The official website for Wit Studio‘s original television anime series Great Pretender unveiled the new work for the franchise as a sequel titled Great Pretender razbliuto, slated for a 2024 release worldwide.
The anime will debut in Japan on DMM TV. Crunchyroll will stream the anime in over 200 countries outside of China, and Manga Productions holds the master license for the anime in 16 countries in the Middle East.
The new teaser visual below highlights the new character Dorothy, a gifted swindler.
© WIT STUDIO/Great Pretenders
The anime features much of the staff from the first anime returning. Hiro Kaburagi returns as director, but is now also in charge of series composition alongside Taku Kishimoto, with previous head writer Ryota Kosawa now credited for script supervision. Mai Teshima is now the assistant director. Shōsuke Ishibashi replaces Kyoji Asano as chief animation director, joining returning Hirotaka Katō in the chief animation director credits. Keita Shimizu is now no longer credited for design, while Akiyo Okuda and Shōsuke Ishibashi remain credited. Yumiko Sudou is now credited as art director alongside returning art director Yūsuke Takeda.
© WIT STUDIO/Great Pretenders
The anime premiered in July 2020 on Fuji TV‘s +UItra programming block. The anime ran for two cours (quarters of a year) for a total of 23 episodes.
Netflix began streaming the anime outside of Japan in August 2020. Netflix streamed the anime exclusively worldwide, but released it in Japan ahead of the rest of the world.
Anime Limited is releasing the anime on home video in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. The company describes the story:
Self-styled “Japan’s greatest swindler” Makoto Edamura is mainly targeting elder people and occasional foreign travellers. But when he tries to scam an apparently clueless French tourist in Tokyo, he can’t possibly imagine that what looked like just another ordinary job is going to take him all the way to Los Angeles, tied upside-down on the famous Hollywood sign… And he is yet to find out what fate awaits him!
Hiro Kaburagi x Yoshiyuki Sadamoto x Ryota Kosawa x Wit Studio – A high-end animated entertainment created by the best team of the century -!
Hiro Kaburagi (Hozuki’s Coolheadedness, My Little Monster, 91 Days) directed the series at Wit Studio. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Evangelion, FLCL) designed the characters. Ryota Kosawa (Parasyte live-action film, Always: Sunset on Third Street live-action film series) wrote the scripts, and Yutaka Yamada (Tokyo Ghoul anime franchise, Vinland Saga) composed the music. Maiko Okada was the producer.
Yamada composed the opening theme song “G.P.” The late Queen singer Freddie Mercury‘s cover of The Platters song “The Great Pretender” is the anime’s ending theme song. This is Japan’s first television anime to feature a song by Mercury as its theme.
Artist Daichi Marui launched a manga adaptation of the anime on Mag Garden‘s Mag Comi website and LINE Manga service in June 2020, but the manga went on hiatus in September 2020 due to Marui’s poor health.
Update: Crunchyroll will stream the anime in over 200 countries outside of China, and Manga Productions holds the master license for the anime in 16 countries in the Middle East. Thanks to Link20XX for the news tip.
Sources: Great Pretender anime’s website, Comic Natalie
