When people who were already invested in the manga got the news that Spy x Family would be getting an anime adaptation, it's safe to say that many thought it would be one of the most promising shows of its respective season, if not the year. However, while I do think the show has definitely taken its place as one of the top contenders for best anime of 2022, I can't help but feel disappointed in the end. Spy x Family has some major flaws, most of which were also prevalent in the manga, but it really feels like some of those problems were exacerbated with this anime adaptation.

The Main Cast

Starting off with the strong suit of this anime, the characters of Spy x Family are all very interesting and compliment each other very well. The main cast of three all have their respective quirks which help them bounce off one another. Their main goal is to carry out their roles in this fake family, use the family for their gain and hide their true identities.

Loid, a spy who is tasked with protecting the peace between this universes East and West Germanies in a plan called operation Strix, is our main protagonist. Most of the story revolves around him and the plan he is working towards, as his reason for adopting Anya and faking a marriage with Yor is all so that he can establish a connection with a powerful official from Ostania (East Germany) named Donovan Desmond in order to preserve peace. He is your average cliche western movie troupe spy for the most part. A worrywart at heart due to his profession, his will to keep on going is constantly tested by the... under average intelligence of Anya. The goal of Loid is for Anya to acquire 8 "Stellas" which are awarded based on academical, behavioral or sports achievements. With these 8 Stellas, Anya can become an Imperial Scholar, basically an example student. It is vital for Anya to become an Imperial Scholar so that she and her father can attend special meetings, meetings that Donovan Desmond will also be attending with his elder son, and that will be Loid's only chance to contact Donovan. Problem is, Anya is kind of dumb and unskilled at pretty much everything, and she tests Loid's limits when it comes to how much he can endure this hell.

The most quirky character out of the cast is obviously Anya, as she has access to telepathic abilities that allow her to read the minds of her adoptive parents. Yor and Loid trying to hide their true identities from the other members of the cast while Anya secretly knows everything makes for some great comedy. Her reason for taking part in the family and hiding her identity is very simple. As she was raised as an experiment presumably from the day she was born, she craves familial bonds and wants to be adopted, leading to her "tricking" Loid into taking her in. She then never discloses her abilities, of course, as she is afraid what would be done with her if that secret is revealed. All of this is not to say she is some secret mastermind with ill-intent. Anya, for the most part, is a pretty stupid kid, which helps balance out her extremely powerful abilities. She sometimes uses her telepathic powers to help others (especially Loid) out, but most of the time her abilities are used as a comedic device. Even though she is integral to the plot of the show and Loid's plans, she is a comedic relief character more than anything.

Finally, Yor. Yor is an overly innocent klutz who is horrible at pretty much anything other than fighting. Her true identity is that of a hitwoman, and the reason why she partakes in the fake family is to avoid suspicion from authorities and fit in with her friends. Unlike Loid, Yor's actions are a lot less calculated. Her innocent demeanor isn't simply a fake persona, but rather a part of who she is. This makes the contrast between her innocent usual self and merciless killer self a lot more interesting. Sadly, Yor is the least utilized character out of the main cast. Loid constantly has spy businesses to deal with, and the entire premise of the show stems from Operation Strix. Anya reads peoples minds every chance she gets, and shapes a lot of the plot. Meanwhile, Yor feels like more of a glorified side character. She partakes in assassinations only in the start of the show, when she is first being introduced. Sure, we see her use her physical prowess to deal with problems a lot in the show and Anya reads Yor's mind to reveal she is thinking about her job quite a bit, but we don't really see her go and kill people while trying to fool the family like Loid does many times during the show. Yor screams wasted potential, potential that will be no doubt used further on in the show, but still wasted potential for now. It would have been great to see her trying to juggle both family matters and private matters at the same time in this opening act, similar to Loid.

Side Characters

Yor's brother is a character who will be obviously making a lot of appearances further on. He is secretly part of the counterintelligence agency of Ostania and is tasked with rooting out spies and extracting information from anyone that is working against the government. His eccentric personality and weird siscon tendencies aside, he will be an amazing support for the story further on, when he will presumably come head to head with Loid. Also, adding another character that has to hide his true identity to the show was a great idea in my opinion, and complicates matters even more, which is a good thing for a show like this.

