Hello folks, and welcome as always to Wrong Every Time. The last episode I wrote up was Spy x Family’s premiere, and you know what, I think we’re just gonna dive right back into it. Spy x Family’s first episode was an absolute delight, impressing both through its fluid animated highlights and, more crucially, through its fundamentally crisp and character-driven sense of humor.

I say more crucially not because animation is less essential, but simply because it is what adaptation is bringing to the material – on the other hand, fundamentally repetitive, simplistic, or just-plain-bad jokes can’t really be “buffed out” through skillful adaptation. Fortunately, it appears that Spy x Family’s mangaka Tatsuya Endo has a talent for pacing and understatement, as well a solid understanding of how to build gags out of our assumptions about his cast. And beyond that, by establishing a point of connection between Loid and Anya through their similarly painful childhoods, Endo was able to hit some strong emotional beats even within this admittedly ludicrous premise.

With Loid and Anya’s bond established, it appears it’s time for them to go shopping for a mom. Let’s see what lunacy this peculiar family gets up to as we return to Spy x Family!

Episode 2

“SECURE A WIFE.” What a powerful goddamn episode title

Ah shit, right, we’re now getting the OP! And I’m already loving this style – this full block color aesthetic with heavy shading immediately brings to mind classic noir and detective comics, a clear touchstone for this story’s base concept

And then we immediately jump to this abstracted pop art style, evoking something like French comic art or fashion illustrations. Another aesthetic reference point for the show overall, playfully celebrated here in the OP

Lots of fun compositions here, and I particularly like the color design. Openings are often some of the most creative sequences in seasonal anime, allowing their directors far more flexibility in both concepting and aesthetic style than the more strictly adaptive episodes proper. They’re sort of like music videos in that way, which is why you see a lot of anime’s most distinctive directors tackling either or both

This abstracted style also brings to mind those traditional Spy vs Spy designs, which seems unlikely to be a coincidence

The one issue I have with this opening is frankly the song – it doesn’t seem particularly genre-appropriate in any way, and its chorus is a mess, with no real hooks to speak of. The strength of this OP is all in its visuals

We begin the episode with Franky in drag, immediately failing his Mama audition

“Have a peanut.” Even this tiny moment of the camera panning in on Loid’s thoughts is ornamented with a character-specific joke, providing the audience with that faint jolt of recognition and satisfaction for having remembered that Anya loves peanuts. There are characters who serve as mouthpieces for the author’s jokes, and there are characters whose fundamental personalities make them funny and endearing, and the second group are almost universally stronger inventions

We cut to city hall, where there’s apparently been a break-in

And we get our first shot of Yor, whose work uniform utterly fails to disguise her fundamental main character-ness

“There are a lot of spies around lately. So people are apparently getting reported for the tiniest things.” Yor’s coworker further solidifies this show’s quasi-East Germany setting, implying this nation even has its own version of the Stasi spying on its citizens. Given the show’s familial and comedic priorities, I doubt this stuff will amount to more than window dressing, but it’s certainly an interesting choice for that!

Yeah, in the context of Spy x Family, these horrifying reports have a very specific purpose: convince Yor that she needs a family of her own to avoid looking suspicious

At home, she receives a call from her brother Yuri. Not sure if we should make anything of his Japanese name just yet, but it’s worth noting

More quietly skillful direction here, as compositions like this canted angle cut of her tapping her heels emphasize her discomfort with lying to her brother

Yuri states he’ll hold off his promotion until he’s met Yor’s boyfriend, further necessitating some boyfriend hunting

I was wondering where specifically I recognized Yor’s voice from, and it turns out it’s from everything – it’s Saori Hayami, who possesses one of the most naturally “refined-sounding” voices among voice actresses, making her perfect for any sort of sheltered lady or nurturing upperclassman. Hearing her get to be more of a goof than in roles like Im@s’ Kaede or Oregairu’s Yukino is a lot of fun

Her affectation immediately changes when she gets a call from “Shopkeeper,” who delivers assignments to the “Thorn Princess”

This show’s aesthetic trick of simplifying character eyes into crescents or semi circles to indicate trickery works well enough, but feels like it’s more naturally suited to manga panels – the faces are just too simplified to serve as animated payoffs

Even these slight twitches of incidental character movement become so lively and convincing for this show’s action scenes. I love the slight, natural sway of this door guard glancing around himself, looking to see if anyone might have invited Yor

Interestingly, she refers to her target as “traitorous scum” before killing him. So is she working for the Stasi? Should I not be reading that far into this show’s political setup?

