When you consider all the ways in which this show is exceptional the list of individual heroes is outstanding and diverse, from Kaburagi Hiro to Freddie Mercury.  But to be honest the one who’s really standing out most for me is Takeda Yuusuke, the art director who gives Great Pretender its visual identity.  For the record, here are just a few of the anime on which Takeda has filled that role:

• Seirei no Moribito
• Mahoutsukai no Yome
• Uchouten Kazoku
• Gakutsuou
• Ghost in the Shell (almost all of them)
• Hoozuki no Reitetsu
• Penguin Highway
• True Tears
• Vinland Saga

And believe me, that’s just cherry-picking a few off the top.  If you wanted to call Takeda the foremost art director in anime I’d say you have a pretty good case – he may not be in a class by himself, but it sure doesn’t take long to call the roll.  It’s just another example of how Great Pretender really pulled out all the stops – not just big names everywhere, but exceptionally gifted to boot.  It’s an impressive effort from top to bottom and if that’s the impact Netflix’ money can have on anime when channeled smartly, I’m ready to sign on the dotted line.

“Singapore Sky” is in many ways a more low-key affair than “Los Angeles Connection”, at least so far, but no less effective.  It has a lot less to do in terms of heavy lifting, what with the exposition being mostly over with, thus it’s free to take a deeper dive into the characters and what they do.  That involves, in part, Makoto trying to get Abby to open up to him (good luck with that).  It says something about Makoto that he’s willing to make the effort, given how little encouragement he’s gotten, but he’s clearly seen that something it broken inside Abby (and Laurent’s casual pronouncement at the end of Episode 7 certainly confirmed that).

We also see Cynthia trying to work her magic on Sam, but with no success.  He’s a pig in the classic sense of the word, a rather stereotypical figure to be honest.  But his misogyny and general unsavoriness has a certain unvarnished purity to it that makes him interesting to watch.  Clark does know about the fixing as it happens, but he’s clearly rather innocent and straightforward compared to his brother – and one suspects Sam would like to keep it that way (maybe protectiveness is his one virtue).  As for Cynthia she’s clearly not used to being rejected, especially on the grounds of age (anything over 20 is disgusting, according to Sam).

A new wrinkle is the arrival of Luis “Mad Dog” Müller, the pilot critically wounded after trying to buck Sam’s orders and win against Clark (Wit brought in another legendary seiyuu naturally enough, Nomura Kenji), along with his wife Isabelle (Sako Mayumi).  Luis is here on Laurent’s invitation, but he’s messed up in the head as well as the body, and says he’s only interested in helping if the con results in one or both of the brothers being killed off.  He does, however, give Isabelle his blessing to be involved.  Something stinks here, and I’m pretty confident this wasn’t what it looked like – though whether Luis and Isabelle are on the same page and whether they’re working with Laurent or against him is still uncertain.

With Cynthia’s approach being rebuffed Plan B turns out to be Makoto – as in, pitching him as the “Mozart of Mechanics” and getting him on Clark’s team.  The ultimate goal here is to get Sam to come to the underground casino Laurent is staging and betting everything on Abby to be the one to finally defeat Clark (which means convincing him to make that happen), only to have Abby throw the race.  To that end Isabelle is recruited, as well as our old friends from Tokyo Shi Won Kim (the great Kujira) and Kudou.  As usual Makoto isn’t in on all the details, which gives him a few tense moments – but he does eventually worm his way into Sam’s confidence in spite (or perhaps because) Sam sees a fellow bad seed in Makoto.

There are certainly plenty of unanswered questions here, and for me a lot of them involve Luis.  Makoto suspects someone double-crossed him and who that person turns out to have been may prove a critical factor in the endgame of this con.  Luis and Isabelle’s performance in Laurent’s suite had the air of just that, a performance – and I think it’s pretty safe to assume that whatever Laurent tells Makoto is going on is probably at best the tip of the iceberg and at worst an outright fabrication.  I still see as a major theme here that Makoto and Abby are fundamentally different from Laurent and Cynthia – tools for a purpose, rather than partners.