Great Pretender: Razbliuto

8/10 EASILY one of the most underrated pieces of media on all of MyAnimeList as it currently sits at a score of 6.80, and I am quite picky with my anime scores as an 8/10 for me means it's in the top 5-15% of the anime I've rated (on my main account). This ONA/movie is actually BETTER THAN the original series IMHO. I'm calling it an ONA/movie because it was released as a 4-episode ONA but some streaming services have mashed together these 4 episodes into a single movie for a better viewer experience.

This ONA/movie is *mostly* a standalone adventure that is unrelated to the ... original series but you do need to have watched the original series to make sense of a lot of details and to understand the ending. As far as I know it's unclear exactly when this story takes place but probably after all the events of the original series.

The main point of this review is actually not to make a review, so I'll just quickly skip through that process: The plot is incredibly well thought out and cleverly written and interesting and entertaining, both the main characters and the side characters are all very charming and/or cool, the dialogue is very well written and the art direction and the animation and the voice acting and the sound design and the music are all super excellent, overall a great 8/10.

The REAL REASON I'm writing this review is because I believe that the reason that this sits at a 6.80 is because people didn't get it. The original series handholds the viewer a lot in explaining everything, especially the endings, but this ONA/movie doesn't do that as much and you have to put more of the pieces together on your own. I think a lot of people probably failed at that and then they didn't like it and then that's why it has such a low score, so my intention here is actually to just explain a bunch of things and that's what the whole rest of this review will be.



WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD WARNING LIKE LITERALLY THE NEXT SENTENCE HAS BIG SPOILERS WARNING (also I'll use Dorothy's real name throughout the rest of this review but in the movie her "new" name is "Xiang Xiang"):



In the very final scene of the ONA/movie Laurent walks up to Dorothy at an airport and simpy asks her where terminal 2 is, Dorothy then simply points Laurent in the right direction without saying a word and then he waves goodbye and leaves. Dorothy looks at him as he walks away, and after a few seconds, she smiles, and then the screen goes black, and the credits roll. What actually happened here is that Laurent knew Dorothy could be in one of 3 states: A: She actually has total amnesia, in which case he doesn't want to drag her back into his life and he's just happy knowing she's alive and well. B: She remembers him and some, if not all, of her old life and she wants to get back into it together with Laurent, in which case they leave the airport together and scam some bastards. C: She remembers him and some, if not all, of her old life but she *doesn't* want to get back into that life and instead she wants to leave that life behind and live her own new life, in which case he doesn't want to drag her back into his life and he's just happy knowing she's alive and well. Since she acted like she didn't know him that leaves out option B, but the smile afterwards tells us that she did recognize him and chose her new life, so option C is correct. Dorothy either actually had her memories back the whole time before the movie even started, or she got them back during the movie (like when she opened that box with some of her old stuff). If it is the case that she had her memories back all along then the reason she always acts like she still has amnesia is just because that's the easiest and most effective way to completely leave her old life behind her. The reason she never contacted Laurent earlier in that case is then obviously also just because that was the best way for her to leave her old life behind her.

I started with the final scene because I think that's one of the most important things people could miss, but let's take it back to earlier in the ONA/movie. Why does Jay risk everything for Dorothy? Jay repeatedly says it's because she was there for him when he woke up from his amnesia, but they only had a single day and night together and he has all his memories back so that doesn't really make a lot of sense. This is actually explained pretty clearly, but it's because he figured out right away that Dorothy is the woman who scammed his "old man" (Wang/the boss) and got shot on a boat 10 years ago and he knows that if the syndicate get their hands on her they will kill her. He also does genuinely kinda like Dorothy and he is honestly thankful that she helped him when he hit his head and he also does seem to believe her when she says that she has amnesia, so, he doesn't want her to die and he also thinks that she doesn't deserve to die. Every time he makes an execuse it's just to not reveal that he knows the truth.

Next up: Every single backstabbing in this whole ONA/movie makes perfect sense. This is a broader thing with that the ONA/movie has *a lot* of backstabbing going on left and right and some viewers might feel like they don't make sense and are just done for shock value or forced in for the sake of the plot but this is absolutely not the case and all of them are very well thought out. Explaining these backstabbings will make up almost all of the rest of the stuff I'm going to explain, because everything else that needs explaining is also directly or indirectly related to these backstabbings.

