Spy x Family

Where do I start? Spy x Family tries very hard to be funny but it comes off as rather awkward. All the main characters have this "secret" identity that they are trying to keep private but it is so achingly obvious that it ends up being one of the most aggravating things I have watched. The whole plot also revolves around this very complex political issue which we never get a lot of detail about which makes the story very confusing. The animation and art style are quite alright but they cannot compensate for the poorly written plot and characters. Overall, I would not recommend ... this anime to anyone as it does not provide anything but an example of how to not develop a storyline correctly.

This is the season's most overhyped anime. I read the plot summary and thought, this had a lot of potential, with everyone leading double lives, there would be lots of suspense and subtext.

Like any good work of art, it's important to show not tell. Unfortunately, they give everything away within the first few minutes of the first episode. We are directly told by a narrator, Loid is a spy, Anya is a telepathic child, Yor is an undercover assassin.

Good shows present to you characters and develop them over time. For this entire premise to be enjoyable, we should learn about these characters slowly, figure out ... what each of their goals and backgrounds are. Loid's actions should lead you to understand he's a hidden operative. Anya should respond and react to things in a way that makes you realize, she has secret powers.

Incidentally, the one character that comes close to being properly portrayed is Yuri. In the limited screentime that he was allotted, you grasp at the character's mindset and multiple facets.

The show leverages extremely generic tropes, leading to each episode becoming cliche and predictable. Anya needs to pass a hard entrance exam? While some incident occurs, a miracle happens and everything works out.

Given all of the attention it received early on, this was a major letdown. The one saving grace was that this was a well produced show with quality animation and soundtrack. Anything less would've made this a complete disaster.

Spy x Boring is a wasted potential where the spy and parody stuff that seemed to be the main appealing of the first few episodes completely disappears to make way for a lot of filler, awful characters and repeating the same visual gag of a that girl who is more a meme than being human. The only reason a lot of people seem to rave about this is the hints of it being a family centered anime, the nuclear family created by a spy dad, murderous wife and daughter with psychic powers which AGAIN you only seen in the first few episodes to then be ... thing mundane and irrelevant which is why I see no reason to be praising him for this all the time considering how careless the parents are and above all that this whole thing is still a farce. So if you want to see an anime that shows the family aspect better, you better go find another one like usagi drop (an original anime that is not based on anything more).

The characters seem to be another blunder as almost every are not really interesting or show anything more than a one-dimensional aspect, Loid is the only good character and seems to remember his mission, while the rest are bland or downright unpleasant. Yor is relegated from the plot and only yearning to be a good wife, Anya is just a dumb faces generator, Damian and Yuri are the worst characters in the series that it is preferable that they disappear since it only harms the supposed wholesome atmosphere that it tries to create. If it played things a little bit closer to the vest, and just a little more seriously, all the dramatic and emotional elements would be so much more effective.

The epitome of massive media marketing. No substance but the appearance quality is very good. The VAs especially Anya are so appealing and amazing. There's no story, to be honest here. This is a RomCom anime so as long as you don't expect too much you probably would enjoy watching it. The comedy side of it is also a joke. To my understanding, the budget for this anime might have been spent like this: 65% marketing, 20% 10% production, and 5% for the rest( story, etc...)
Not a good anime at all but because there's so much advertisement for it and also Anya who is so ... cute and lovable, you can watch it with absolutely and I repeat absolutely no expectations.

Spy x Family suffers from being very okay in a genre of very more-than-okay anime.

The production quality of being a CloverWorks x WIT Studio is obviously nothing to sneer at - the art and animation do not suffer, and the sound design is very solid. Voice acting by Takuchi Eguya, Hayami Saori (even if she wouldn't be my top pick), and Atsumi Tanezaki are all top notch.

But while the premise of a spy, an assassin, and an esper masquerading as a family unit seems unique and interesting, the execution falls flat in both its action and slice-of-life elements. The strongest aspect of the ... story is Loid's spy plot - his surrounding cast have good chemistry with the character and present interesting scenarios a la the aquarium scene. But in a genre with shows like Princess Principal and ACCA, SxF finds it hard to compete on the political intrigue and action-mindgames fronts.

