Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Welcome back, to another episode of SpyxFamily! This is late, I know, I’m really slowing down this holiday season and I apologize for that. Lots of irons in the fire at the moment. Still, the show must go on, so lets dive into it!

First up, the animation. SpyxFamily is a very… inconsistently animated show. Some episodes look absolutely gorgeous, from how they are directed down to the individual cuts. I’m talking stuff like Yor running through town to the dog park with Bond. When it wants to, SpyxFamily can be one of the visually strongest anime of the season. But only when it wants to. The rest of the time it looks simply average, with nothing particularly impressive to catch the eye. Luckily for us this week they cared. Because these tennis shots look great. The direction it pretty standard, but the way Fiona and Loid move, the posing, the effects work on stuff like the rocket rackets, it all more than makes up for it. This isn’t the best looking SpyxFamily episode, not by a long shot. But it’s definitely a good one.

Continue reading “Spy X Family – 10 [The Underground Tennis Tournament: The Campbelldon]” →

Hello, and welcome to this weeks episode of SpyxFamily! This is an interesting week, as it introduces a whole new character to act as Yuri’s counterpart, just for Loid. Is she any good? Do the jokes land? Did something happen? Lets dive in and find out!

So starting off, overall I think this was a decent week for SpyxFamily. For the first time in a while we got an entire episode dedicated to a singular storyline, and I think it paid off. Sure, there was that extra bit after the ED, but that’s more like a cute excerpt to me, its fine. As for the storyline in question? The introduction of Fiona Frost! As far as introductions go, we’ve had a lot worse. Considering her character archetype, Yuri immediately comes to mind, as they share so much in common. She’s not perfect, and we will talk about why, but I think she has far more potential than Yuri did. Partly because this one isn’t incestuous, but also because she has more going on than just this love obsession. Or at least it feels like it.

Continue reading “Spy X Family – 9 [Nightfall]” →

Welcome everyone, to another week of Spy X Family! This is another pretty slow week all things considered, another pair of jokes without much going on. While rather cute in execution, I continue to want something a bit more from the series. I’m ready to have my heartstrings pulled again, you know? Anyways, without further ado lets jump into the episode, shall we?

So like I said, this week was another pair of gag episodes, with the first half being all about Anya exploring Loid’s job. This was cute! There were some fun gags in here, a cute Sherlock Holmes outfit, some spy shenanigans. As far as comedy goes, I think SpyXFamily nailed a lot of the jokes here. Perhaps my favorite was Yor’s imagination of taking Anya out and showing off her own job. Not working at the capital building, but being an assassin. The little ninja run, Anya’s smaller version of the outfit, the brightly colored blood. It was a great sequence, with some good action animation for Yor. Beyond that though? There wasn’t really anything of substance. Nothing narratively noteworthy or important. Just a bunch of amusing jokes for a wholesome episodic experience. Like I said last week, for some that’s going to be great. But I need something more.

Continue reading “Spy X Family – 8 [Decipher the Perplexing Code]” →

Welcome everyone, to a (very) late episode of SpyXFamily! Apologies for that, I had to finish the His and Her Circumstances review, checking it over until I was happy. Still, that’s done and ready to go up Thursday so it’s time for some good old family fun! So without further ado, lets dive into the episode.

Overall this was a pretty slow week for SpyXFamily, with neither episode really furthering anything plot wise. Instead they were just 2 cute, longform gag sequences. This is fine enough, it was certainly cute. But there was nothing really… noteworthy. Nothing particularly heartwarming nor narratively important enough to get invested in. I’m sure for most this is fine, I want to be painfully clear that this was still a fun episode. But I’ve heard some gripes from friends and colleagues about how they found it to be rather dull, and I can’t bring myself to disagree. Still, every now and then this kind of break from the serious stuff is good. You can’t keep your audience tense all of the time. So long as this doesn’t become the new status quo, I’m sure it’ll be alright.

Continue reading “Spy X Family – 7 [Operation Revenge on Desmond]” →

Hello everyone, and welcome back to SpyXFamily! Apologies for missing last week, had a bit of a family emergency. Don’t worry though, everything is going much better! Enough with real life problems though, let’s just dive right into our weekly anime.

Right off the bat, this is a bit of an odd (double) week for SpyXFamily. Both episodes have a singular, larger plot to them, like a normal episode should. But neither of these plots are enough to fill an entire episode on their own. So what do you do? Drag it out, or fill the space with something else? In this case, SpyXFamily has chosen the latter. Rather than drag out two perfectly paced stories, it instead added a miniature “filler” story to the end of each episode. As a sort of epilogue to these episodes, mini-sodes meant to show us small parts of these characters daily lives, this is fine. But for me, as someone who isn’t big on Slice of Life, they certainly weren’t my favorite of the things SpyXFamily has done. What I’m saying is, they were cute but lets not do them to often, you know?

Continue reading “Spy X Family – 4/5 [Yor’s Kitchen/Carry Out the Griffin Plan]” →

Welcome everyone, to another week of SpyXFamily! This week is the true conclusion and epilogue to the 3-part opening terrorist arc, and you know what? They did a pretty damn good job wrapping everything up. From the scary terrorists to Anya wanting a dog, there’s even a neat little bow on top. So without further ado, lets dive in and talk about it!

Starting off, this episode was a bit weaker on the production side than the previous one. Part of that has to do with how little action there was, which to be clear is totally fine. This wasn’t an episode that needed action, instead leaning heavily on it’s character interaction and, day I say it, narrative to carry it through. However the action that was there, such as Yor kicking a car as well as Loid’s shootout with the dog, just didn’t live up to last episodes hype. Ultimately this isn’t a huge deal, SpyXFamily nailed all of the important bits. But it would be remiss of me to not mention dip in what is most likely going to be one of the best overall produced shows of the season. Enough with the nitpicking production details however, how was the rest of the episode?

Continue reading “Spy X Family P2 – 3 [A New Family Member]” →

Welcome back everyone, to a new season and the continuation of SpyXFamily! This is a fun, though serious, week for the show, one I can proudly say I enjoyed a fair bit. Maybe time was all I needed to get back SpyXFamily back into my good graces, who knows. Without further ado though, lets dive into the episode!

Starting off, I love the more serious tone of this episode. The whole plot with stopping a terrorist threat? A spy, a dog and a little girl walk into a bomb before it blows up? I love it. This is SpyXFamily at it’s strongest for me. We get all the substance of Loid’s backstory and mission, his serious nature and the effects of war on simple people trying to live simple lives, while at the same time Anya and Yor fill the episode with levity and fun. Just enough that SpyXFamily doesn’t feel like a gritty war drama. What I’m saying is that this episode, in my opinion, perfectly balances SpyXFamily’s two halves and I really hope that we get more of that this season. This or more time at school, because it’s really hard to hate Anya episodes.

Continue reading “Spy X Family P2 – 2 [Disarm the Time Bomb]” →