Great Pretender Anime’s Deluxe Edition BD Set Ships on March 12

Shout! Studios announced on Thursday that it will release the Deluxe Edition of Wit Studio‘s original television anime series Great Pretender from Anime Limited on Blu-ray Disc on March 12, 2024 in limited quantities. The 5-disc set will include all 23 episodes, bonus features, a slipcase, 10 art cards, a double-sided poster, and a 192-page art book.

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 -!

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.

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 first opening theme song “G.P.” The late Queen singer Freddie Mercury‘s cover of The Platters song “The Great Pretender” was the anime’s first ending theme song. This was Japan’s first television anime to feature a song by Mercury as its theme.

Great Pretender razbliuto, the new sequel to the original anime, will screen in theaters in North America in 2024. 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 anime is slated for a 2024 release worldwide.

Source: Email correspondence