Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. We’re going the Netflix arc by taking a look at the second half of Great Pretender. What heist will the group be pulling off next. Let’s review and see.
Snow of London
The third arc begins in France where Makoto thanks to the help of Laurent found himself a job as a sushi chef (where the chefs think he’s Korean. Wow, that’s like one of the biggest insults to a Japanese man). He finds himself living in a boarding house which will be closing down soon due to the family that runs the place being in debt. Makoto wanting to help them out (and not wanting to lose a place to live in a country where he can’t speak the language), decides to perform a con on this restaurant critic in order to get them the money they need to pay off their debts. He gets the help of Cynthia, Kudo, and of course Abby (yay~, everyone’s favorite ship returns). When the con begins, and Cynthia sees their target she pulls out saying that the man they’re trying to con is James Coleman, England’s leading auctioneer and the best appraiser in the world. He actually buys Makoto’s painting for 25,000 euros, so mission complete on Makoto’s part. However, he finds out later that the painting he sold just happens to be a painting done by the legendary Sergio Montoya (no, he’s not a real artist as far as I was able to find. Instead he’s based off of Gustavo Montoya, a Mexican artist best known for his drawings of children and street scenes) and was worth 20 million euros (well Makoto you dun fucked up. Next time you decide to con someone, you do your research on the target and the painting). Makoto not letting this go wants to get the painting back, but Laurent tells him to let it go. Cynthia on the other hand says they should go for it as she has a personal grudge against James.
In episode 12 we find out that James is secretly working with a woman named Farrah, a wealthy businesswoman who inherited her father’s company. If there’s a painting or work of art that James like he has Farrah bet on it and buy it, so that he can keep it for himself (he’s kind of an art hoarder). Because of this he’s build up quite the art collection on her dime and Farrah doesn’t know she’s being used by him (either he blackmailed her or he’s a beast in the sack). He plans to have Farrah buy Sergio’s painting as he’s a big fan of his work. On the day of the auction for the painting, Laurent buys for 30 million euros out betting Farrah (who was going to waste her money just to please her customer. Good God woman how thirsty are you?). With Laurent in possession of the painting and Abby working as James’s assistant, the plan now is to have Farrah buy the painting back from him only instead she’ll be getting a fake and Cynthia knows the person to help them out. Much like the last arc, we get the chance to see Cynthia’s past just like we did with Abby’s past. Back in the day Cynthia was training to become an actress and worked part-time at a café where she met Thomas an artist in a slump. Cynthia became the model for his paintings and the two had a romantic vibe going on (scene here: https://youtu.be/k1fzQ8ulL5I?si=gJmBmzRPqXJnE70c). James came across Thomas’s paintings one day where he wasn’t impressed with his original works but instead impressed with his forgery of other paintings.
Episode 13 starts with Makoto looking for Thomas in the hopes of getting him to forge Sergio’s painting. He has no luck in finding him but discovers he’s 2 million pounds in debt (gah~). We get another flashback where we see James offered a job to Thomas to forge paintings for him and in return James would make him the next big star in the art world. Thomas accepted James’s offer and got to work making forgeries much to the dismay of Cynthia. It didn’t take long for the two to have a fight and go their separate ways. Makoto manages to find Thomas and takes him to go see Cynthia where he refuses to forge the painting for her. Makoto goes to visit him where we see he still keeps the paintings of Cynthia he made in the past (well that’s not creepy at all). We get another look into Thomas’s past where we find out how he wound up in debt. One day when he was at an art museum he saw something that shook him to his very core. One of the artworks that he forged was hanging in the gallery (oh man, I can’t even imagine how painful that must have been for him. That’s like somebody stealing my blogs and posting them on another site). Thomas was sicken by what he’d done and ran away where he took out a loan and bought back all the paintings he forged so that they would never see the light of day again and gave up painting entirely. Makoto shows Thomas a drawing of a ring he gave to Cynthia promising to marry her. Cynthia has been keeping that drawing for years showing that she still has feelings for him and has been waiting for him. This re-ignites the fire in Thomas and he agrees to forge the painting (good on ya mate). At the end of the episode he manages to make a perfect forgery of Sergio’s painting and Makoto begs Cynthia to respond to Thomas’s feelings when this is all over.
