Rule of Three: Spy × Family - Moving Pictures

The Rule of Three is when you watch three episodes of a TV show and make a judgement based on that whether you’ll continue watching. If a show isn’t sufficiently entertaining after about an hour (not counting ad breaks), then it’s probably not going to be at all. The latest season of anime is in full swing, and since Spy × Family has had three dubbed episodes I gave it a watch.

The show starts by introducing us to a spy, codenamed Twilight, as he completes a mission and gets his next one. During the three episodes, we see a couple of codes that he uses; one reading certain parts of a newspaper, and another some kind of number cipher. It’s really intriguing and definitely not like a certain MI6 agent. The mission is to get close to the leader of the National Unity Party and get intel for his bosses. However, to complete the mission he needs to enrol his child in an elite school to draw the target out. The one snag is that he has no children, and the enrolment period is imminent.

Twilight gets himself down to an orphanage and meets Anya, a child who claims she’s six years old and is secretly telepathic. He manages to drill the enrolment test answers into her, and she’s accepted to the school! Unfortunately, there’s another snag — father and child must be accompanied by a mother to the second stage interview.

Enter Yor, who works at city hall in the daytime and assassinates people at night as the Thorn Princess, under orders from “the Shopkeeper”. Through a series of contrivances, Twilight (now going by Loid Forger) winds up marrying Yor and she moves in with him and Anya. He needs a mother for Anya, she needs a boyfriend so she’s not arrested for being unmarried in her mid-20s, etc, etc…

That’s very quickly summing up the episodes because most of the running time is taken up by really awesome character interactions. It’s honestly high up my list of recommendations, and I can see why people have been drowning my Twitter feed in love for Spy × Family.

The writing and acting are perfect, and I can’t think of anything else to say about them that wouldn’t detract from that description. The way each of the main characters have interacted with each other has been hilarious, heartfelt, touching, romantic, and every note has hit exactly how it should.

One of my favourite bits was the meet-cute in the second episode. It’s where Anya really began to shine and basically tricks two people who were already interested in each other to get together.

The opening credits are very kinetic and both the opening and ending songs really suit what’s happening. I can’t say that I’ll be humming the songs, but they work and aren’t bad.

The animation is really fluid and organic, especially the action scenes. I’m looking forward to more fights because those were really well choreographed. It’s a stark contrast to how wooden the last show I watched was.

Spy × Family is the ultimate in heartwarming found family stories. I say that based on only three episodes. I want to know more about the countries of Westalis & Ostania! Will Loid (voiced by Alex Organ) and Yor (voiced by Natalie Van Sistine) have to fight one another? Or will Anya (voiced by Megan Shipman) reveal their secrets? I need to know!

Spy × Family is streaming now on Crunchyroll.