Spy x Family Season 2

With her ability to read minds, Anya Forger is the only one who knows the true identities of her unconventional family. Her pretend father Loid operates as an elite spy code-named Twilight; her mother Yor kills on demand as the assassin Thorn Princess; and their dog, Bond, possesses the gift of precognition. Although they hide the truth from each other, this pretense of a perfectly ordinary family provides Anya with the genuine love and warmth that she longed for as an orphan.

Operation Strix—Loid's special mission to avoid potential war by gathering vital information and getting close to the powerful political figure, Donovan Desmond—is only possible if Anya plays her part right. She can either excel academically and become an Imperial Scholar at her prestigious school or make friends with Donovan's son, Damian. Neither is exactly easy, but with her adventurous attitude, Anya throws herself wholeheartedly into her mission as a Forger—all for the sake of international peace.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Forger, Anya Main

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Forger, Yor Main

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Forger, Loid Main

Eguchi, Takuya Japanese

Forger, Bond Supporting

Matsuda, Kenichirou Japanese

Desmond, Damian Supporting

Fujiwara, Natsumi Japanese

Briar, Yuri Supporting

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Frost, Fiona Supporting

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Henderson, Henry Supporting

Yamaji, Kazuhiro Japanese

Franklin, Franky Supporting

Yoshino, Hiroyuki Japanese

Blackbell, Becky Supporting

Katou, Emiri Japanese

Yamanaka, Kazuki Producer

Hayashi, Kazue Producer

Itou, Yoshito Producer

Nakazawa, Takaaki Assistant Producer

Reviews

Dec 23, 2023

Stark700

Recommended

Spy x Family has truly managed to grab an audience since its premiere. With multiple seasons, games, and even an upcoming movie in the making, it's easy to say the franchise has been a success. However, it's more than a success. For what it managed to set itself from other spy-action related shows, Spy x Family proves that creative ideas combining family love and an spy elements can easily win an audience.

Taking directly off from the previous seasons, the show reintroduces our familiar main cast. The Forger family consisting of Yor, Loid, Anya, and their companion Bond undertakes misisons and daily life adventures this season. ... While not much has changed in the overall direction of the show, it continues to push the boundary of its previous established ideas and evolve them. For instance, Yor and Loid's relationship develops further with their date despite some hilarious mishaps. While we can't determine if they have fallen in love yet, it's clear they have a bond that goes beyond their original intent to be a married couple. Anya's personality and persona remains generally the same including her love of spy movies and using her mind reading talent to understand the wonders of the world.

The show's creative vision continues to adapt multiple sides of our characters' stories. Anya's school life is also a highlight as we meet her friend Becky, classmates Damian, among others. You may remember Damian from the previous season and the impressions he's made, most noticably being punched in the face. He returns again with his work ethic, and serves as a foil to Anya. It's also obvious that his feelings for Anya has grown and as a recurring gag, almost everyone seems to realize it except Anya herself.

Indeed, character work is a major strength of this show. It gives every relevant character a chance to shine including those outside of the Forger family. Often times, supporting cast is left in the dust to nowhere to be seen again in these type of shows. However, Spy x Family takes care of its cast and brings the most out of their personalities. A clear example is Becky and her infatuation towards Loid. In one of the later episodes, the show manages to arrange a meeting between them that spills into a very entertaining sitcom-like scenario. In fact, Spy x Family has been known to arrange episodes and structure them in different segments to balance out the overall tone of the show.

However, this season does have a deeper plot, most prominently known as the 'Cruise Adventure Arc' from the manga. It's here we see the deadly skills of a spy in Loid and his partner Yor, as the assassin. This arc highlights the Yor family as a resourceful group of characters who uses creative ideas to achieve success. The mixture of psychological moments along with spy-esque action and drama hits the peak of this season. It's in this arc that we see how much our main cast is different from others. To my delight, the arc also manages to hook me in with its recurring gags. It never forgets what the show is about despite the arc having the highest stakes since its debut. Believe me, it's truly an arc worth watching.

Adapting more seasons with an established franchise can sometimes be risky. Some franchises may overstay its welcome while others fails to evolve itself. However, Spy x Family manages to surprise us by delivering yet another stellar season of spy action, drama, and family love.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 8, 2024

KoraxCatalyst

Mixed Feelings

Well-written

Spy x Family is the self-perpetuating motion machine of anime from a financial perspective. I wouldn't be surprised if, by the end of the show's run in however many episodes, it turns out to be one of the most profitable manga franchises of this half of the 21st Century. I've seen many apt descriptions of just how prodigiously preordained the success of this franchise was (birthed in a test tube, genetically modified, etc.), but something like Spy x Family is incredibly rare. From episode/chapter one, I think anyone who understood anime or its fans both domestically and abroad, prophetically, and viscerally, knew it would be ... popular. When Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen were initially published in Weekly Shounen Jump last decade, I don't think anyone could've envisioned the indescribable success those two properties would become, because their beginnings were kind of rough. I feel like half the discourse surrounding Demon Slayer when it first aired was "How the hell did something so basic leave such a staggering impact? Good-looking shows come out all the time." In many ways, I still ponder over whether KnY's success was some act of divine intervention.

