After life turned him down the path of crime, Makoto Edamura cockily thinks himself the best swindler in Japan. However, after trying to swindle a tourist only for the tourist to swap it back, he finds the police on his trail. Making his escape, he runs into this tourist again, a move that would take him all the way across the sea to Los Angeles. There, he learns that this tourist was in fact a man called Laurent Thierry, a successful confidence man, who wants to recruit him onto his team.
Slick, jazzy, and clever, Great Pretender is a series that has a lot of style and substance. If you are looking for anime recommendations with the same addicting nature as Great Pretender, then head on down below.
Anime Like Great Pretender
For Fans of Criminals
Lupin III
Arsene Lupin III is the grandson of famed thief Arsene Lupin and is keeping the family tradition going as a successful thief himself. Under constant threat by the law due to his high profile crimes, Lupin, together with his partner Daisuke and his girl Fujiko, who may or may not be working for her own gain, he tries to stay one step ahead in his daring escapades.
There isn’t any way one can look at Great Pretender and not think about Lupin. Both series are about suave gentleman criminals completing daring and high stakes heists. If you are worried about the age of the original Lupin series, the 2015 series is modern and fun. Lupin is generally a pretty self-contained episodic watch.
Michiko and Hatchin
For the fourth time, hardened criminal Michiko breaks out of a South American prison in order to search for a man from her past. This search leads her to the young Hana, a girl trapped under the thumb of her abusive foster family and daughter of the man Michiko is looking for. Breaking her out to lure out her father, the unlikely pair set off on their search, only to be embroiled in everything from betrayal to gang warfare.
Both series feature stories about criminals that live in a criminal world. While Michiko and Hatchin isn’t a plot related to crime, they sure do end up in a lot of messes. Furthermore, both stories take place outside of Japan and thus you see a nice representation of other races as well.
Banana Fish
During the Iraq War, a soldier named Griff goes insane and starts killing his own platoon. After being subdued, all he kept speaking was the words “banana fish”. Years later, Griff is taken care of by his brother Ash, a boy who ran away from home and was taken in by mob boss Papa Dino who abused him. Now, Ash seeks to unravel the mystery of this banana fish, a phrase that keeps mysteriously popping up in his life.
The story in Banana Fish is most similar to the first story in Great Pretender in the way that it deals with a new drug. However, it becomes darker than the Great Pretender and deals with a more vicious criminal side rather than the playful heists.
For Fans of Chaos
Baccano
In the early 1930s, the transcontinental train, Flying Pussyfoot, starts a legendary journey across the country that will leave behind a trail of blood. During this same period, the ambitious scientist Szilarf and his unwilling assistant Ennis investigate missing bottles of immortality elixir in New York. This can be traced back to 1711 where the alchemists creating this elixir learn the real price of being immortal. Among these mysterious events, a Mafia war heats up. Follow this intricate tale of alchemy, immortality, and survival as it weaves together many seemingly unrelated events.
Despite the supernatural element, Baccano has the same sort of jazzy, western influences with the characters traveling all over while they get into trouble. It is very much a criminal story like Great Pretender, but not a modern one.
Durarara
Tokyo’s downtown district of Ikebukuro is awash in strange rumors, everything from colorless color gangs to a headless rider roaming town populate the rumors. For Mikado Ryuugamine who just moved there from the countryside, he is but one witness to the district’s slew of strange events.
Both shows start off small and then just spiral out of control as they go on. The big difference is that Great Pretender sort of restarts that cycle with each different arc. In Durarara, it is just constantly building until things fully turn into one massive incident of chaos.
Bungou Stray Dogs
The orphanage that Atsushi Nakajima has been living at has been recently plagued by a tiger that only he can see. Blaming him for the incident, they kick him out. Now homeless, he wanders the streets until he meets the eccentric Osamu Dazai and saves him from drowning. As it turns out, Dazai is a supernatural detective and agrees to help him solve the mystery.
While Bungou does have a bit of a supernatural element to it, both shows focus on a group of individuals that deal with criminals in different ways. You also get that nice dynamic of an eccentric character with a bit of a normal character throughout the plot as well.
For Fans of a Skilled Team
Cowboy Bebop
In the distant future, humanity has, for the most part, abandoned Earth and colonized several different planets in the solar system. In order to keep peace in the galaxy, the Inter Solar System police was established, but they often rely on the aid of bounty hunters, referred to as “cowboys,” to bring criminals on the run to justice. This is the story of Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, a pair of cowboys that end up with a rag-tag crew of other misfits as they travel the galaxy trying to keep food on the table and their own dark pasts at bay.
The jazzy soundtrack alone is indicative of Cowboy Bebop, but Great Pretender doesn’t have the same overall melancholy. What they really have in common is a team that barely tolerates each other, but stays together for the money. You also get character backstory for each member revealed over the course of the series.
Black Lagoon
Average business man Rokurou Okajima found his life turned upside down when he was captured and held hostage by a mercenary group in Thailand called Black Lagoon. After learning how disposable his life was to his company, he decides to quit the salaryman life and join the very group of mercenaries that held him hostage. While he finds himself unexpectedly good at their various work, his ideals about the world vastly clash with those of his companions.
Black Lagoon is much like the team in Great Pretender, but the only thing they know how to do really well is violence. Some of the others have some skills, but as Black Lagoon is about mercenaries, all they really need to know is violence.
Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens
The city of Fukuoka seems pretty normal, but it is awash in dangerous individuals. In the mix is Banba, a detective investigating hitman companies in the area and Lin, a hitman that is fed up with his lack of jobs. After being refused pay for a target that killed themselves, Lin is tasked with killing Banba, but instead asks him to team up.
Did you enjoy Great Pretender because they were a bunch of weirdoes that worked towards a common goal, but didn’t really seem the criminal type? Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens is the same sort of beast. It’s got a nice oil and water sort of partnership to it.
Do you have any more good anime recommendations like Great Pretender? Let fans know in the comments section below.
