Spy X Family – 10 [The Underground Tennis Tournament: The Campbelldon]

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.

Getting into the episode itself, Fiona’s Yandere shtick continues to be more appealing than Yuri’s, for a lot of reasons. Part of it is that it just feels like she has a much better basis for her feelings. From respect for his skills and attitude to genuinely wanting to improve and be by his side. On top of that, she seems to be trying to earn the place through her own actions rather than simply get rid of her competition. Basically, Fiona has a degree of professionalism while around Loid that Yuri does not around Yor. It makes her feel more… Not real, perhaps authentic, definitely more tolerable at least. It’s hard to explain, but I like Fiona far more than I do Yuri at this point. Of course it helps that her love isn’t incestuous either.

Meanwhile, Loid’s recognition of all of this is way funnier than Yor’s complete ignorance. And I don’t mean that he knows Fiona likes him, he obviously doesn’t. But he can clearly see something is up with her, and his past knowledge of her leads to a whole host of misunderstandings for him to play off of. Stuff like thinking she’s pushing herself to be better than him, that all she cares about is the glory, etc. His reactions to all of this in turn fueling Fiona’s own love for him as he tries to take care of her, etc etc. They have this feedback loop between each other that Yuri and Yor simply… don’t.

As for the actual tennis bit, it was a good time. Sadly though, there isn’t all the much else to say about it. Some fun action bits, Fiona simping for Loid, the drugs, the rackets, etc. It’s a fun spectacle episode. We get a small bit perhaps worth mentioning from Yor as she continues to worry about her place in the family, though even that only lasts for maybe 30 seconds before we cut back to the tournament. But that’s really it. And that’s sort of emblematic of SpyxFamily as a whole show. It has good episode by episode fun, it’s entertaining on a weekly level. But it has absolutely nothing to make it really… memorable. To make it a truly great series that will be talked about for seasons to come. Even now, while it’s airing the discussion is starting to fall off. And that’s a shame.

So yeah, all in all while this was a fun enough episode to watch in the moment, I find myself falling off of SpyxFamily. My interest wanes week to week as I wait for it to actually do… something, anything, to catch my attention. And week after week it falls short. Always ending up as this cute popcorn show where I spend 30 minutes enjoy the cute antics of a 5 year old and the surface level games of a silly spy, only to forget it once the day ends. Maybe that’s good for some people. Maybe they just want to have fun. But I’ve started to become way to busy in my day to really want to spend time on something so… unsatiating. I still will, we do this weekly. But it’s definitely going to affect the final review, let me tell you what.

All that said, Fiona in a tennis outfit is kinda hot though.