But when it came to SxF, it was so obvious: An action-comedy Cold War era spy show surrounding the eternally resonant theme of found family. Spy x Family is ultimately light-hearted, but not too saccharine as to be nauseating to the boys/men whom the manga is theoretically aimed for. In many ways, it's kind of the perfect blend of everything, so when the show predictably blew up last year there was an incredible amount of hype going in, and it only escalated during the first twelve episodes. I have a unique relationship with the story because: for one, enjoyed SxF far more than I initially expected, and two, I was left emotionally impacted in ways I couldn't have predicted. I will admit, I might've (possibly) had some kind of trauma-related emotional response when I witnessed Loid pick up that fucking blue penguin and follow his daughter around the block because he yelled at her. I don't think I'm unique in having a childhood where a scenario demonstrating such nonchalant tenderness basically never happened, but SxF was able to effortlessly depict such casual kindness in a way as to provoke that scarred part of myself far more effectively than I'm sure Tatsuya Endo or Kazuhiro Furuhashi intended. It's like that chapter in Chainsaw Man where Makima and Denji are at a movie theater bawling at the most innocuous scene of all time, that was basically me. In short, I was in Spy x Family's camp once I finished its first cour, and was looking forward to enjoying the rest of the season along with everyone else once it was completed.

However, when season one finished airing last year, I noticed an unusual drop off concerning the level of sheer enthusiasm surrounding the IP. Regardless of its eventual lukewarm reception in the West, in Japan, the manga sold an ungodly amount of volumes and got phenomenal ratings despite being in a late night slot. Inevitably, we were gonna get more of this shit anyway, so—how is it?

I will be very clear, if you really disliked that five episode gap of season one of SxF where it was half episode side stories, you are going to dislike this season too. In fact, you are probably not going to like Spy x Family at all. One of the biggest complaints about the source material is how it starts spinning its wheels after a certain point like a lot of comedy manga tend to, the difference being, SxF pretended it actually had stakes at one point. What made SxF initially engaging to even normies was how carefully structured the early scenarios were to still be engaging and narratively relevant. But now when you're in this early-mid point in the story where you're no longer at the beginning that things are more focused, but are also too far away from the ending where the structure gets shaken up and emotionally impactful twists might happen, each individual episode lives and dies by how engaging it is on a micro level. For SxF, it peculiarly seems like it just can't do the SoL comedy without feeling like it's wasting the audience's time, so half the show is middling to straight boring. That isn't to say everything is boorishly passe in Spy x Family Season 2, they adapt one of the longer arcs of the manga in this season and that can get decently entertaining. But it simply doesn't recover the lack of any sort of fucks to give about the other episodes, even if they vary in quality.

I would describe Spy x Family as compromisingly interesting and uninteresting, where it doesn't feel as though Tatsuya Endo has nothing novel to say with this work, but more so that he has to constantly give up the weirder parts of his writing style in order to appease a pop readership base. This in tandem, does seem to please the general Japanese public that are ingesting this shit like it's air. But, to the anime fandom on the English speaking internet, particularly those for whom Spy X Family is their first unintended foray into anime SoL comedies, this does little for them.

I don't want to completely scrutinize this season into the ground, there's still some great animation and solid direction. This is quintessential modern anime in how it looks for both good and bad, even if some of the art direction feels strangely rushed and there are cg crowds for no reason. This show is by Cloverworks and Studio WIT, two studios that so consistently punch above their weight thanks to having access to solid talent, you're not going to find off model character art or any kind of grody shit like that. Kazuhira Furuhashi, whom I'm a relative fan of, is an incredibly solid director who knows how to maximize his staff regarding big IP projects, so this was always going to look good. And some of the more low-tempo episodes are pretty decent, it's just die roll almost every time if it's boring or not.

Either way, I'm too committed at this point to give up, but if you're even more sour on Spy x Family than me at this point you might as well stop while you're ahead. I'm not sure how long this story is supposed to be, but I'm sure Shueisha wants to milk this cash cow as much as it can for the rest of the decade, so probably longer than you want. This review comes, again, at a relatively nauseating period of my life. I'm still nowhere close to where I want to be, nor do I know if I'm taking the right steps to even have a shot at doing so. In other, more pernicious and anxiety inducing ways, I am constantly paranoid as to whether I am already a failure or not. I can't necessarily say Spy x Family remedied any of those feelings whatsoever, but it certainly didn't make them any worse.

Have a nice day.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 7, 2024

tcandy19

Not Recommended

What a terrible drop in quality from a series that had a great first season. Incredibly dull and repetitive story. The one great arc from the manga - the cruise arc - was poorly adapted with uninspired and dull animation. The annoying background music fucked up yors amazing fight scene and ruined the best moments. Other than that, how many times can one sit through the same shitty storyline over and over again? We get it, yuri is a creep for his sister, anya is a crappy student, etc etc. None of the characters get any development and the plot is dry.

Overall this season ... was a chore to get through and based on how the manga is going it doesnt look like things will get better anytime soon. This season is a skip. Read the manga instead for the cruise arc.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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