From here, the weaknesses compound. Yor is unfortunately chalked up to an attractive ditz who also happens to be an assassin, rather than the other way around, and the constant usage of alcohol or misunderstandings in her interactions with Loid or any of her supporting cast greatly cheapens the plot. The academy setting and its point-earning plot progression also feels like a waste of a great political setting and limits what this anime could achieve, leading to a relatively... boring story.

That leads me to the other half of this show's target genre: the SoL element with found-daughter Anya. This genre is far too diluted for SxF to successfully break into. While Anya is certainly meme-bound, the show suffers from an unfortunate fact - realistically young kids stymie the plots of mature adults. It's a good perspective to understand the pains of fatherhood; certainly, you can't expect kids to understand everything or pick up on complex issues quickly. But Anya's esper abilities are used frustratingly at the plot's convenience, leaving the viewer to guess if this show wishes us to enjoy Anya as a naive child or a character actually relevant to moving the plot forward. Obviously, the public has vindicated Anya as a moe character worthy of veneration, but I think this process could have been easier if writing of Anya was done more in the line of Hinamatsuri, Kakushigoto, or Yotsubato, without the hair-pulling of child's antics and more emotional scenes.

Spy x Family had high potential with many good premises, but chose to take many safe routes with its story that resulted in my lackluster enjoyment.

Spy X Family was a heavily promoted launch into the ever-crowded field of anime light drama. With an interesting initial premise, a different-than-usual setting, and a quick pace to the story, the first episodes are likely to draw you in. The problem is that by episode 4 or so, it just starts to get... weak. This show seems intended to be situational comedy, but it is driven by uninteresting situations. The characters are all copy-cat tropes, so it's extremely predictable.

The good:
So far the art has been consistently excellent. It's not going for as much of a flashy action style as a Shonen anime, but ... there is never a weak moment in the art. The music is also good, problem is that it's hard to get too excited about the music when it is backing up a weak plot. If you don't mind a bad plot and just want warm-fuzzies on an extremely cliched family drama note, you might enjoy this anime.

The bad: after initially capturing your attention, the show quickly switches to what are essentially filler episodes. These filler episodes also don't do much in the way of character development, more on that below. As a viewer it feels like a bait-and-switch, with the writers falling onto repetitive tropes and transparently obvious episode plots after promising a more complex plot in the first episodes. Unfortunately, this is now a tried-and-true commercial formula, so I expect we will see more of this in the future. An excellent comparison is Kaguya Sama, which similarly had an unusual take on the typical anime romance, only to collapse back towards standard tropes before the end of the first season. Many viewers have noticed that the three main characters in Spy X Family have striking similarity in both purpose and appearance to the three main characters of Kaguya Sama, which cannot possibly be accidental. This show appears to me to be a blatant cash-grab. The series which will not be long-remembered by anime lovers.

The plot:
In a world divided into East and West, spies (apparently) play and important role in global balance. This is told to the viewer, but never really explained or shown. Top spy gets sent on a mission that requires him to fake becoming a father so that child can enter a prestigious school that the child of an intelligence target also attends. Top spy very quickly finds precocious child at orphanage and happens to run into a double-life assassin that is looking for a fake boyfriend. Thus far, it's a good setup with lots of possibilities.
Having established this trio, the plot then starts to meander. A lot of focus on getting into the school but, due to blatant plot railroading, doing that actually requires some basic family bonding. Incredibly accelerated bonding, as the characters feelings towards each other change much more quickly than actual plot events would warrant. Once into the school, due to blatant plot railroading, the student has to achieve excellence in order for the Top Spy's mission to be successful. All the children at the school act about twice their age in terms of social comprehension, so this school setting feels a lot like your typical school drama.

The characters:
Loyd is introduced as the leading man, and plays a role in establishing the setting as well. As top spy code-named Twilight he is capable and intelligent, but most importantly focused and calculating. After a life-long dedication to his work, that focus manages to completely unravel within a few weeks of the start of the anime, with Loyd falling into basic trope patterns. He's the unintentionally emotionally invested member of the core trio, the smart one that is herding the cats, deliverer of accidental and dead-pan humor. That more or less summarizes his entire character, as well as any of a few dozen other standard anime characters.

