Spy X Family (2022) - Spoiler review and theories for the Anime and the Manga

 

Tatsuya Endo - Spy X Family on Crunchyroll

The Shounen anime that seems to be on everyone’s lips deserves the hype.

When it first started airing in Japan, and the rest of the world from the beginning of April to almost all of June 2022, on TV Tokyo, it was only available for paid Crunchyroll Fan tier or higher.

Now though, you can watch the Simuldub on selected streaming services, such as Netflix, depending on your country.

I found when I started watching Simuldub English and switched to Japanese to see the differences that the series is charming and unique, not dumping too much backstory or internal commentary too early.

There are always subtle differences in language and the nuance of the voice actors, which intrigued me.

Loid Forger, in the English dub, played by Alex Organ, has some complexity but is still warm and caring while being firm with Anya. The Japanese dub by Takuya Eguchi makes him sound a little stricter and much more burdened, but he has his sweeter moments as he loosens up in the storyline.

 The only difference I could find in Yor Briar’s (Later Forger) subtlety between Saori Hayami and the English dub by Natalie Van Sistine is that in the Japanese dub, Yor addresses Anya as Miss Anya and seems to act more like a nanny that is fond of Anya despite the plot basis that she is her mother.

In the English Dub, she just refers to Anya by her name or directly, which may be different because of how Hounourifics work in Japan or how the Actresses both decided to play their characters given the character brief.

Anya Forger is still played pretty childish and somewhat clueless due to her background by Atsumi Tanezaki in the Japanese version and Megan Shipman in the dubbed English; despite her power of telepathy, she still thinks in the way a small child of four or five does.  

The opening song, Mixed Nuts, tells us a story of how peanuts in a bag symbolise how Loid has to pretend he is like everyone else and has an everyday life with his daughter and his wife, who Yor is the stepmother of Anya because Loid told her a different story.

The importance of peanuts to Anya is because of their symbolism in Japanese culture.

Peanuts often symbolise family, and protection, something Anya is revealed early on in the second episode never to have had as an orphan.

 As more is revealed about her power of telepathy, we learn why she clings to the cartoons, peanuts and toys she never was allowed to have. 

In reality, Loid is a spy, codenamed Twilight, who needed a wife and child for a mission, Operation Strix, gathering intelligence about a prominent company owner, Donovan Desmond. 

To do this, he would need to enrol the child into a private school, where Desmond’s two sons attend, and his youngest, Damien, is Anya’s age. Anya would need to excel and gain Loid a place in a party for students and their parents, ones of excellent standards, known as imperial scholars.

Yor, meanwhile, is an Assasin for a company, and due to the cold war type climate, needed a Husband to avoid looking suspicious to secret Police. 

The official album cover, for Mixed Nuts, by Official Hige DANdism.

An English cover of the intro to go with the lyrics

From all around the world, we gather around like nuts in a bag. We stay

And where you go, we'll be snuggling up as we meet today

We're smiling as we say

Who knows, in this bag, we might get mixed with peanuts

We're all the same

And like we're nuts, we'll be crazy; at least I'll play pretend to be

We'll use happiness as a template.

Hide ourselves under the surface

Keep this act up, and say it's who we are

Living out our life like it's a lie

We'll keep it up this disguise we're hiding

We'll act like one big family at our dinner tonight.

Even with secrets as a whole, each one of you makes me feel at home, you know?

Feelings that I hide

I still feel them inside

Choking up, I can't help but reveal it sometimes

This stress inside my mind it's stopping me from living out my life, and I know.

Even if tomorrow is a mind-numbing day, like always

It doesn't matter either way, cause I'll be here with you

All of this will be my honest truth cause you will be here for me too

We're not like all the rest; we're like a bitter peanut. All left behind

To all the world, we're just rejects they think aren't worth the time

They instantly pay no mind

But when I look at you, I always want you here, right by my side

They may joke, they may roast, we'll get mocked more than most, yet though

Together they'll never break through all our pride

Even if you're born at the top or worked your way up non-stop

It's all the same; there's barely any difference there

Let's just live our life out here hoping we'll get blessed instead of coping that we'll

Reap all the benefits this unforgiving world will yield

Even from our window, the world outside appears so cold, you know?