After Ayi helps Jay and Dorothy escape from Dorothy's apartment, he kinda backstabs Lin by not turning them in for 200k, this is done partly because he's old friends with Jay but also because he thinks he can get even more money out of Jay and he could also still turn in Jay later anyways. Ayi then later DOES backstab Jay and tells Lin where Jay is going to pick up his passport. The first reason for this is that it's a perfect opportunity, Lin can easily set up an easy ambush and then Ayi gets the 200k dollars. The second reason for this is because while Ayi was looking for Jay's passport, he also found some cash Jay had hidden there, earlier Ayi told Jay "I want everything you have!" in exchange for Aiy's help, well this cash Ayi just found might be "everything", in which case it's much smarter to go for Lin's 200k now. The final reason is more speculative but Ayi might sympathize with Dorothy's situation, and this ends up being a good way for him to turn in Lin without turning in Dorothy, which is nice.

After Lin sets up an ambush and captures Jay, Jay gets sent to a syndicate saferoom. Lin then proceeds to backstab the syndicate and help Jay escape from the saferoom, and when Jay then comes to Lin's apartement, Lin proceeds to instead backstab Jay and poison him and try to taze him. The reason Lin does this double-backstab is because he didn't get Dorothy and he wants to use Jay to get Dorothy too, and he wants to do it on his own so that he gets all the money and cred himself. At this point Lin has already seen a photo of Dorothy from back when she scammed their company, and while he hasn't met the "new" Dorothy, he's heard her description and suspects them to be the same person, after Lin poisons Jay he also literally says "I now know for sure that this woman of yours is worth a hell of a lot of money".

Around the same time, Wang (the boss/old man) also kills Tsai, this isn't really much of a backstab but just punishment for Tsai doing a useless job at handling this whole Jay + Dorothy situation, and also because he was appearantly stealing too much drugs for personal use from the syndicate. In a similar vein the syndicate decides to (try to) kill Lin, again not much of a backstab and just done as punishement for Lin "helping" Jay, although Lin escapes.

Later on, after Jay and Dorothy have reunited they're sitting at a restaurant, where Jay kinda backstabs Dorothy and tells her that even after everything they've gone through, he can't betray his old man and that he's essentially not going to help Dorothy any more and whatever happens happens. The implication here is that he only does this to save Dorothy and that he thinks Dorothy has her best shot of surving by getting the hell away from him while he confronts Wang, this is also arguably confirmed by the fact that when he does meet Wang his final and only wish is that Wang lets Dorothy go.

And now, finally, the most interesting and important backstabbing of the whole movie that puts bascially all of the puzzle pieces in place. Bingyan betraying Wang and the whole dark and rainy warehouse scene. Let's first recap what happens in the scene: Wang meets up with Jay who's ready to be executed, when suddenly Dorothy and Ayi show up and yell at them to stop. Bingyan then takes Wang's gun and points it at Dorothy and tells her to tell them what the name of the blonde asshole is, Dorothy seems to be clueless but for some reason Ayi knows and tells Dorothy it's Laurent Thierry. Ayi also tells some other random facts about Laurent but then suddenly Bingyan shoots Dorothy (with a secretely non-lethal round) and then after that Lin shows up with a van that Ayi gets into after they first get Dorothy into the van. Jay and Wang then have a physical fight, where Bingyan has an easy shot on Jay but instead does nothing and Jay manages to strangle Wang to unconciousness. We skip forward to when Wang wakes up, as Jay, Ayi and Dorothy have all escaped, and only Bingyan is left. Bingyan gets a call from a mysterious man who *she* calls "the boss" and who tells Wang "It's been ages, Mr. Wang!". This mysterious man, who also seems to have a bit of an unusual accent, then tells Wang that Wang seems to have taken an interest in their Singapore investment opportunity and he tells Wang "And so, I thank you for your most generous payment!". He also tells Wang that "One really must keep a tight grip on the reins of one's employees" which is followed by Bingyen getting into a car and driving away.

I'm sure the pieces are all starting to click together just from reading that, but yes the man who called was of course Laurent, and Bingyan has worked for Laurent the whole time, and the whole Singapore trade deal that Wang has been interested in throughout the ONA/movie, a deal that he actually also did complete in an earlier scene, was all set up as a con by Laurent. This whole con was probably planned before Jay and Dorothy met and probably before Laurent maybe even had any idea that Dorothy was alive. But thanks to Bingyan working for Laurent, Laurent learned of Dorothy's involvement and existence and had all the other insider details he needed to craft and plan out the perfect outcome and the perfect con, as he always does, which he of course did here too.

