Great Pretender

Submission 23,123

About

Great Pretender is a crime-comedy anime series developed by Wit Studio. The series focuses on Makoto Edamura, a small-time Japanese swindler, who gets involved with international con artists who work to cheat rich criminals and villains out of large sums of money. The series aired on Fuji TV and Netflix and has garnered very positive reviews.

History

In July of 2019, Wit Studio (the studio behind Attack On Titan and Vinland Saga, among others) announced a 23-episode original anime series titled Great Pretender, directed by Hiro Kaburagi and written by Ryōta Kosawa, to be released in 2020.^[1] The first trailer debuted May 8th, 2020 (shown below, left). An English dub trailer released in July (shown below, right).

The series is divided into four "cases" which span the 23 episodes. The first fourteen episodes comprise the series' first three cases and were released on July 8th, 2020 in Japan and August 20th on Netflix.^[2] The fourth case, spanning nine episodes, is set to release September 15th in Japan.

Reception

The show was very well received upon release thanks to its well-written characters, art design, and entertaining caper plots. Polygon^[3] wrote, "there are few shows that, regardless of a person’s predilections, I would suggest without a second thought. Great Pretender is now on that list." Thrillist^[4] compared it to Ocean's 11 and wrote, "Great Pretender is Wit Studio’s third original series, following their popular manga adaptations of Attack on Titan and Vinland Saga. Both shows set an intimidatingly high bar for new work from the studio, but Great Pretender easily clears it." Fans reacted positively to the series as well. The show has a rating of 8.3/10 on My Anime List^[5] and an 8/10 on IMDb.^[6]

Online Presence

The show has a growing presence online. The show's subreddit^[7] has 680 subscribers but was created well before the anime was announced, indicating it used to be a subreddit for another topic. The show has a dedicated Wiki^[8] page. Reviews and compilations for the show have appeared on YouTube, where most reviewers have given the show positive marks (shown below).