No stars in the night, thunderstorms in our sight, even then I know with you

everything will be alright.

When we make mistakes, we'll improvise and carry on the show, but I know

This is all a part of normal daily routine, like always

It doesn't matter either way; I'll carry on the show

Even with secrets as a whole, each one of you makes me feel at home, you know?

Come take a seat 

We got some meals for a feast

Let's eat up all our dinner as one big family

This stress inside my mind it's stopping me from living out my life, and I know.

Even if tomorrow is a mind-numbing day, like always

It doesn't matter either way, cause I'll be here with you

All of this will be my honest truth cause you will be here for me too

This life I wanna spend my time and seconds on, any moment I'm with you

Even in the ending song, Souvenir tells how the trio are accidentally growing closer, despite knowing the reasons they told everyone and themselves. 

Anya seems to love her mother and father not just for their small family-like moments that they put on for others, Or because Anya loves how Loid is like Bondman, her favourite cartoon character, but because she sees them as her family, no matter what.

The aesthetic in most cold war Esque animes is there- Buildings similar to those seen in Germany, mixed with Oxford for the famous private school, Eden Academy in Westalis.

From other Anime, like Kiki’s Delivery Service, the 1940-50s look and the way it shows what the war looks like in development, in people’s clothing, thoughts, and how they act, is recognisable, even if the audience is younger.

It shows war through Anya’s eyes as her early experiences of it were of a test subject for the previous government of Ostania, and in more mature ways through both Loid and Yor’s experiences and pasts.

As we get further into Season 1, we see one instance when Yor begins to worry and doubt that she is helpful to him and Anya.

This results in hilarity until Loid takes her to a bar so they can talk, and through misunderstanding and panicking, Yor kicks him in the jaw.

She holds his unconscious body on a bench and sings a lullaby that he recognises from his past. It shows how the propaganda of war can take away people’s humanity by thinking one side or group can’t be anything like them.

Except both were affected by war as children, sometimes almost as young as Anya or Damien, who commit terrible acts of violence in the name of peace - just to survive and live in the world.  

Yet, Loid and Yor grew up in different parts of the country, with Loid from Westalia and Yor in Ostania, on two different sides of the iron curtain.  

If they knew about working for the country’s spy and assassin groups before knowing each other, I think they’d just see the otherness that war propaganda is.  

Aside from the violence of war and terrible bigotry with arbitrary state lines and nationalism that go with it, they are just two people trying to survive who forgot what it was like to feel and have someone besides yourself to rely on.

 

Even the base plot of fake marriage or hidden relationship with complex meanings may be recognisable, especially if you look at films like In the Mood for Love which does show two people in 1970’s westernised Japan learning to navigate everyone’s suspicions and struggle to have a relationship that everyone is doubtful of.

The anime itself is aimed at fourteen and above, but the fact that you don’t exactly need to show horror to be present works well.

Even in scenes with persuers of Loid or Yor due to their double lives, blood is almost too brightly coloured like grapefruit juice, except when Loid was bleeding and again when Yuri was.

The funny antics of Anya, and later on, the dog, Bond or Agent Bond as Anya calls him when playing, are hilarious because he’s learning just like Anya is, what it’s like to play, be loved, and learn.

Loid will happily buy his fake wife an apple tart because she likes them, and she finds out immediately and remembers enough on the way home one day to get Anya a caramel nut cake because she likes peanuts.

That must be why this show is so popular. Because they wanted a spy to be a pretend family, and instead, three wartorn people became a real one along the way.

