Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Let’s talk about heist movies. The idea of seeing a group of criminals coming together, each with their own specialty and skill to pull off an elaborate heist is a cool concept. Different personalities bouncing off each other, the planning that goes into the heist, the challenges they come across and how they pull it off is fun and interesting to see. For some people, these movies are great, but for others these movies are predictable and filled with a lot of tropes. Personally, I’m in the neutral zone when it comes to this genre. I enjoyed watching the Ocean’s 11 movies, playing Payday 2 and Persona 5, and even Lupin the 3rd has heist tropes. But I’m not going to pretend these are all masterpieces that are revolutionizing media. Anime has surprising kept out of the heist genre. There’s been a few animes that focus on heist but they’ve been far and in-between each other that never really got mainstream attention. For the longest time Lupin seems to be the only one going strong, but in recent years Netflix to bring attention to this genre with Great Pretender. Released in 2020, this was an original anime created by Wit Studio (Ranking of Kings) who at the time were trying to move away from Attack on Titan and show that they could make other anime. It was directed by Hiro Kaburagi and written by Ryōta Kosawa and was marketed as a modern-day heist anime. The best way I can describe this anime is Lupin the 3rd meets Ocean’s 11. Did this anime manage to steal the affection of fans? Let’s take a look at this anime. This is Great Pretender.
Opening and Ending Theme
So the opening is “G.P” by Yutaka Yamada. A great mix of jazz that definitely gives off Cowboy Bebop vibes. Visually, it’s an amazing opening. The colors they use are fantastic. Hands down the best thing in this opening is the sax player. They are killing it and I want to shake their hand. The band geek in me just wants to do a jam session with them and the people who made this opening.
The ending is “Great Pretender” by Freddie Mercury. Well I didn’t have this on my bingo card for the anime but I’m all for it. While I’m not really all that into Queen, I do respect their songs, the band, and their impact on the music industry and this song is good as well. I especially like the fact that they added in Mercury’s cats as well. A good nod to a legend.
Los Angeles Connection
The anime starts with our main character Makoto aka Edamame voiced by Chiaki Kobayashi (Gabimaru from Hell’s Paradise), a young con man who just got done conning an old lady with his partner Kudo. After this, they try to steal a wallet off of this French foreigner only for Makoto get his wallet stolen instead (the tables have turned). Makoto’s apartment soon gets raided by some men in black (quick, hide your aliens), but he escapes only to wind up in the same taxi as the Frenchman. The Frenchman is Laurent a con man just like Makoto voiced by Junichi Suwabe (Itami from Gate) who came to Japan to buy some wares and sell them to a client in LA. Not wanting to be defeated by Laurent, Makoto goes to LA with Laurent where the two make a bet to see who can sell the wares to the client higher. Whoever loses has to be the assistant of the winner. They go to sell the wares to Cassano a Hollywood director who’s also part of the mob (better than scientology). We see that the wares he’s selling is a drug and passes Makoto off as the doctor who created the drug. When Makoto sees a gold watch on Laurent’s wrist, he realizes that he’s been caught in Laurent’s scam since the start of the episode. He goes into a panic state and runs away only to get found by Laurent and knocked by his partner the lovely Abby voiced by Natsumi Fujiwara (Damian from SpyxFamily). The episode ends with him hanging upside down on the Hollywood sign.
In episode 2 we see how Makoto got into the con game. It all started when he got a job at Kudo’s company as a salesman for instant tea in order to pay the medical bills of his sick mom. He became a top seller not knowing that the company he was a part of was involved in fraudulent activities (what company isn’t involved in some sort of fraudulent activity?). He says he didn’t know the fraudulent, but nobody believed him since his dad who was a lawyer has a criminal background of his own. Makoto gets thrown in jail only to get released on parole where he’s under probation for 3 years. Once out of jail he tried to get a job only to get turned down because of his criminal background and his mom passed away. With no other options, Makoto decided if the world thinks he’s a con man he might as well become one. He teamed up with Kudo and soon became Japan’s greatest con man (I don’t see it). Returning back to the present, Laurent tells Makoto that the drug is really just candy and a rumor he started to scam Cassano. Not liking this scheme, Makoto decides to walk out only to turn around and decide to join on the scam. With his renewed sense of confidence, he makes an exclusive deal with Cassano which doubles the pay meaning he won his bet with Laurent thus making him his assistant.
