Spy x Family: What Happens When Tension Meets Sweetness?

While not as peak meme as before, the third season of Spy x Family has been airing this fall. Whether you’re like me, excited for more functional family fun, or you’ve never heard of Spy x Family, let’s explore this series’ strengths and why it can be so compelling.

Spying For Family

I can summarize Spy x Family like this: spy adopts a telepathic daughter and grabs an assassin wife for good measure — but only the telepathic five-year-old knows everyone’s secrets. That’s how we meet the Forger family. That summary also captures none of Spy x Family‘s magic, except the wacky starting point.

I’d describe this anime differently. It’s a story about found family and laying it all on the line for the people you choose to build a life around. That the family members are an isolated spy, a frightened child telepath, and an overly anxious assassin is incidental.

A Doctor, Office Lady, and Prep School Student Walk Into a Bar

What do I mean by incidental? The plots and the characters’ specific jobs don’t matter much to the themes. They aren’t meaningless because there’s an overarching plot about world peace that brought the Forgers together in the first place. These characters could have different lives, but the story’s themes could stay the same.

The spy and master of disguise, Loid Forger, portrays positive masculinity. He takes his job as a family man seriously, does his best not to take frustrations out on his family even when they’re the cause, and does traditionally feminine jobs like cooking and helping Anya study. Anya, the telepath, portrays childhood anxieties cranked up to eleven. Sometimes those anxieties are about getting someone to like her. Other times, they’re a terrorist bombing because she’s all too aware of the dangers and responsibilities of her adopted parents from reading their minds. Meanwhile, Yor Forger portrays how it’s okay not to live up to others’ expectations, and that being perfect is overrated when you have dignity and are loving.

While there’s more to these characters, I’d argue these are their core themes. The beauty of Spy x Family is that these themes are universal. Shift the show in place or time, or change these folks’ jobs, and the plots change. The positive lessons, though, stay the same. Spy x Family benefits from the crazy premise, but it’s not defined by it.

The Spy x Family That Tries Together, Stays Together

Enter the Spy x Family story structure. There are two sorts of episodes. Overarching plot episodes that bring in most of the family, and one-shot conflicts that can involve as few as one of the Forgers. The one-shots can be fun and hilarious. One of my favorite short arcs is the tennis arc, which, despite being two episodes, is more of a one-shot.

What they lack is stakes and tension. Half-episode stories about Anya losing a classmate are world-building and entertaining. But they lack Spy x Family‘s greatest strength: taking tension and combining it with the sweetness of family support. These one-shots can be thematic, but the low stakes keep the themes understated.

Take the paired tennis episodes, for example. After Loid completed his mission, we see him use the opportunity to play tennis for work to also introduce the sport to Anya and Yor. Even though the focus is on Loid, we see him balancing work and his family more healthily than he does when he’s overworked and exhausted.

Arc Trumps Gag

That’s where the episode arcs involving the whole family come in. The one-shots are fine comedy, but the family episodes are the strongest. Whether the conflict in an episode is as dramatic as a terrorist attack or as simple as getting Anya into school, Spy x Family puts family dynamics front and center as its three leads apply their unique talents to helping each other. No matter the stakes, as tension builds and threats mount, these three people, supporting and loving each other unconditionally, transform this anime from cheery comedy with the occasional dark dip into a sweet spectacle that can make the most jaded person go “awwww.”

Start Strong, End Strong

Take the meme of Loid’s proposal to Yor. These two relative strangers are in a firefight in the streets. They could die, never knowing each other’s real identities. Despite that, their decision to falsely marry for each other’s needs to appear normal is the focus of the scene. The gunfight escalates their dedication to each other by framing how they will face violence and danger. But their decision to get fake-married solves the real conflict. This scene is action-packed and heartwarming, but the action serves the heartwarming moment, not the other way around.

Nothing Moves Like Movies

That is why the movie Spy x Family Code: White is the series’ best showing. What starts as a family vacation to help Anya learn to make a dessert goes horribly wrong. Yet each Forger steps up time and again to support the others. This movie is an emotional roller coaster, being a sweet family outing one moment, and a tense confrontation with the local military over dessert of all things, the next. By the time Yor was killing a cyborg soldier using the wax-based lipstick Loid bought her to protect her daughter, my heart was warm, and the ridiculousness of the scene seemed as natural as if Yor had pulled Anya out of traffic. For anime fans chasing the wild high only anime can provide, Spy x Family Code: White is fabulous.

Spy x Family Stumbles

The third season of Spy x Family isn’t bad, but at least in the first half, it doesn’t play to the show’s strengths. One and a half episodes showed a backstory we already know the most relevant parts of. The first few episodes are half episode one-shots plus that backstory. There isn’t even one meaty two-episode arc.

Although it’s still funny and interesting, the third season’s first five episodes mostly bored me. My favorite part of this series is missing so far. While I’ll finish the season at some point, I’m not enthusiastic about it. The start of season two was similar, but then the series’ longest arc shows up in the middle of the season as a glorious high point, so hopefully season three ends as strongly as that.

Conclusions Offered for the Non-Mind Readers

Even at its worst, Spy x Family is funny and uses its interesting characters well. At its best, though, Spy x Family is a masterpiece of character-driven storytelling with heartwarming moments punctuated by the risks its characters take for each other. Instead of, for instance, talking about how gossip is mean, each character explores mature themes by demonstrating positivity in the face of hardship.

Good day. Or perhaps good evening. Your mission is simple: watch Spy x Family. The only people I’d say should avoid this show are people with a low tolerance for exaggerated comedy.

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