'm an outlier in terms of how I wanted the ending to play out, but from what I've seen online, I'm not the only person upset with the ending in general. A bad ending can really mar what could have been a great show -- just look at GoT -- and Great Pretender has joined the ranks of other really promising shows that just couldn't follow through in the final stretch. It's the first show in a long time that has genuinely made me feel conflicted after watching it, not sure if it was worth my time or not. I enjoyed it, but I was only able to tolerate the show's absurdity up to a point.

Overall: 6
I was really rooting for this show, and it was genuinely the most fun I've had with anime in a really long time. However, I just can't look past its ending and final arc in general. The writers seemed to through everything fun and compelling about the show out the window in the final arc in favor of a forced tonal shift that they didn't even have the guts to follow through with. I know my other scores average out to about a 7, but I felt that it deserved to be docked another point for the post credits scene, which just felt like a slap in the face after an already flawed and frustrating arc.

Overall tl;dr:
A good show that had a lot of potential, but completely squandered it in the final 9 episodes.

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Oct 11, 2020

LilToadie

Not Recommended

I have never felt so compelled to write a review about an anime until I watched the end of Great Pretender.

To sum it up, I loved this show until the last arc. I genuinely thought that it would go down as one of my favorites of all time. The art is fantastic--every scene looks like it could be a convincing computer wallpaper, the animation is super fluid, the music and sound design is exceptional. And, until that last arc, the character development and plot seemed just as good. I felt attached to the main cast, invested in their backstories and growth as they worked ...

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