Episode 3 starts with us seeing what happened when Makoto walked in episode 2. He went to a video store (yes, they still exist in this universe) and rented Cassano’s movies. When he tried to leave he got apprehended by Cassano’s men and bought to Cassano himself. From there the two bonded quite nicely as Makoto really did like Cassano’s movies (even if they are B-rated trash that rip off better B-rated movies). It was here that Makoto sweetened the deal with Cassano by offering him the formula to the fake drug which made Cassano agree to the deal of 10 million. Despite getting on Cassano’s good side, he wants to make sure Makoto is legit, so he had his lawyers go to the medical facility where he supposedly worked at. Luckily, Kudo acted as the director of the facility to fool Cassano’s lawyers. With Makoto and the others in the clear, they go to a secret spot to get their money. They get chased by Anderson a detective who’s been monitoring Cassano for quite sometime to bring him down. They lose him and we discover that Anderson is in Cassano’s pocket. He pretends to go after Cassano to make it look good and keep the police force off his tail (LA’s finest). They all finally reach an abandoned brewery that’s been secretly converted into a drug factory. Before Makoto and the others can hand over the formula, Cassano drops a bombshell saying he wants Makoto to make the drug right in front of them (live drug making. How riveting. Just when I thought there was nothing more to watch on Youtube). Makoto and the others make the excuse that he can’t make the drug in these unhealthy conditions, so Cassano says that he’ll remodel the place for Makoto’s convenience (looks like your grave just got dug deeper). Things aren’t going well on Anderson’s part either. His operation gets taken over by Paula Dickens an FBI agent who knows he’s secretly working for Cassano and is also after Makoto and the others as she knows they’re scammers. Back with Makoto, he gets put under the watchful eye of Cassano’s bodyguard/driver Salazar.
So not much really happens in episode 4. While at an amusement with Salazar and his son, Makoto gets approached by Paula voiced by Mie Sonozaki who wants him to be her little mole on the inside to take down Cassano and Laurent. In exchange she’ll let Makoto go on a plea bargain and return to Japan (not a bad deal). Makoto also learns that Salazar has been spying on him and knows he’s a fraud but doesn’t care (he gets paid to protect bodies not money. It’s called bodyguard for a reason). Makoto agrees to become Paula’s mole on the condition that she let Salazar walk but she says no. We also learn about Makoto’s dad who was arrested for being the leader of a human trafficking ring.
The end of the first arc comes in episode 5. It starts with Makoto making the fake drug when Paula’s team comes in to raid the place and wind up shooting Laurent and Abby (geez, looks like something out of a GTA game). Cassano tries to make an escape but gets captured by Makoto and Salazar. Cassano pays 100 million to get off scout free making everything that Makoto did pointless (okay, where’s the twist?). Makoto gets knocked out and wakes up on a southern island with Paula and we see Laurent and Abby are alive (there it is). Yep, it turns out Paula or Cynthia as she likes to call herself was a part of Laurent’s gang all along. Cynthia impersonated the real Paula to get all of Cassano’s money and she let’s Salazar go free with the video evidence of Cassano. Cassano gets arrested, Salazar gets to walk freely and live peacefully with his son, and our con men get all of Cassano’s money (epic win for everyone). Laurent invites Makoto to join him and the others, but he says he needs a little more time to get his shit together as this whole event has shown how he has a lot to learn. Laurent understands and says he’ll wait for him. Makoto returns to Japan, goes to a police station, and hands his share of the money to the police to give to all the people he’s conned.
Singapore Sky
The second arc begins in episode 6 with Makoto getting released from prison. In a rather shocking turn of events, Makoto actually decides to live an honest lifestyle once he’s out of prison (I’m guessing the last arc scared him straight). He gets a job working at an auto parts shop where the manager also specializes in handling propeller planes. The manager takes a real shine to Makoto and trains him to be a world class mechanic. He then offers Makoto the opportunity to join a racing team as their mechanic which he agrees to do not knowing that the team he’s helping is Laurent and his gang and the manager was actually a part of Laurent’s gang as well (just how many people are in this man’s inner circle?). The targets this time are the brothers Sam and Clark Ibrahim, heirs to the oil kingdom. Sam owns a racing team with Clark as the ace and will be taking part in the Singapore race where the group will rob them of their entire fortune of $200 million. Makoto wants nothing to do with this as he’s serious about living an honest lifestyle, but Laurent promises to just hire him as a mechanic while he and the others will do the dirty work (would you get in on the action you big baby. Show us why you’re Japan’s greatest con man). Makoto agrees to join him as he’s confident in his mechanical skills and gets taken up into the air with Abby to test out a plane where the engine stalls thanks to Laurent who fiddled with it in order to get Makoto to remember that he’s a con man and nothing else.