Some more details: Ayi mentioned early on in the ONA/movie that he had contact and was friends with Abby, the same Abby from the original series who's a central member of Laurent's crew, after everything Jay asks Ayi how he knew where Wang would meet Jay, to which Ayi responds that he had an accomplice within the syndicate, this accomplice is of course Bingyan who of course works for Laurent who probably connected them together. Through either Bingyan or Ayi is then also of course how Lin got to know where they all were. The reason Lin saved them is because he's on the run from the syndicate anyways and he kinda owes them. And finally when Bingyan drives away from the warehouse scene, the pickpocket kid who served an important role in the plot earlier is sitting in the car, which means he was working for Laurent the whole time too and all his very convenient actions were just a part of Laurent's perfect plan.

I think that about wraps it up, there are probably some more details or parts that got some people confused that actually make perfect sense but I can't think of anything more right now. I've seen people say the ending was rushed but I totally disagree, it was not at all rushed, it was excellently paced if you were able to follow everything that was happening. I've also seen people say that the ending was too convenient, but basically all of Laurent's expertly crafted cons end flawlessly in the original series, because he's just that good, so that's basically just business as usual. The reason this is *only* an 8/10 for me and not higher is because an anime needs to truly transcend above the rest of the medium to even get a 9/10 from me and this was *only* an insanely good action/crime movie.

Thanks for reading and have a good day!

To start,rewatch the great pretender before watching this,personally i havent watched the original for a few years now and i spent way too much time during this film thinking "whos that?".

Overall This was a decent film, comparing it to the original series... it just doesnt have the high points that the original has,its consistently good, not great. The original had amazing and absurd climaxes that this just didnt have, the climax wqs anti climactic, confusing (partially because of the reason above) and just wasnt super satisfying.

The film takes a different approach from the conman style of the original its kind of an action ... drama? Not a lot of conman stuff beyond on character. Which less focus on grifts and tricks could be good,but there isnt really anything to grab onto, if you drop what the series is known for you need to replace it with something equally strong and they just dont do that leaving the characters, plot and pacing feel aimless

Also why is edamura in this film? Did is something or did he just do nothing.

As for visuals,its great pretender, this film is beautiful and I recommend watching the film just for the beauty of it alone, its a style i cant get enough of and if this film exiated purely to give us more of that id say it was worth it.

Overall this is a mixed bag and i cant say it lives up to the original, however id recommend a watch if you just finished a watch/re watch of the series or if your really hankering for more GP, i know i was.

This will cover both entries, as I don’t have much to say about each one.

2020 was a very weird year in every way, and regarding anime specifically, it was one of the least hyped years in history. Even the most popular and higher rated titles of that year are pretty much left behind by now, with the exception of Jujutsu Kaisen, the big fighting shounen of the moment, and even that one seems to be pretty criticized nowadays. It’s a shame because I didn’t think it was that bad of a year, and had some decent titles in my opinion, even if they barely managed ... to reach that level.

One of them, if you recall, was Great Pretender, which I don’t know how well it did in Japan, as it didn’t appear in the top 20 lists I saw at the time, and is clearly a west oriented show. But I remember it initially getting review bombed on anime databases by Shingeki no Kyojin fans, because studio WIT wasn’t adapting their manga anymore, as if that was even the decision of the studio in the first place.

It’s funny how that ended up being the reason why many more people began to watch it and rated it accordingly and it ended up being a relatively well rated title across every database.

But enough introduction. The anime itself is a rule of cool type of series of coin artists robbing bigger, worse criminals, and it was pretty good for a while. The energy was there, the tone was appropriate, and the presentation was mostly amazing.

Visually the series had polished artwork with no quality drops, beautiful backgrounds based around real locations around our world, that looked like paintings thanks to the darker colours, combined with darker and warmer lighting and shading effects, good special effects as well, and detailed and energetic motions that the series needed both in tone and action sequences. Plus, some interesting angles in the directing. The negative aspect were the character designs, as every character that wasn’t relatively old had the same facial structure, a froggy ground head ended on a triangular chin pointing down, yeah the series wasn’t the best in that regard.

