Welcome everyone, to a late episode of SpyXFamily! You may have noticed a few things being late recently, well that’s just because a lot of reviews are comin up at the same time. Should be clear for next week hopefully. Anyways, delays aside lets jump into the episode!
First up, lets talk about the midterms. This was a pretty standard “Cute Anya” kind of adventure. And I don’t mean that negatively! Cute Anya adventures, when spaced out or paired with something a bit more substantive, are a great time. You need look no further than this very episode for an example of that. The core premise? Anya needs to do well on her exams. The larger narrative conflict at stake? Peace between the East and West, as if Anya fails then she’s well on her way to getting kicked out. This gives a lot more gravitas to something that, lets be frank, really wouldn’t be all that important otherwise. I mean, since when are 6 y/o’s tests of any meaningful important? The other really cool thing it does is actually show the progression of time in the series, as Anya’s school year is halfway done.
On top of that, we also got a bit of an expansion on Anya’s powers. Up until now, they’ve largely been unimpeded. She could read anyone’s mind, learn anything, and the only thing holding her back was being a 6 year old. Now however, Spy X Family is starting to introduce some limitations. Limitations such as how they don’t work during the new moon. Right now the affect is pretty benign, it just makes the midterms actually mean something since she can’t just cheat on them. It gave us an actual small story. But there’s a lot of potential for how this can affect things in the future. Because if they can be blocked by something like the moon, then it stands to reason they can be blocked by other things as well. It’s a bit of a Shounen mindset approach to power scaling, but I think it has potential.
The only downside of this part of the episode to me was Yuri. Once again, he makes his sis-con return. Only this time instead of being a small part of a larger story with Yor, he takes over a good half of Anya’s midterm troubles. There’s a bit of cuteness here, what with Anya being aware of his and Loid’s “competition”, but otherwise it was just to much of Yuri’s bullshit at once and it really wasn’t that interesting. It’s a shame, because I really want to like these Yor backstory tidbits. Anything to flesh her and her history out is going to be for the better. But every time it comes via Yuri, it can’t help but be tainted by the extreme sis-con presentation. A real shame.
There were some amusing jokes in there at least. Anya figuring out and playing into his sis-con nature to get him to help her studying was cute, as was her last line about having learned absolutely nothing at all. I think there’s some real potential in their dynamic, what with Anya having figured him out and knowing how to manipulate him. Spy X Family just needs to tone down the sis-con stuff. Personally though, my favorite joke was the punchline at the end where we learn all the time they spent was for nothing because Foreign Language isn’t even one of the subjects being tested. Just those small twist jokes that don’t actually affect anything, but take a jab at whatever the last few minutes were spent doing. Got a good chuckle out of me.
Meanwhile the other half of the episode was that “substantive” bit I mentioned at the start of this post. The meat that augments Anya’s cute, but otherwise narratively insignificant, stories. I liked this a lot. We already know Loid is a badass spy, so how does Spy X Family make breaking into a school interesting? By having him clean up after the mess of a complete and utter joke of a character, Daybreak. And as works best for these kinds of characters, he has no idea he’s a joke. Leaving Loid to follow in behind him, and ensure his success. Because if he fails then odds are someone will notice Loid’s tampering as well, and that just can’t be allowed. I’m really hoping we see more of Daybreak moving forward, because I think he could have some fun interactions with Twilight!
Finally, there’s just a few little tidbits I want to mention. Stuff like the Desmond family drama, which I always find poignant and engaging, as well as the wholesome reveal that Anya (barely) passed all on her own. Stuff like this, similar to the small details I mentioned before with the Foreign Language joke, is what really ties the more serious narrative side together. They give the narrative a sense of… depth, that other comedy focused series just don’t have. They don’t care about their narrative enough to cement their gags in their world as actually happening, with actual narrative effects on people. But Spy X Family does, and I love that.
So yeah, all in all I think this was a good episode of Spy X Family. Nothing “wow” amazing, but solid and consistent. I think that Yuri is constantly bringing these down, which is a shame, but they still manage to succeed without him for the most part. Hopefully it can keep that up as we move into the second half of the season!