The Snow of London arc ends in episode 14. It goes predictably well for the group this time. They trick James and Farrah to a fake auction run by Laurent where James buys the painting for 100 million euros. Abby gives Farrah a recording of James calling Farrah his ATM machine, and this breaks her heart (she was going to find out eventually). With Farrah nowhere to be found at the auction when it’s time to pay, James pays with all of his assets and gets dumped by Farrah leaving him with nothing, but a forged painting. Only it’s not a forged painting. Yep, Makoto switched the fake and real one at the last minute and gave the fake back to the boarding house he was living at because he respected and admired the work of Thomas. He likes his version more than the real one and the owner along with his daughter agrees. After this, Cynthia and Thomas go to get a cup of coffee where they talk and go their separate ways (scene here: https://youtu.be/IZfW3w0_YL0?si=4INlw9xmtsqOcie2, probably for the best. But hey, they’ll always have London).
Wizard of Far East
The final arc of the anime starts with Makoto going to pay respects to his mom on the anniversary of her death. After that, Makoto says he’s leaving the group (again. I feel like we’re on repeat at this point. You say you leave and then you come back. Tease). He returns to Japan where he gets a job at a trading company called Scarlet. After doing a few jobs for the company, Makoto’s boss takes him to Roppongi to meet Akemi the CEO of their parent company, the Suzaku Group (he’s moving up in the world). Makoto quickly earns the approval of Akemi (that was easy) and goes with his boss to Vietnam where he finds out his company runs an underground human trafficking operation (he really does have the worst luck). They take orphaned children from farming villages and auction them off much to the disgust of Makoto (yeah, we should be recording this shit). Makoto suspects that Laurent set him up to join the company and sure enough he’s right (it’s your own fault, you keep falling for his traps). It turns out the Suzaku group our yakuza who make their money by human trafficking and Laurent and his Merrymen are going to shut them down. We see Laurent and Abby go to meet Clark Ibrahim who has broken ties with Sam and agrees to help them out in exchange for sponsoring his team.
In episode 16 the team makes their move against the Suzaku group. Cynthia arrives as the president of her own trading company claiming that she can deliver an Arab princess to them who is Abby in disguise posing as Clark’s sister. They stage a kidnapping and bring her back to Japan to present her to Akemi where she buys Abby for 100 million yen (that’s still a low price for someone like Abby). Later on, Makoto helps Abby escape and decides he wants to save the other kids. Sadly, the other kids are hesitant to leave as they have no other place to go (they’re in a foreign land they no nothing about and they can’t return home as there’s nothing waiting for them. The only choices they have are either be sold into slavery or die). With the security guard returning to his station, Laurent calls off the operation and Abby returns to her room.
Episode 17 starts off with Makoto remembering his childhood and how his dad, Ozaki, got arrested for aiding the Suzaku’s group human trafficking. Even after getting released from jail, he never came to visit his family leaving Makoto to care for his mom until her final breath (and the asshole father of the year award goes to. . .). Back to the present, Makoto gets summoned by Akemi to serve as her interpreter for her meeting with the Chinese mafia from Shanghai called Shanghai Longhu-bang (that’s a mouth full). The group is led by Liu Xiao and started off as subsidiary of the Suzaku group before they broke free and became independent right from under Akemi’s nose (I bet she wants to kill all of them) and now both sides are on the verge of war with each other. The visitors are Chen Yao the right-hand man of Liu and his interpreter Oz. The meeting only serves to make both sides even angrier at each other and Makoto finds out that Oz is actually his dad, Ozaki (https://youtu.be/Pw2sex1mJNI). Knowing Laurent set this up (because it’s him and the anime has established that he’s OP), Makoto punches him (Shizuku: More like he delivers a lariat) out of anger and then goes to confront Ozaki at his hotel room. Ozaki says he was too ashamed to face his family again after what happened and says he’s tired of living this life but doesn’t know how to escape (https://youtu.be/O9xRhwmHBBE). Makoto decides to trust Ozaki (you are a fool) and convinces him to help free Abby and the children. At the appointed time they all escape and get picked up by Cynthia where following the advice of Ozaki they exit the highway (that was dumb of them) and get caught by the Suzaku group thanks to Ozaki who sold them out and reveals that he’s been working with the group this whole time (he really is the worst father of all time).