The show is even getting both a second season and a movie in the coming year, according to Anime News Network, as the original manga creator Tatsuya Endō will be at the helm of both projects, with the film having a new storyline not seen in the Manga comics.

The last episode, which so far has only been available with subtitles, seems like a precursor to the next season and the movie that will follow it.

The plot comes full circle as the first Imperial Scholar gathering of the Eden school term has come up. Knowing he can’t just go in, with Anya only being in the first grade and having one Stella star (And one of the dreaded Tonitus bolts!), he makes a copy of Anya's sheep key ring so that he can go back and 'look for it' once he learns young Damian wants to see his father, Donovan, after the gathering.

Though this episode could technically be considered somewhere between filler and too serious for the previous episodes, which had more of Anya’s learning how to be a child- her childhood innocence and Yor’s learning to be ‘Normal’ since she took such an unconventional job as a teenager usually rounds out most of the episodes.

Since this episode is the last one and is mostly focused on Twilight/Loid Forger getting closer to his target, Donovan Desmond, the serious theme fits. 

It’s not supposed to be him showing his softer, sillier side with his pretend family. This is getting closer to the man who is the whole reason for the Operation Strix mission.

I do have a theory about Operation Strix, though. 

In the ending title sequence for the anime's second half, we see Twilight and Nightfall at the kitchen table talking. 

Despite the threat she is to Yor and the mission's success, Twilight needs to contact her on occasion because they both work for WISE.

It’s clear that Twilight is very overworked since the Spies are either arrested by the SSS or killed, and some aren’t even experienced enough for the most important missions.

So, he would be there to have brief meetings where they speak in code.

But, I also think because she's delusional and is convinced, she has to check for any signs to rescue her mentor from the fake wife or convince Yor to leave.

Just like Yuri is convinced Loid is not the one for his sister, and it can only be him because of that one off-hand comment she made when Yuri was little.

Even Yuri’s part shows him playing his part of the loving brother, while his real identity, we learn, is not that entirely.

Each segment of the new opening titles for the other half of the season shows different times of the day and moments that are changing who Yor, Loid, Anya, Franky, and Nightfall are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBSG2hZXTF0 

From how Loid saw Anya in his POV of a child in darkness in a world of no colour as Agent Twilight to how Franky constantly says he's not a babysitter but helps Anya learn to be a child instead of a Government experiment lab rat.

Anya even helps Bond learn what it means to be more like a loved family pet, considering she's learning what love is, from Loid, Yor and Becky.

Even the start of the Intro for Thorn Princess/Yor shows her not taking up much space, like how empty and utilitarian her apartment was when she met Loid, and Twilight's part of the Intro shows him sleeping on the sofa of a bombed-out or destroyed building- Something that connects [Redacted]'s past to Twilight, and Twilight to becoming Loid...

He's also pretty much always spacing out whenever he sees children laughing/playing because it reminds him of his friends and himself at that age, whether it's in the Manga when he's a rookie Spy recruit and sees those kids running past laughing or in the Anime when he spaces out at seeing the kids together on the doorstep before noticing the mugger.

But, [Redacted] is a lot closer to the surface than Loid would admit.

He's in the silhouette of Loid, watching Anya fall asleep before he shuts her bedroom door, and every time his eyes widen, and he genuinely smiles with his eyes open, and cheeks blushing.

Every time he is in casual wear with his 'For the Mission' Family, his hair is as fluffy as little [Redacted]'s was.

He is who he's always been. But with *his* family, he's learning to be himself, not a mask.

How many times has he remarked in some way that he's tired and that putting on a mask that you have to do to protect your 'real self' is something everyone does? When he says to Anya that liars are bad but internally tells himself it's necessary, Is he telling himself this because it's simply part of his training, or because he has to convince himself that's how it has to be?

I can't wait to see how much he learns and develops as a character with Yor's honesty and nurturing, Anya's bold truths and learning to be a child to help him realise this is how he will start healing.