Her confidence is like a light switch, flipping on and off instantly as she jumps out of “Thorn Princess mode.” Clearly plenty of room for future jokes in that odd form of gap moe

“Oh no, it’s not coming off.” Always room for a quick Macbeth reference in your family spy satire

Interesting to see that Anya is pretty much riding sidecar for this whole wife-selecting process. Loid isn’t trying very hard to disguise his true identity at this point

Loid has also been assigned another mission, to disrupt a smuggling ring

“I’m being sold off somewhere.” “You won’t be if you behave.” What a charming couple they’ve become

Ah, their first meeting is so good! It makes perfect sense that Loid would take notice of Yor because she moves so silently, and that Yor in turn would notice Loid’s carefully concealed attention. Very clever that their closest point of genuine connection is the thing they can never reveal to each other

“Does that mean… you have a favorable impression of my physical appearance!?” Yor seems very good so far

Each of them would naturally have drifted apart after this encounter, but of course we’ve got the entertainment-starved Anya to play matchmaker. I frankly had no idea how this show was going to establish its exceedingly contrived premise, but it’s handling that challenge quite gracefully

They agree to each pretend to be the other’s boyfriend/wife during their respective interviews. I like them maintaining this degree of mutually agreed deceit regarding their relationship – given it’s these two, it frankly seems like that will give them more to bond over than if each of them were pretending to be genuinely romantically interested in the other

This show loves to include reflections in the composition wherever possible, quietly emphasizing the distance between these characters’ surface and true selves

Loid’s secondary mission involves retrieving art pieces that were “stolen from the west.” It seems they really are on opposite sides of this war

Very encouraged to see the show understanding its own priorities so well as Loid and Franky carry out their mission. Rather than framing Loid’s takedown of two dozen goons as “badass,” it’s abstracted into a farcical series of mid-distance acrobatics, using anticlimax to emphasize the joke of Loid’s preoccupation with the coming party date

Alone at the party, Yor is nearly convinced to clean up this situation by killing everyone present

Loid at last arrives, and in his bloody disorientation actually announces himself as Yor’s husband. A very efficient way to push this fabrication forward three steps at once – this episode is doing a terrific job of justifying the vast implausibility of Spy x Family’s premise

And in defending Yor, Loid establishes a genuine point of connection between the two of them: the difficulty of tolerating the intolerable in order to ensure a better future. Granted, Yor seems to be working for the bad guys here, so that “better future” is defined as opportunities for her young brother

“It appears some of my patients haven’t recovered from their psychotic episodes.” That’s why two dudes are chasing you in a car, Loid? Come on, you gotta do better than that

“Being a doctor must be very taxing.” No, it seems that he actually does not

I am swiftly learning that another of this show’s hooks is these moments when the two of them actually get to kick ass together. They’re a delightful power couple

And Yor, being Yor, suggests they actually get married

A grenade pin as an engagement ring. Incredible

And Done

Ahahahaha, what a ride! I am flabbergasted that Tatsuya Endo was able to contrive such a convincing marriage proposal between our ridiculous leads. It certainly helps that Yor is somehow the most credulous assassin in the universe, but this episode genuinely sold that emotional beat between the two of them at the party, and otherwise consistently reveled in their odd form of chemistry. Along with the shared nature of their underlying motivation, Loid and Yor are also equally ill-equipped to understand even the most basic aspects of normal human behavior. That might engender some doubts as to their suitability as undercover agents, but ultimately, who the fuck cares – this is a story about a ridiculous found family, and having both parents be hopeless cases in their own way is much, much funnier. I can’t wait for Anya to hear the news!

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