So Makoto, Abby, and Cynthia get captured in episode 18 where they get taken to Sagami Bay to die on Akemi’s yacht. Makoto gets a chance to prove his loyalty to Akemi by killing Cynthia and Abby but Ozaki shoots them instead and they fall overbroad. Akemi then hands the gun to Makoto giving him a chance to shoot Ozaki which he takes and he falls overbroad (years’ worth of child neglect crammed into one bullet). 3 days soon pass, and Makoto doesn’t eat until Akemi force feeds and shows him kindness like a caring mom. 2 months later and Makoto runs a child trafficking auction for Akemi increasing revenue big time and being appointed the permanent auctioneer. While all of this is going on, tensions with Shanghai continue as we see Laurent go to pay a visit to Liu in the hopes of being his translator. When Makoto returns to his place he’s shocked to see Ozaki there alive and waiting for him (given what we’re watching, I ain’t surprise anymore). Ozaki tells Makoto about Laurent’s past where we find out he was raised in Brussels by his mom Emma who was dyslexic. They lived a good life until they were cheated out of their savings by a shady investor named Hugo (that was their first mistake. Trusting a guy name Hugo). Emma passed away after losing all of her money and Laurent went on to become a gambler in France (he’s kinda has this whole Gambit thing going on if you can believe it. Too bad he can’t fight and doesn’t have mutant powers) where he came across Hugo one day and tried to kill him only to miss and accidently stabbed a woman named Dorothy.
The story of Laurent continues in episodes 19-20 (and it might just be me, but I feel like Laurent’s story and what’s currently going on should be two separate arcs. I mean I like that we’re diving into Laurent’s past, but this deserves its own arc. For most of the arc we’ve been focusing on Makoto and now we’re shifting our focus to Laurent? That just feels off to me). After stabbing Dorothy, Laurent runs away where he gets picked up by a Si-Won and taken to Dorothy who’s alright and reveals that she’s a con artist. She works with Ozaki and invited Laurent to join their rankings where he accepted. Together, they stole everything from the rich and corrupted with Laurent and Dorothy becoming an item and getting engaged after Laurent showed her the northern lights (a good place to propose marriage). With the two engaged the group decides to do one last job together and that was targeting the Suzaku’s group. Laurent managed to win Liu’s trust by beating him in mahjong and protecting him from an attacker (that was obviously staged) and became his interpreter. Ozaki would buy the kids at the auctions and find them nice foster homes to live in, and Si-Won would act as a broker and bring in Dorothy passing her off as a princess of the Ethiopian Empire who escaped her country and moved to Kyoto (wow, she stands out way too much). Liu saw pictures of Dorothy, liked what he saw, and brought her for $10 million (looks like Liu caught the jungle fever). Everything seemed to be going well until disaster hit. It turns out the real descendants of the Ethiopian Empire were visiting Shanghai and this threatened to expose Dorothy as not a real princess. Laurent quickly told Ozaki and Si-Won to flee and rushed to save Dorothy, but it was too late. Ozaki told Liu everything and he shot Dorothy killing her right in front of Laurent. Only having Dorothy’s necklace to remember her by, Laurent soon fell into depression until he was saved by Si-Won who rekindled his love for life. From there Laurent formed a new gang where he met Cynthia who was trying to scam him and failed, met Abby and hired her on as the muscle of the group, and kept Si-Won onboard. As for Ozaki, he got himself arrested on purpose where he would come up with a plan to make Dorothy happy. After serving his sentenced, Ozaki became Liu’s new interpreter and arranged for his good friend Kudou to coach Makoto and make him a con artist (okay, I retract my previous statement at the beginning of this paragraph. Everything has come full circle).
At the start of episode 21 we see that after Makoto shot Ozaki, he was saved by Si-Won. Cynthia and Abby were also saved by Si-Won and we see this was all apart of Laurent’s plan (which at this point he has to be winging it). Everyone decides to stay low for the time being and Ozaki goes to talk to Makoto to convince him to join their plan (you sure took your time reaching out to him). Back in the present, Ozaki finishes up his story and despite Makoto hating him and not trusting (and wanting nothing more then to crush his lying head) he agrees to help them on their plan. On a video conference between Liu and Akemi, we see Laurent is Liu’s translator where he falsely translates to Liu that Akemi wants 67% ownership of their company while Makoto falsely tells Akemi that Liu doesn’t trust her further fueling the tensions between the group (give me more wood. (AI girls and Jack Bros.): Phrasing! (Nitsuj): Oh now we’re doing phrasing again?). The two decide to meet in person where they’ll both be carrying concealed weapons and kill each other just like Ozaki wanted.
