Spy x Family S3
Short Synopsis: A spy, an assassin, a telepathic kid, and a future seeing dog pretend to be a family…and try to save the world.
Lenlo: This, somehow, may be one of my favorite Spy x Family episodes yet. Not only do we get some sweet family time with Loid/Yor/Anya and a fun little arm wrestling match with construction equipment, we even get an entire mission dedicated purely to our side cast of Fiona/Franky, expanding who knows who and their relationships. It felt like we got a little bit of everything. The only thing I was looking for that wasn’t there was something connected to the larger plot, to bring that back in instead of a basic recap at the start. Suffice to say, it was a solid opening episode, showing us just how good Spy x Family can be when it’s firing on all cylinders. Now we just need to hope it can keep this up for the rest of the season. Sadly this is around when I stopped reading, so I’m as blind as you are now.
Potential: 70%
Amun: What a lovely start to the season. I agree with what Lenlo said about it being a bit odd that we have essentially a filler episode as the premiere, but it looks like next week will get into the more Anya centric arc I’m expecting this season to be. I’m a little surprised to see how much time has been spent developing Nightfall, since she’s a pretty flat character, but I’m assuming we’ll find out the reasons later. Other than that, I’m hyped for the season – everything seems to be in working order from the characters to the animation, so it looks like this season’s a go!
Potential: 90%
Mario: Okay, I’m just gonna be that guy who says that this episode does nothing for me. I demand more Anya time!!
Potential: 20%
Ninja vs. Gokudo
Short Synopsis: Two boys become friends, unaware that they are on two different sides of a hundred-year war between ninja and gangsters.
Mario: The feud between two staples of Japanese pop culture, ninja and gokudo (yakuza), is an interesting concept to explore, but so far this episode just takes too long to get to the point. From the very first moment they meet, we all have a good idea of how they will end up. I guess the point here is to establish the fleeting friendship between these two young faces who share a mutual love for anime, but once we know that they will inevitably face off in the future, this feels more like a calculated move. In addition, its violence is of the edgy variety, which is just as likely to turn audiences away as it is to attract them. Still, I enjoy the wordplay of their names (read as ninja and gokudo, respectively). Not that the show will shake the anime world, as you can see how things will fall way ahead of time, but it’s still enjoyable in its own way.
Potential: 30%
May I Ask for One Final Thing?
Short Synopsis: A highborn lady takes revenge on her fellow nobles for their mistreatment of her, as well as their general wickedness.
Wooper: I ignored this show on first release due to its place within the villainness subgenre, but circled back around to it when I needed a replacement for a much worse premiere. May I Ask (or Saihito, Japan’s abbreviation for its stereotypical light novel title) isn’t bad, just not my cup of tea, though I say that without having seen the second of the simultaneous episodes it dropped last week. Based on the OP, it looks like Scarlet (the show’s heroine) will eventually ditch the hypocrisy of the peerage for a life of combat and adventure, but all I saw in 20-something minutes was her backstory and her violent revenge on her cruel former fiance Kyle, plus his sycophantic flunkies. Saihito definitely has a sense of humor about Kyle’s spinelessness, but there’s more than one moment when that humor douses him in gasoline, metaphorically speaking, rather than just lighting his coat on fire. And all the groveling from his fellow nobles when Scarlet begins to go on her rampage, including offers to give their best slaves to anyone who can protect them, are so thickly written that the scene lost a lot of its appeal, at least for me. The concept of a villainness anime with a stoic badass for a protagonist is a good one, and the show does well with its limited visual resources, but this isn’t something I’m eager to follow from week to week.
Potential: 25%
As someone who read later chapters of spy x family the next few episodes will be adapting the backstory of Loid and let’s just say it won’t be a happy adventure.
I’m watching “One Final Thing” while waiting for Winer 2026 to take off. All the villains are carrying placards saying “Hi, I’m a bad guy”. Scarlet is competing for the “most unlikely to succeed as a secret agent” title. But the scenes where she’s beating up people (and dragons) are fun to watch.