SPY x FAMILY

With only twelve episodes, Spy x Family's plot and characters feel almost too premature to review at the moment. Despite that Twilight's mission consists of political corruption and spy missions, and is the most interesting part of this series for me, it disappointingly waters it down to the point there doesn't feel as if there is anything really interesting to say. And this is considering everything else, such as Anya's moments that reduces this to a kids show many times. Even anime like K'On! can give me more depth and motivation than Anya making funny faces all the time, which constantly left me with my eyes half open at how repetitive and not funny it became for me. If Anya being cute and making funny faces makes this a masterpiece, I just can't comprehend, and am confused about the type of yardstick that is being used to rate this series. Her constantly explaining what the characters are thinking could add to the development of Twilight, and the hollow husk of character that is Yor, though it sometimes felt like constantly vomiting useless information.

Even Damian feels like a character that has more depth than Yor. Despite that he is a young stuck up rich kid, he has enough sense to respect Anya when she helps him, which is admirable. I actually felt very excited to see where Yor was going to go. She's voiced by the only thing I liked out of Demon Slayer (Shinobu, who has been disappointingly left out of the anime), and her being an assassin, hiding under an already fake family, and having to struggle to hide it, made me wonder all the possibilities in how they can make this interesting and fold out. I was dreaming too idealistically, however, as Yor mostly stood in the background, and constantly made me question her intelligence. At least they somewhat tried to show her assassin side. They should have tried to develop her character more, and shown more of her missions. Even the studios didn't try to do anything with her with some meaningful anime only content. It's a missed opportunity to salvage her character. There are some anime, like Legend of the Galactic Heroes, that can take characters like Dusty and Poplan, who have a small presence in the novels, and bring them to life, rich in character, by enhancing them with lots anime only content, in a way that it doesn't ruin the source material. Yor should have had this treatment.

The simplistic and episodic approach this has leaves me with little to say about it, plot wise. The finale was just another cute moment, which did nothing to end this on a better note from where it was before. Despite that Wit Studio and Cloverworks were involved here, there are hardly any moments that really excelled in animation. Not only that, they get drowned out by the amount of slide shows, CGI crowds, and zoom ins into doors, while characters explain to me, again, something I've already heard several times, or that is obvious. The animation feels stiff; Yor looks like an insect sometimes, as if she was secretly an ant queen experiment gone wrong that escaped.

Like Komi Can't Communicate, the comedy is what salvaged this for me. Unlike Komi's anime, which burned itself out eventually, Spy x Family remained consistently and cleverly funny. Twilights very serious mission is absurdly approached, as the master spy can barely hold a fake family together, and though he can pull all sorts of incredible talents as a spy, is faced with his greatest challenge of being a father and husband, that puts him often at wits end. Anya can be adorable, and funny, though I look for something more meaningful in anime besides funny faces and cute moments with toys. It's clear she took over the anime as the most popular part of it. I can't comprehend it. Everyone looks for different things in anime, I suppose, and that's fine.

I understand that this is very popular, and that's a bad thing. I understand that anyone saying something negative about this will get outcasted. Nothing is perfect; even one's favorites. Still, all these nearly perfect consensus scores on multiple anime websites are all irrelevant to what the individual thinks. Don't depend or rely on them as if they are the bible, because letting people with different tastes rate, manipulate scores, and allowing to tell you what to like and not like is absurd. The only way you'll know if you are going to like something is by watching it yourself. Relying on them makes you miss out on potentially good shows. I have to face the fact that plenty of my recent favorite seasonal anime will be buried and forgotten. It doesn't mean that I am wrong, and that I have a questionable taste. Everyone is different and not one person has the objective taste; it doesn't exist.

The second part of Spy x Family coming up has great potential, in my opinion, to be significantly better. Maybe they will fix Yor's character, maybe they will stop trying to be dependent on cute Anya moments to make the series, maybe they can add more depth to Twilights' mission, and some real danger. Or maybe this is just another funny goofy show that I just can't relate to.