Spy x Family: Why Watch the Anime Series on Netflix? Here Is Why
Are you ready to save the world? A few months after the conclusion of the second season, available for streaming on Crunchyroll, Spy x Family also arrives on Netflix with its first season: the perfect opportunity for all those who do not yet know the ramshackle and tender family made up of Anya, Loid, Yor, and Bond. Considered one of the most popular anime series of the moment, Spy x Family combines drama and comedy, action and romance, giving fans a distillation of pure entertainment and unexpectedly making them reflect on current issues. In addition to Spy x Family, Netflix has announced the acquisition of eight other anime including Jujutsu Kaisen, Black Clover, and My Hero Academia.
Spy x Family: A Spy, an Assassin, and a Telepath
Produced by Wit Studio and CloverWorks, adapting the manga of the same name by Tatsuya Endo, Spy x Family debuted in 2022 presenting viewers with an imaginary world in which you can still love and smile, although violence is constantly lurking. The events of the story are set between two European-style nations, Westalis and Ostania, whose tense relations following a military conflict are reminiscent of a real Cold War. In this setting, a Westalis secret agent, known as Twilight, is tasked with infiltrating Ostania with the task of preserving peace between the two countries and foiling the plans of Donovan Desmond, leader of the party that led to the militarization of the nation. To achieve this goal, Twilight will have to build a fictitious family and enroll her son in the prestigious Eden College, the school attended by Desmond’s son. Taking on the role of Loid Forger, a widowed psychiatrist, Twilight adopts little Anya and marries Yor, a girl who works as a state employee but who is a murderer. Unaware of their respective identities, the couple are soon exposed by the telepathic powers of Anya who will do everything to help her father complete the mission, happy more than ever to finally have a family that will soon also welcome the dog Bond. Yes, any reference is purely coincidental.
With a simple approach both in terms of character characterization and world-building, Spy x Family works due to its ability to remain in balance between comedy and drama; an aspect that contributes to embellishing the work by giving it an identity of its own. If Loid’s mission is clear from the beginning, the comic (mis)adventures involving him, Yor, and in particular the very funny Anya instead become a way to investigate the characters and the relationships between them, as well as to tone down the tone which brings with it the main narrative frame, which on the contrary tells us of imminent war, violence, and an uncertain future. Something that, yes, brings to mind things that we thought had remained the prerogative of schoolbooks – Endo himself admitted that he was inspired by the divided Germany after the Second World War, but unfortunately, also facts that go beyond fiction.
The Family We Choose
The desire to combine very different tones, showing both violence and comic skits – Anya’s jokes and expressions are worth the whole series, then take on a specific value as Spy x Family also leads us to think about the sense of family and how, sometimes, the bonds between people are deeper than blood or the papers that attest to it. With their different backgrounds, Yor and Loid accept, completely unaware of who the other is, a sham marriage to conform to society; a loneliness that may appear superficial and which, however, hides an even deeper one, the same one that also characterizes little Anya: she was taken up for adoption several times and taken back to the orphanage just as many times. The family thus becomes synonymous with the people we choose, perhaps to put back together a world that is falling apart.
Despite everything, Spy x Family never weighs down the viewer and this lightness remains the main feature of a series which, thanks to different reading levels, is becoming increasingly popular and loved. The anime series currently has two seasons; Tatsuya Endo’s manga is ongoing and probably, for this reason, we will have to wait a little longer before we can see the third. On the other hand, Spy x Family CODE: White will be released in cinemas on April 24th, an original film – whose events are therefore unrelated to the canonical plot, whose screenplay was also written by Endo.