Yor has been one-dimensional since the start. She's the cool killer that actually has a warm heart. Never an unpredictable reaction. Worse, the writers never use Yor's strange circumstances to draw out emotional depth. So far it hasn't gotten beyond the SHOCKING observation that Yor can have a maternal instinct despite not being Anya's biological mother. From start to finish, she is tailored to please the "waifu" crowd.

Anya is the precocious child that glues the main cast together. When I say precocious... none of the children in this series act anything remotely like their age, and Anya is probable the mildest offender despite being a mind-reader! Anya is also extremely one-dimensional, but that's acceptable to me because you can't expect much depth from a 4-year-old. Anya is also your stereotypical plot-enabler, being the bridge between Loyd and Yor. I can't believe the writers weren't clever enough to have Anya play this role without being a literal mind-reader, but here we are.

Everyone else is some poorly copied character from a different anime. Whether it's the school master with the obsession with elegance, or the information broker with exaggerated reactions to everything, you can find a perfect copy for each one in an anime produced within the last 5 years. Again, it's hard to overemphasize just how much they copied the characters from Kaguya Sama, from personality down to the hair and eye colors.

Conclusion:
A promising series that quickly lost focus and headed for standard tropes. Will undoubtedly make a bunch of money resulting in more bad anime being produced with the same bait-and-switch plan.

Edit: Watched up to episode 10 because people were arguing that I'm being unfairly harsh. I stand by everything in this review, and will stop watching now.

anya is very off-putting because of her overreactions, the nonsensical noises she makes, and the creator's attempt to make the character seem naive. the character resembles an adult pretending to be a child more than a child. it is also a character with a fundamental logic flaw. While it should be a matter of time for a person who involuntarily hears people's thoughts to lose their innocence and become disgusted with people, Anya comes across as a character who maintains all her innocence and is full of excitement and life energy. In addition, the sudden departure from the professionalism of an agent who is famous ... for his outstanding success in dangerous missions alienated me from the series and I stopped watching it.

I'm not even kidding, I need someone to please explain to me why this show is so good. I will admit, when I first saw the poster and premise, it looked unique and promising. Everyone would keep talking non-stop about how good it was, and I kept seeing all the high scores. I finally watch it, and just kept thinking "It's going to get better now, right?" And just manages to be boring garbage every episode.

This is a comedy anime, but after the first two episodes of introduction, all the jokes become way too predictable. Literally every joke is:
Dad/Mom/Anya do something crazy
People act shocked
Sometimes people ... question the absurdity.

And that's it. No raising the stakes. No taking the joke any further. It's almost like watching someone go on the street and say a dirty joke just to get a reaction, and leaves without doing anything further. Like yeah, I guess the spy equipment or assassin skills or crazy intelligence is abnormal enough to be funny, but if do this schtick with the same characters over and over without escalating it, then it's literally watching the same joke on repeat, which gets boring.

My other problem is the inconsistency of the show. When I read the premise, I was like "oh man, a spy and an assassin have to fake a family, while hiding their true identities? There's no way they could fuck up this hilarious premise." What happens instead? Dad/Mom accidentally do something that reveal their identity. Then one of them justifies it with like "oh, I take yoga" or "I like helping children". And that's it. No further discussion. They just drop the conversation to do something else. So if the premise of the show is a spy and assassin hiding their identities, but you literally don't want to have any plot or discussion when their identity is accidentally revealed... THE FUCK AM I WATCHING THIS SHOW FOR? I have nothing to feel tense or to laugh about if I know that every single time they accidentally reveal their identity, no sense of consequence will happen to them.

So, okay, the show has no good jokes. Maybe it's just my problem that I watch these animes for comedy (even though I've seen people talk about how hilarious this show is all the time). But it's a spy show, there's gotta be a lot of action, right? I find it... eh. It could be my own bias, but I feel like the action is just okay. Nothing too special or tactful. Just, well, what you expect to happen in any spy action show.

