What struck me most about Spy X Family wasn’t just the premise—though it’s wild and clever enough to hook anyone. A spy who needs a fake family, an assassin who pretends to be his wife, and a little girl with telepathic powers? On paper, it sounds like chaos waiting to happen. But watching it unfold felt surprisingly tender, like beneath all the espionage and ridiculous misunderstandings, the story is really about people learning to love each other without meaning to.
Honestly speaking, the heart of the show is Anya. The manner in which she misunderstands the circumstances, shouts out the funniest things and makes those gross faces--I lost count of the amount of time she caused me to laugh outright. This is one of those instances when she attempts to impress at school so much that it is both funny and heartbreaking since you can only see how she is trying to ensure that she fits in. That struck me in that, who has not been there? An attempt to assert oneself, the attempt to become part of a world that is too large to you? Depending on how difficult it was to watch her struggle, and then to watch her little successes, made me cheer her in a manner that startled me.
However, there are the gut-punch moments. Loid (or Twilight) is allegedly this cold, calculating spy, and yet when he warms up on Anya, when he loses an instant that this is a mission, it was breaking me. You can sense the kind of desire he feels to protect her and not because it is his task, but something real is beginning to develop in him which he does not know what to call. One scene is when he asks himself whether he is doing enough to her, and I can tell it was like a silent thunderclap. It was at this moment that the show ceased to be fun, and something I have carried with me.
Yor had brought, as well, superstrata which I had not anticipated. Surface-wise she is deadly, graceful and nearly comically awkward at home. However, the instances of her loneliness oozing through, as she questions whether she is good enough as a wife or a mother, despite this family being a fake one in technical terms, hurt. It reminded me of the frequency with which people conceal their insecurities with competence or humor. She desires to be a part of it as much as Anya does and that strand of longing holds them all together.
The thing that left the anime in my head was the fact that it was absurd and, at the same time, sincere. One second I could be laughing at the wild heh face of Anya, and the next second I could have this lump in my throat when Loid was able to tell me in his own manner that this so-called fake family was coming home. It was the whiplash between comedy and silent emotion that made it memorable, because that is what real life is all about, having joy and pain intertwined all the time.
When I fell behind with the episodes, I came to a conclusion: it is not about spies or assassins and secret missions that Spy X Family is about. It is about a discovered family, how love creeps in between the cracks even when you are trying to keep it out. It is about how those people who begin by pretending to be something can end up creating something that is real, something to fight.
then what was it like to watch. Similar to being duped into laughter until your stomach aches only to realize that you had been robbed of your heart in the process. And honestly? It is the type of anime I will never leave.
Thumbnail is designed by me on pixelLab and other images are screenshot from the movie