Damian Desmond is the younger son of Donovan Desmond, the man Loid is trying to get closer to. Damian, like Yor's brother, will be a great tool for the plot later on as he is in love with Anya. He presents a great opportunity for Loid to get closer to Donovan without the 8 Stella plan, but that will still take a while as Loid is not aware of this love and Damian is too stubborn to admit he is in love.

There are some very minor characters too, like Becky, Damian's friends the principal, Sylvia and Franky. So let's have a rapid fire round:

• Becky is an alright addition to flesh out Anya's interactions in school. She isn't anything really special, but doesn't have to be. Her role is that of an outlet for Anya to have somebody to talk to during school hours, and a plot device to explain some things about the world, especially the school.
• Damian's friends are just simply annoying. Too stereotypical and too ugly, they are joke characters through and through. A cheap way for the author to paint Damian as a highly respected and renowned person that attracts snobs without actually having to write any complex characters. They probably wouldn't annoy me this much if they didn't forcefully shove themselves into the screen and into conservations whenever Damian is present. I think writing some characters that had just as much personal depth as Anya or Damian would have been a lot better and lead to more complex relationships later on. Considering how aware the author is of writing good characters as we can see in the main cast, it kind of shocks me to see potential like this go to waste.
• The principal is an eccentric side character who helps with the shows comedy and was also used as a plot device for Anya to get into the school despite her subpar intelligence. I suspect he will be used in similar ways in the future as well.
• Sylvia and Franky are both just plot devices. They have their respective quirks and mannerisms making them fun additions, but they don't have much more depth other than that. Sylvia pops up whenever the author wants to write in an exposition dump or give Loid an additional task and spice up the plot, and Franky is used for when Loid needs help. Kind of cheap but not too bad.

Bond sadly didn't join the cast this cour. Without spoiling anything, all I can say is that he will be a part of the main cast and spice everything up much more, but that doesn't concern us for now.

9/10 for the characters. When you boil everything down to the fundamentals, this anime is a character drama that requires strong characters. And despite all the underutilized or not yet utilized potential, the characters of this show are really solid and will be the primary thing that carries it forward.

The world building of a show like this is not very important overall, strong world building mainly concerns sci-fi and fantastical worlds, but it is still worth a mention. Spy x Family tries to satirize and mimic the kind of worlds that cliche Hollywood spy films have. It's alright, but it's definitely not the best, especially for Spy x Family's format. If this was a show only concerned about comedy then I can see it working out all right. But Spy x Family, especially later on, will focus a lot on drama and serious topics, and I personally think a world like this doesn't compliment such a setting at all, and it actually hinders it. A satirical and one dimensional world like this is not horrible, but it's not good either. 5/10.

I have already talked about the details of the story quite a bit in the characters section in order to highlight some character dynamics, and I won't waste your time explaining it again here. The premise of the show is amazing for hooking people in right at the start. It is mysterious and exciting, it will naturally make you curious as to what will happen next. Can Anya really perform in school well enough the be an Imperial Scholar, or will Loid contact Donovan through Damian's love for Anya, or another method entirely? Will Yor get a job to kill Loid, and how will she react to that? If Yor or Loid start getting suspicious of each other or even find out each other's identities, will Anya be able to pull the family together? Or will Yor and Loid find out Anya can read minds before that? Will Loid think about disposing of her just in case she was some sort of experimental psychic spy used by Ostania to spy on him? How will Yor's brother find out Loid's identity, and how will he react? So many questions, so many possibilities, all thanks to the mangaka cleverly crafting all of these characters. If the sheer potential this story has is executed nicely, this will surely be one of the best character drama animes of all time. If there were no hiccups in the story's execution, this could easily be a 9/10 show. But for now, I will have to rate it 7.5/10 due to one major flaw.

Pacing.