The audio was kind of amazing as well. The sound effects weren’t as spectacular as I hoped for but they did their job just fine. The music was plain amazing, combining multiple genres and languages with different appropriate moods for different moments, and who could forget using the Freddy Mercury of the song with the same name of the anime as the ending song? Plus the voice acting was very well done and it even included different voice actors from different countries and of course talking in different languages to reflect the changes of countries in the setting of the series. The switches weren’t very smooth of course, but it was a nice detail to have in the show.

The series was separated into four arcs, all of which focused on the main characters. The first one was the best in my opinion, good introduction phase, good in throwing the protagonist into the whole chaotic situation, with a high energy through and through, full of action and high stakes, fleshing a side character with a good personal drama behind him, and subverting expectations a bit at the end. Of course the actual writing wasn’t that good or believable, but for a style over substance type of show, the first arc was great.

From there, the two following arcs would have a much lower energy but with intense and action packed endings, and throughout their duration, they would present a melancholic tone and be focused on the drama of the main characters. Thus they also serve the purpose to flesh out everyone from the main cast, expanding on their personalities, dynamics with the others, and backdrop stories.

It’s interesting to note that the storylines were quite different from each other. The first one was about fooling a drug mafia from LA from within, the second about ruining the rigged air race of a millionaire in Singapore, and the third about fooling a fraudulent art dealer in London, if I remember correctly. This way the series prevented becoming repetitive.

The final arc was about robbing a mafia group in Japan that deals with child trafficking, so the stakes and tone were far higher and more serious than ever. It was also emotionally important for the characters, as two of them, Edamame and Laurent, the most important and best ones I’d say, are personally involved with the group from way back, and even their families are involved. It was also emotionally engaging for the deaths that happen throughout this arc.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the makers decided to ruin the arc completely, and by extension the series as a whole. The tone became a lot lighter, the deaths turned out to be fake, thus ruining the drama, former villains come back as allies for no reason, especially after the protagonists ruined their lives, and the resolution was so over the top and ridiculous even for this anime, that you would expect to see it on something like the worst Mission Impossible entries.

The series is worth watching as a whole in my opinion, as a rule of cool type of action crime drama mini arc type of series, but the finale is really disappointing and as a whole the series is inferior to other famous anime that were compared with it in the past, such as Black Lagoon and Cowboy Bebop. I give it a 6/10.

Four years passed and here’s a sequel and you can notice what I said in the beginning, almost nobody cared about it, maybe also due to the format being unclear at first, expected to be a movie but then revealed to be a four part ova, meaning, another arc.

Even if you did care about it, the only quality that remains from the original is the audiovisuals, no complaint there. Some people didn’t like the design of the main character because of the differences between her lips, but eh, character designs were always the worst part of the visuals of this series anyway.

As for the actual content:

-There was a lot less of it, just an arc that goes by fast, instead of a series.

-The energy was a lot lower, compared to the best parts of the original.

-Similar things happen with the pacing.

-The arc as a whole is not that interesting, the main character is investigated by a mafia group and the antagonist themselves end up being against each other just because of misunderstandings, the whole conflict could be resolved if they just stopped to talk it out for a bit.

-The characters are uninteresting, the protagonist has some personality but also amnesia and no clear objective, she is just dragged around by the weak plot, and just by being alive, she constantly reminds you of how badly the previous final arc and series ended and how one of the best dramas of the original was ruined.

-Another character gets some focus but it’s not done in a way that is interesting. His backstory is nothing compared to the previous ones, he doesn’t share enough scenes with his friend for their dynamic to be enjoyable, he conveniently gets amnesia and gets cured of it, both things in stupid ways, and despite being hyped up, he kind of sucks at everything he does when you think about it.

-The ovas try to build some kind of romance around them but it is very superficial, not believable, not built upon, not engaging in the least.

-It is revealed at the end that every character was doing everything that the older main cast wanted. How? You barely see them on screen to believe such thing.

-As the, I guess expected, reunion, happens, the series ends, possibly with a sequel bait finale so they can milk it some more, though I don’t think that might happen, or at least not soon, how many people even cared about this?

In all, the action and the audiovisual presentation were fun, but it was overall a very unneeded and poorly done sequel that only added salt to the wound of the awful finale of the original series. Another crappy addition that would have been better if it never existed, like, let’s say, Odd Taxi in the Woods, or the Zegapain ADP prequel movie that I also reviewed recently. I give it a 4/10, making the IP mediocre as a whole, but I still consider the original series to be a worthy one time watch, minus the finale, and as long as you ignore its sequel completely.