'The Great Pretender': Heist series could be an instant classic on the lines of 'The Sting' and 'Ocean's 11'
Spoilers for 'The Great Pretender' Part 1
Like the many con jobs featured on the series, there's a lot more to 'The Great Pretender' than meets the eye. Cloaked in the bright colors of a simpler, more light-hearted anime, there's a lot of depth to the series, directed by Hiro Kaburagi and written by Ryota Kosawa. It draws you in with a simple premise: anime con job series - then keeps you hooked with impressively elaborate cons, great humor and nuanced, layered characters whose stories anchor the show.
Makoto "Edamame" Edamura (Chiaki Kobayashi/Alan Lee) is a low-level con man living from one trick to the next. His life changes when he's drawn into a world of much deeper heists by the worldly Laurent Thierry (Junichi Suwabe/Aaron Phillips) and his second-in-command, Abigail Jones (Natsumi Fujiwara/Kausar Mohammed). Makoto is playing with the big boys now, with higher risks - and much, much higher rewards.
The series is an instant classic that deserves as much recognition as films like 'The Sting', 'Ocean's 11' and other shows like 'Leverage'. It's got everything a good con story needs - Russian nesting dolls of cons all nestled into each other, twists around every corner, a jazzy soundtrack and above all, a cast of characters who keep you invested enough in the story to keep you being fooled again and again. Combined with the series' excellent use of vivid, saturated colors all providing a dazzling visual experience, 'The Great Pretender' is one of the best new anime series to come out in what has already been a great year for animation.
'The Great Pretender' has a great team in place. Thierry is the brains - callous, heartless and charming enough to make everyone around him WANT to be fooled, believing they're in control. Abigail is the distant, impulsive, violent muscle, while Cynthia Moore (Mie Sonozaki/Laura Post) is the team's face - the alluring beauty that dazzles and distracts. Makoto rounds the team out, providing the heart. He cares in a way that the team doesn't, providing the group with an emotional and moral core it's seriously lacking.
Part 1 of the series is divided into three separate stories or "cases". Each of the cases features absolutely irredeemable villains as marks - the exact kind you love to hate, so you can watch them be swindled of their fortunes guilt-free. Interestingly enough, each case also features a Dupe in Distress - someone close to the mark who is being taken complete advantage of to aid the villain in their criminal enterprises. The Dupe always turns out to be sympathetic, and someone the cons always go out of their way for to help out.
The first, 'Los Angeles Connection', is a light-hearted proof-of-concept romp that has the most twists-per-minute pace of the series so far. As Makoto is thrown into the deep end of con jobs by Thierry, he learns to swim surprisingly quick as the "Thierry Gang" attempts to sell a fake drug to Hollywood Mafia man and director of the "Die Hot" series, Eddie Cassano. It's twist after twist after twist in this madcap introduction to the main players in 'The Great Pretender' - by the third twist, it's impossible to trust anyone, and even then the next twist manages to be completely surprising. However, even the more predictable beats borrowed straight from every classic con story there is still manage to be entertaining enough to be worth watching.
By the end of 'Los Angeles Connection', you have a sense of exactly who the players are, which makes Case 2 - 'Singapore Sky' - feel like a movie sequel, especially as it's set a few years after Case 1. Makoto's attempts to go straight after a voluntary stint in prison is a plan that quickly goes awry, as Thierry cons Makoto into helping him with an all-new con - this one conning the Ibrahim siblings and their air race-fixing operations. It's in this case that the series starts to show its heart - it moves from constant twists to deeply impactful stories surrounding its characters, most notably revealing the backstory of Abigail.
The slow reveal of character backstories makes it clear that this show is in for the long haul - while episodes 15-26 have been confirmed in part 2, the pace at which the show is comfortable making the protagonist reveals suggests the show plans to be sticking around for much longer than that. The third case, 'Snow of London,' goes romantic as the team swindles a snobby art dealer while revealing some of Cynthia's past - while also showing how far she's grown from the hopeful romantic that she used to be. While the con is relatively straight forward, the story is the series' most emotional so far, and it's beautifully done.
'The Great Pretender' is a fantastically done series, taking the classic con story template and refitting it for a high-energy, brightly colored new style. The two genres blend together seamlessly, and like every one of the Thierry Gang's marks, 'The Great Pretender' will keep you coming back for more.
All episodes of 'The Great Pretender' Part 1 are now available to stream on Netflix.