Pacing is hard to pull off, there is no way around it. Whether it be some boring and slow scenes, an exposition dump that goes by way too fast or the pace of an arc in general, pacing can make or break certain scenes, moments and even the work itself. In the case of Spy x Family, pacing is a huge issue. And sadly it isn't on a small scale only concerning some scenes, the entire series is just way too slow. Mainly due to the many, many purely slice of life tangents that add nothing to the plot and yet take up huge chunks of the show, sometimes even entire episodes. This was a problem in the manga as well, the manga was too focused on pure slice on life chapters that didn't progress the plot at all, especially early on. In the anime, though, it feels much worse. You have plenty of episodes that are not relevant to the plot at all, needlessly taking away time from more important plot points and just taking away time in general. You watch an episode for 24 minutes hoping something will happen but nothing does. I am not necessarily against slice of life in a show like this where strong characters are integral. Slice of life is an amazing way to make the viewer feel like the bonds between the characters are natural, and it goes a long way when it comes to character dynamics. But make them in a way that also advances the plot, like when Anya saved the drowning kid and got a Stella. Otherwise it feels like such a chore to watch, knowing how many interesting plot points there are out there that the series refuses to advance towards, rather choosing to dwell on some dumb SoL story nobody cares about. Or just make them a lot shorter. Imagine if the Love is War adaptation dedicated a whole episode to each and every chapter of Kaguya and Shirogane's mindgames, the show would never advance to the parts that actually mattered. The anime knows this, though, and fits in 3 chapters into a single episode in order to have a faster paced show with less downtime and more jokes, all fit in to a smaller time frame. Thanks to this, it's insignificant and mostly comedy/SoL episodes didn't feel boring and they didn't overstay their welcome. To add to that, with this more efficient use of time Love is War could dedicate more time to significant plot developments. The Spy x Family anime could also have done this. The should have fit 2 SoL segments into a single episode with faster pacing, and left more time for actually significant things. The castle and penguin episodes, for example, had no right taking up their entire respective episodes. All I'm saying is we could have had Bond join the main cast in the first cour.

Generally speaking, I don't think art and music are that important for an anime overall. Most of the time, a strong story or well-written characters are much more important. But if these two components are done poorly, it can really bring a show down. And if done in an outstanding way, it can really elevate a show. Think of them like the icing and other decorations on a cake. For Spy x Family, there isn't much to talk about when it comes to these two.

The art is very nice and soothing, but it is quite generic. Safe with no risks taken. It doesn't have outstanding visuals like Ping Pong the Animation, nor does it have that unique flair more visually traditional shows have like Kaiji, Mushishi or Monogatari. But Spy x Family isn't afraid to show off a bit if it needs to. 7.5/10.

The music is very okay. It compliments the show but doesn't stand out in any way whatsoever. Not a masterpiece like Madoka Magica or Made in Abyss, and not unique enough to be worth a mention like Kaiji or Kill la Kill. 6/10, feels like a Kevin Macleod album.

The opening and ending... I'm not a fan. Opening sounds very jazzy and happy, but not in a good way. It feels uninspired and generic, I feel like I heard this melody and feel a million times already. The art is alright, although I'm not a huge fan of it, especially the parts from 0:10 to 0:50 with the weird doll-like simplistic drawings just looks uncanny to me. The small part from 1:04 to 1:10 looks amazing though. The ED, on the other hand, has pretty great visuals, but nothing above and beyond. Music wise, I hate the song so damn much. Feels like a generic lofi hip hop beat. 3/10 for both the OP and ED.

I'll average out everything in this segment to a 5.5/10.

Spy x Family holds great potential mainly thanks to its cleverly crafted and interesting characters. The quality of the entire story will depend on how well they and their relationships were made, and on that front, this anime will probably be one of the best, but only if it can mend its pacing and iron out some of the other, smaller flaws as well.

Characters:9/10
World Building: 5/10
Story and Premise: 7.5/10
Art and Music: 5.5/10

Overall: 7.5/10. Spy x Family is good where it matters. It just needs a bit more refining.