Spy x Family is an oddball tonal mashup that blends the action-packed and high-stakes world of spies with a heartwarming, family-friendly comedy.

Loid Forger, codename "Twilight" is possibly the greatest spy in the world, and he has just received the most harrowing mission of his life: To make a family. The task requires him to mend the relationship between countries in a cold-war era Europe. To do so, Loid must worm his way into high society and spy on the leader of one political party. To complete his mission, he has to adopt a child and pose as an ideal parent, then enroll her into the same prestigious school as the leader's son, a challenging process alone. He quickly adopts a daughter, Anya, a secretly psychic 6-year-old. Soon after, he marries Yor, a civil servant who was also in the market for a pretend spouse to prevent the secret police from discovering her real identity: an assassin. Each person has their own secret, which gives this found family slice of life a unique twist.

Everyone has to hide aspects of their life for happiness, especially parents having to hide dark truths to protect their family. Loid is a spy but poses as a psychiatrist. Anya's a telepath but acts like a normal kid to drive away suspicion. Yor is a civil servant but secretly a blood-thirsty assassin. These alter-egos are not all there is to them, however. Anya is just an innocent kid challenged with abandonment issues which motivate her need to impress her parents. Loid is so self-assured of his espionage abilities that it causes him to make mistakes, revealing there's a normal guy beneath his icy exterior. Even though Yor is a murderer, she possesses a strange sort of moral compass that justifies killing corrupt people in power for the greater good. The unlikely couple grows into the role of loving parents and learns to become better people from one another. It doesn't stand to reason that a veteran master of disguise wouldn't figure out his partner is secretly an assassin, but this anime relies so greatly on suspension of disbelief that it'll collapse if you don't forgive a few leaps in logic. Anya's powers typically work at convenient times, seemingly with no rhyme or reason, because she lacks control of them. It doesn't hold up to criticism but rarely takes itself seriously, so a few hiccups are easy to overlook. It is basically a way to relay information that can't be read through body language, but ultimately the story is told through a third-person omniscient point of view. Her power adds little to the storytelling and is more for keeping Anya in the loop, additionally making her a one-of-a-kind kid.

The show doesn't get bogged down in the details of the setting, an ambiguous cold-war-inspired European country during the mid to late 20th century. There's barely any exposition dumping, and I love it for that. Loid's mission and politics are as detailed as the show needs to be because it's so much a spy anime as it is a family comedy with an added psychological twist and infrequent action scenes. An exciting part of spy flicks is spies' gadgets, such as James Bond's grenade pen and dagger shoes. That's not really a thing here. The most we get are secret messages Loid receives from his boss, such as through a microscopic coded letter inside a fake coin. I am tempted to say they underutilized the premise, but I wouldn't go as far as to say the whole spy aspect is simply window dressing on a typical seasonal comedy. It's merely a case of me setting my expectations too high because I fell for the zeitgeist again.

The sincere emotional core is what truly makes the show unique. The first half builds the family's relationship to make room for the second arc, minus episode five, an exciting, filler episode that serves no narrative purpose, builds upon nothing and is never referenced afterward. As a comedy, the gags are often hit or miss in my experience, so an episode dedicated to one joke overstays its welcome quickly. Often more humorous than outright funny, where it succeeds the most is the endearing family dynamic and powerful backstories.

There's a warm theme of companionship and teamwork at the center of Spy x Family, but what makes it subversive is its emphasis on how classism wrongfully defines people. It's an intriguing theme that gives the narrative some dramatic weight and makes for one of the show's strongest episodes when the family trio interviews to enroll Anya in the hoity-toity grade school. One school administrator targets Anya for being an orphan and judges Yor for her background. The interview brings out some entertaining performances; a comically devilish aristocrat administrator and other over-the-top aristocrats judging the family like they're on American Idol, but it's also a familiar story about superficiality. Most of all, it makes great comedy from an easy target, rude and uptight rich people. The theme continues as Anya experiences classism at the academy from pretentious children, and she retaliates in quite funny ways. Yor and Loid's devastating backstories reinforce this theme and add tons of depth to their interactions. Any critique of classism in the school system is muddled because there are certain aristocrats we're certainly meant to respect (not happening, sorry).

While Cloverworks' infamously ugly CGI crowds are still present here, WIT Studio's solid animation makes it worthwhile. To create constant motion in the backgrounds, they shot themselves in the foot with 3D crowds, an issue that extends to every vehicle rendered in eye-popping CGI. Though the background art is solid, it's no match for the visual exhilaration of those fight scenes. I only watched the opening a couple of times because of its gorgeous fusion of colorful eyepopping visuals and energetic editing that is nowhere to be found in the show itself. Watching the opening made me wish the show was half as creatively directed. Expertise in the sound design is what elevated the manga adaptation, every motion has a sound effect finely tuned to give each scene liveliness; an achievement which extends to the well-mixed jazzy original soundtrack.

I would recommend Spy x Family to anyone looking for a wholesome slice of life. There's a spy in it, and he certainly does spying, but it takes very little inspiration from the spy fiction genre and uses vague concepts to flavor a perfunctory family-friendly comedy anime. Nevertheless, the action scenes derived from the wacky premise are thrilling; car chases, hand-to-hand combat, and psychological warfare it's there and it's expertly animated. It's not exactly the masterpiece that the zeitgeist would have you believe, but it's a fun time I came away from enjoying.