Not much really happens in episode 7. We find out that Sam usually fixes the races of these tournaments in favor of Clark and anyone who doesn’t want to play game usually winds up in an accident. Cynthia and Abby manage to grab the audience’s attention by being the first female manger/pilot team in the sport. This seems to earn them a bit of favor with Sam in the hopes of rigging the tournament to have Abby and Clark face off in the finals. At the first round of the preliminaries Sam double crosses them and tells a veteran pilot to beat Abby all while yelling sexist remarks at Cynthia and calling her breast saggy (wow, I’m amazed she didn’t kick his ass right then and there. I’m sure she could do it). Abby doesn’t seem to be faring well either as we she’s battling some mental trauma from her past. We see bits and pieces of it throughout the anime where she was a world class dancer in her country, but a war broke out and she was forced to join as a child soldier (where she saw some shit, https://youtu.be/oRT5rK4Q1nk?t=3). Through sheer willpower and cheering from Makoto (divine hearing on that girl), she manages to win the race and get crowd support which forces Sam to rig the races for a final that pits Abby against Clark (also, the flying scenes in this anime are fucking beautiful to look at. Scene here: https://youtu.be/swdBc5GgAk4?si=fryBS1av9b7JrGfa).
In episode 8, Laurent’s plan is to get Sam to bet on Abby in an underground casino and then have Abby throw the race thus getting all of Sam’s money. Cynthia is sent in to charm him, but he has no intention of falling for what he considers an old hag (again, how is he walking way with his teeth still intact after calling her that). With that plan gone down the drain it’s time for plan B, getting Makoto on Clark’s team as a mechanic and earning favor with Sam. Laurent calls in Luis a former pilot who lost against Clark and was the unfortunate soul who got into an “accident” one race. The accident left him paralyzed from the waist down and he was forced to retire from the sport. Laurent offers Luis to join them in their con, but he refuses to join unless they kill Sam (that’s a little extreme and understandable. Trust me dude, when they’re done with him, he’ll probably take his own life in the end). The group says no, and Luis says he’s out however he’ll allow them his wife Isabelle to aid them in their con. They do a good job at planting the seeds to get Sam and Clark interested in Makoto and managed to snare Sam into their trap by having Makoto bring him to their underground casino where he likes what he sees.
Not much to say about episode 9. Abby continues to race, win, and Sam makes a profit by betting on her in the underground casino. He does however get banned because he used a false name, so he had Makoto bet for him in a race that features a young cherry boy named Ciao (how do I know he’s a cherry boy? Well the fact that he became fluster around Cynthia in a heartbeat is all the proof I need). Cynthia distracts Ciao while Abby sabotages his engine which makes him lose the race and Sam is pissed (hey if you lost 7.5 million dollars I’m sure you’d be ready to shoot someone as well). With this turn of events they now have Sam right where they want him (mad, compulsive, and irrational. Just like a tweet from Trump). In another part of the episode we learn some more about Abby’s past such as the city she lived in was Baghdad back in 2003 when the city was bombed by U.S air forces and she suspects that one of the pilots who bombed her city which resulted in the deaths of her parents and made her life a living hell was Luis as he is a former military man. Abby manages to get Luis out to a secluded where she asks him if he was a pilot during the bombing and his life hangs in the answer.
The end of case 2 comes to an end in episode 10. We start off intense with Luis admitting that yes, he was a part of the air force that bombed Baghdad and he has no regrets for what he’s done. Abby tries to kill him, but Makoto is there to stop her and Luis actually wants her to kill him (can’t say I blame him. Flying was his life and because of the greed of someone else, it was taken away from him in the blink of an eye). In the days leading up to the final race between Abby and Clark, Sam manages to get back into the underground casino where he intends to bet on Clark in the final race. Makoto actually approaches Clark about Luis where we find out that Clark asked Luis for a straight up race meaning that in the end what happened to Luis was really (possibly) an accident that no one could have predicted, and Clark feels guilty about what happened to him every day (it’s a good mystery. Was Luis’s crash really an accident or did Sam really sabotage him? It’s left up for us to make our own theories and decide which story is true). While Laurent and Cynthia get ready for the finale, Makoto and Abby do their thing with Luis. On the day of the race, they have Luis fly instead of Abby where he actually does apologize to Abby for the bombings (don’t blame him, that was G.W’s fault). We get a cool race scene between Clark and Luis with some impressive animation where you can just tell the two are having the time of their lives (for Clark, he gets to race off against a man he both respects and admires. For Luis, he gets to do what he loves and feel alive again). In the end Clark wins fair and square, but that’s what Sam sees in the casino. Laurent figured that Makoto and Abby would pull a stunt like this (kids do the darndest things), so he came prepared. He made a recording which shows Abby winning the race and making Sam lose all his money. When Sam finds out he was tricked, Laurent and the others will be long gone. Makoto and Abby go to the casino where they piece together what happened and get cornered by an unhappy Sam who has a shotgun pointed at them. They manage to escape by jumping out the window and parachuting into the river where we see Abby smile for the first time (scene here: https://youtu.be/Ki-SnPlTo8g?si=3gMJMfXVyn3_KzPy, I will protect that smile).
And that’s the first half of the Great Pretender. Tune in next week when we review the second half. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.