Finally, we have the wholesome stuff. Yeah, I don't give a fuck about that. I don't give a fuck about the cute stuff with Anya. I don't care about showing how they can be a loving family despite being fake. All the people who like this wholesome stuff are probably just a bunch of people who wished they had wholesome loving families in the show, or had a cute sibling like Anya. I mean, if you like that, sure go for it. If you don't care about it, then you will really not care about this show at all.

Is there anything I like? The backstory is really good, and the idea of the premise is good. And that's what made me so disappointed. They had a really good concept, and just execute it in the worst way possible. The other thing I like is the Dad character. He reminds me of Saiki K when giving his deadpan commentary on stuff, which is kind of funny.

UPDATE: Apparently there is this interview where the creator of Spy X Family admits he did not like the characters in his manga. https://en.as.com/meristation_en/2022/07/15/news/1657911905_266946.html#:~:text=Tatsuya%20Endo%2C%20the%20mangaka%20behind,no%20attachment%20to%20the%20characters.%22

Right there, he just admitted he made the characters the way they were just for the fans, especially how Anya is just loli-bait. And what do you know, he himself did not give a shit about the relationships enough to have a bond with his own characters. I've been telling everyone how the characters are just bait every time someone brings up Spy X Family. I told them they only like the show for the characters and wholesomeness and nothing else. I FUCKING TOLD YOU GUYS!

While the initial premise for this show was really interesting with a Mr. and Mrs. Smith type of story involving a spy father, an assassin mother, and a child with the ability to read minds, and how they are to live as a fake family to save the county from going to war. For the first few episodes it was really good with a lot of action, interesting spy plots, and Yor being a interesting character, which in later episodes she falls into more of just a mother figure with a slight romantic interest in Lloyd.
For me this series is basically how much you enjoy ... Anya and her antics being a dumb and mostly useless kid. Sure she is cute and wholesome but if you don't care about that in any way or don't enjoy kid characters then this is not for you as it isn't for me.
While it has fairly good animation, an okay story, and could be just some light fun to watch, there is nothing about this show to me that is remarkable or as great as people make it out to be. Anya is annoying and almost never uses her powers for any good or useful reason (I get she is a kid but still, why give her something like this if she never uses it for anything other then mostly making dumb faces for comedy), very little gets focused on actual interest plot and instead we get to see tons of episodes about Anya just being a kid and nothing else interesting.
Overall 6/10 with the first few episodes being good then falling off towards the end when became a wholesome slice of life rather then a fun action spy anime.

I know i’m gonna get hate for this but.. this is definitely the most overhyped anime of 2022. I mean 8.74, seriously? How did this heaping pile of trash surpass so many other good shows? I won’t go into that though since this is a review and not a rant so let’s continue.

Plot: A spy who goes on a mission has to adopt a child and get married as part of the plan. And he can’t let them know it’s part of his mission. Predictable and lackluster. Just another anime where some grumpy fool adopts a little girl. Definitely haven’t seen other animes with ... that premise used a million times!! If your looking for a anime with a consequential plot I wouldn’t say this is the right show for you, let me explain why.

Characters: Loid forger, Yor forger and Anya forger are the mcs of this show. Loid is a cold and serious smart man while anya is very kind, goofy, and kawaii!! Totally haven’t seen an anime with two opposite characters having to live together and learn how to get along with each other. Totally not generic.. Yor is also aloof and cold, she doesn’t really add to any of the story. She pretty much is just there for the sake of it. She is always having to save loid and anya but nothing else really happens with her. She’s a pretty wearisome and bland character.


Comedy: This label is misleading, it was labeled as a comedy. Not one scene got a laugh out of me, not even a single smile and the jokes were all platitudinous. Maybe slightly funny at first but then they used the same joke fifty more times. For example, anya is obsessed with peanuts and the peanut obsession gets brought up every episode and it gets tiring and the comedy just dies down. And anya being dumb is not funny or cute. And Lood and Yor aren’t even funny. It’s like for example Loid kicks a criminal in the balls and your supposed to laugh at that..and it happens in every episode, it’s so uproarious when they beat the criminal hahaha!!


