Hello everyone, and welcome to a SpyXFamily double feature! I apologize for missing last week. I was so caught up in writing the Danseur review that I completely forgot to do this. Luckily, the season is taking a break until October so I have all the time in the world now to get ready for the second half. A shame the industry needs this but hey, take what we can get. Now lets dive into the episodes!
So first up, lets talk about SpyXFamily’s animation. There was some great stuff in both episodes, but this week’s certainly takes the cake. There were so many small bits, like the water and character animation when Loid was checking the ID or when Anya was touring her penguin around the house at the end, that simply beautiful. For those who don’t know, parts of this episode were outsourced to Studio Madhouse, getting some help to finish off the season. Now I don’t know who did what scenes, but helping relieve some of the pressure clearly paid off with just how produced the episode looked. It really makes you wish studio’s would take less work so that teams could focus on what they have, rather than having to trade favors and get help just to finish an episode. Regardless, it looked good.
Getting into the episodes themselves, “Stella” and “Penguin Park”, these were both rather cute Anya focused episodes. Lots of antics, some fun comedy. Whether it be running around at home to find a talent, messing around at the hospital doing community work, or at the aquarium looking at all of the fish. It was fun! I think it’s pretty clear by this half-way point that Anya is the main draw of the show. Her antics are wholesome while her mindreading helps setup a lot of the jokes and interactions. Sure, it still makes no sense. But does it really need to in a story about a spy and an assassin living together under a fake marriage?
And it’s not like the comedy stops at Anya either. I think Loid had a good number of jokes this week to! His entire sequence of passing as a Penguin employee, memorizing the list, getting the other guy promoted, being dead on his feet from work. That kind of absurdist comedy always works with Loid because of how serious he is as a character. It’s like watching your serious dad or uncle slip on or accidentally say something silly, only to do their best to play it off. Sadly though, there are two many issues I’ve come to notice with the series.
The first is pretty fixable: Yor. Yor feels like she hasn’t gotten anything to call her own yet. She’s present in all of the episodes, and she had that little thing with her brother sure. But nothing on the level of Loid or Anya, not since her introductory episode. She hasn’t even gone on a single job since we met her! On top of that, most of the ones she does have, like her brother, are still centered around Loid. It’s like she’s a supporting cast member despite being one of the two female leads of the entire show. I’d really like it if SpyXFamily gave her an arc of her own. There’s some setup there with her concern about being a good mother or hiding her secret, so just… do something with that. Anything! Just let Yor have a story about her.
The second however is much more difficult to fix: The balance in tone. SpyXFamily is a series set in in Cold War Germany. Despite all of it’s comedy, the main narrative is still about preventing war and death on a massive scale. And this is brought up often! It’s brought up in this very episode, as Loid has to try and stop chemical weapon plans from getting into the hands of terrorists! But… It feels like the serious moments don’t have any bite. Like the exist more to remind us “Yes, there is an overarching plot” rather than to seriously progress or do anything with that plot. So many times it tries to switch serious, like with Loid having that line about kids drowning silently, and I’m just like… Ok? Was this not a comedy series 5 seconds ago? It doesn’t feel like that balance is particularly well done anymore.
I guess what I’m really getting at here, why this and the previous post were delayed, why this one is shorter, why there’s this air of… ambivalence in what I’m writing is because SpyXFamily has lost some magic for me. I don’t know if it’s because the series has changed, if it has just gotten stale or if I’m just not in the right headspace to enjoy it. Whatever the reason though, I no longer look forward to watching this every week. Not like I did with Danseur or do with NHK. It’s more like an obligation. So because of this, because I don’t think it would be right to try and review the show while in that state, I’m going to hold off on the final review. I’m going to wait until the season starts its second half in October and review both together. Hopefully by then I’ll like it again.
As for what that means for you, well, no more SpyXFamily until the Fall season basically. No big review until I feel I can give it a fair shake either. Sorry if that’s not what you want, but I’d rather not write something without being sure of my feelings on it. So good bye for now, I’ll see you again in the fall. Or earlier if you read other shows I guess.
100000% on the Yor comment – I think if she got about half of Anya’s screentime this would be my AOTS (Anya’s mind reading did note that she had done a job the day before episode 12, but it’s not shown or anything). There’s so much more that can be done with her character instead of just being a faux mother – I’m hoping the next season has that.
For me, this show is obviously well done, but it’s just not the first show I watch every week. I think I just don’t care about Anya’s school, which has dominated the premise so far. More Yor!
Yor gets a big arc later in the manga.