The big day arrives in episode 22 where Akemi and Liu meet face to face where all hell breaks loose. Laurent’s gang busts in disguised as a SWAT team where they confiscate Liu’s briefcase full of money and Akemi’s check as evidence. During the stand-off Laurent grabs Liu’s poison and stabs him with it which really isn’t poison as all but Liu doesn’t believe that and passes out from shock. Akemi begins to suspect this whole event was staged (you think?) and just when the gang moves in to arrest her, Makoto defends her with a sword and calls in the members of Suzaku group (he’s flipping the script) with the surprise return of Cassano. Makoto says he’s going to exact revenge on Laurent and Ozaki for what they’ve done to him, but Ozaki takes the sword and slashes Makoto prompting Laurent’s gang to start firing and a gunfight begins where Akemi (still shocked about Makoto’s death), Liu, and a few others escape the room only to return when they hear how quiet things have gotten. They all return to the room where nobody is there and Akemi sees a lever and pulls it where it gets revealed that they’re stuck on a remote island and the building they were in was just a replica (oh I can’t wait to see how they explain this).
In the final episode we find out how Makoto and the others got Akemi and Liu on the island. The short answer, drugs. Yep, both Makoto and Laurent drugged Akemi, Liu, and a few others allowing them to be flown to the island (that is a huge stretch guys). After this they created the replica office, Laurent replaced Liu’s poison ring, and the gang wildly fired their guns as a diversion (giving us probably the funniest scene in the entire anime) while they made their escape with the check and briefcase (again, this is a huge stretch. How did they not know they were knocked out? I doubt any drug could be that powerful). As for Cassano, Makoto just called him up to get a good scare out of Laurent and in rather surprising scene we see that Cassano, James, and Sam are actually good friends with each other and are out of jail (with no reason whatsoever), but don’t seem to want revenge as there’s no profit in it for them. The gang parties on a yacht and as sun rises Laurent throws Dorothy’s ring into the sea now having avenged her. A few weeks go by where everyone has gone their own separate ways (for now). Ozaki goes to visit his wife’s grave, Cynthia is taking care of one of the children they rescued, Abby climbs Red Rock Canyon and sends a selfie to Makoto (she likes him), Makoto decides to do his own thing, Laurent gets ready for his next con which is the president of the United States (well that’ll be a good OVA), and we get the biggest twist at the end by finding out Dorothy is still alive. She’s been living with amnesia this whole time in Taiwan under a different name and if can believe it the ring that Laurent threw into sea makes it way to her (what are the odds?).
Final Thoughts
And that was the Great Pretender, the modern-day version of Lupin the Third mixed with Ocean’s 11. Overall, this anime is a good watch. The stories are interesting and do a good job diving into the backstories of our characters. I think my favorite story was Cynthia’s story as I feel like a lot of people can relate to it. You like someone only to lose contact with them for years and when you finally meet up again you see that you’re both different people and the feelings you had for each other aren’t there anymore. It’s both sad and relatable, but at least they got the chance to end it on a good note. My favorite aspect of this anime is the animation. The animation is so rich and vibrant, it’s unlike any anime I’ve seen Wit Studios do and they knock it out of the park. The same can be said for the music, it’s really great here as well as having a wide range of enjoyable songs to make up an awesome soundtrack for the anime.
Now there are a few downsides with this anime. The first one being the obvious heist tropes that they have in each arc. If you’re not a fan of heist movies, chances are you won’t enjoy this anime and for those of you who have watched a number of heist movies in the past you’ll see the twists and cliches coming from a mile away or grow tired of them quickly. The other major problem I had was the character of Makoto. He claims to be the greatest con man of Japan and at first, they do a good job building him up as this elite con man only to have him come across as an amateur who’s way out of his league. He goes straight after the first arc which confused me only to keep roping him back into the next heist unknowingly got annoying. Laurent was also too OP in this series as he always seems to have an answer for everything, and Makoto along with everyone else never seems to get one over on him. I wanted to at least see Makoto compile all the knowledge and experience he learned from the past heists and use that knowledge to finally pull one over on Laurent and the others, but instead they keep making Makoto look weak and a small fish in the ocean. The other characters were fine for what they were. I like the love-hate relationship Makoto shares with Abby and I like Cynthia kind of serving as the mother of the group. I just wish they would have handled Makoto’s character better.
Final Score
The final score for Great Pretender is a 7.5/10. Despite my complaints I did enjoy this anime and would love to see more of it in the future. With the way the anime ended there does seem to be room for a sequel, and I say go for it. If Lupin’s too old for you and you’re looking for a modern-day version of Lupin then check this anime out. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.