Action: Not one slightest bit of the action or fighting was pragmatic, Yor and Loid are op, neither of them ever get damaged or beaten in a baggle because they are typical shounen protagonists of course. And the fight scenes don’t even last for a long time, maybe like 5 minutes, and the fights are just so bland. When I heard my friends talking about this show having good fight scenes I expected it to be like My Hero Academia but instead it’s just slothful animated fights with no meaningful exceptions. This show is not an action, just another misleading and unnecessary label.

Conclusion: Nothing really special about this anime other than the character designs and the animation being okay. But overall a bland anime with unexciting action and dull and generic characters and a premise that we’ve seen get used a million times. The soundtrack is also unremarkably stupid and ridiculous. Just not worthwile and a complete waste of 4.8 hours of your life. If you like this anime then that’s good, i’m just explaining my opinion on it and giving it some criticism.

When I was browsing the seasonal anime , this one caught my eye because of the artwork but I thought it was boring so I never watched it. But it got a lot of hype so I gave it a shot , Turns out I was right.

The anime has no drive, no excitement, just trying to reel in people through the quirky loli girl that has no depth. Just same joke over and over, "Mind reading" wow.
"Peanuts Cute" wow.

Feels like a combination of Cowboy Bebop/Baccano vibes. Both which were very trash to me , just felt like artwork was great but story and enjoyment was ... not there.

I notice this a lot .. the mainstream anime that has cool artwork is overinflated and boring. Avoid, I watched 5 episodes because sometimes anime takes a couple episodes to kick in but nah this one just got staler.

How to describe Spy x Family in one word? Overhyped
The plot is not interesting at all and usually it's repetive. I hope people will forget about this show soon because it's almost everywhere. Mostly edits with Anya and Yor.
People are obsessed with Yor because she's hot and that is enough for some people to get hooked on the show. She's an assassin but we only get to see her do her fake normal job.
Loyd is also handsome and perfect Gary Sue. He can deal with all problems somehow without any fail. He doesn't have any weaknesses (expect eating Yor's sh*tty food) or bad side. If ... all men were like Loyd then no problems would be unsolved.
Anya is overly hyperactive child with no filter on her mouth and will say absolutely everything that comes to her mind. She's supposed to be interesting with her mind-reading ability but she is just annoying little brat instead.

Overal this show is not that bad it just need better story concept. Same goes for season 2.

TL;DR: it’s not too bad, but hardly worth watching. The set up looks very promising but it just doesn’t deliver.

There is hardly any plot going. It feels that plot is a burden for show creators who would’ve rather froze things in place and shot filler episodes. It’s particularly visible in the end of the show — normally you expect that last episode sums and ends the whole season, and here the characters go to yet another distraction episode which adds nothing from plot perspective.

It’s probably similar to those cartoon with thousand episodes you’ve watched in childhood with little relation in between. It’s not bad per ... se, but something very odd for the anime format.

Unfortunately there is no character development either. There is virtually no change of the characters over the whole season, despite a bunch of topics to explore e.g. Anya and school academics, Anya and her classmates, Loid's perception of spy vs family priorities, Anya and her management of psycho power, etc.

The only good part is a good dose of humour, but even jokes feel very repetitive by the end of the season. “Papa is a big liar”, etc.

hahaha that was LITERALLY a kid's show I just watched. Like, I might show my child this show in the future and they would really enjoy it. You know how lots of slice of life animes are in middle school or high school because that's the target audience they're trying to hit? This show isn't meant to be slice of life but anya is in kindergarten so it literally could be. i really don't think ANYTHING interesting happened in that show like at all. Some good funny moments though. Understandably there is probably more interesting things happening later in the show but I"m probably not ... going to continue watching. Like there is no substance to these characters that would warrant anything genuinely interesting happening. Also this whole family in disguise thing is so contrived. What a convenient way to just hit every check box of what the kids are watching these days. At least in Conan he's like actually working on cases and stuff. If you liked this but thought sword art online was dumb ur literally a hypocrite lol