REVIEW: ‘Spy x Family,’ Season 1 – Delivers laughs and adventure

Spy x Family Season 1 is an action/comedy shonen anime produced by WIT Studio and CloverWorks. When peace hangs in the balance, it is the international super spy known only as Twilight who saves the day. In order to maintain that peace, this agent must take on his toughest assignment yet. He must make a family for himself so he can get near the key to maintaining peace between the east and the west. What he doesn’t realize though is that his chosen wife Yor is an assassin and his new daughter Anya is a telepath. 

Spy x Family Season 1 manages to combine its spy-centric core story with an adorable cast of characters struggling to become a family in a way that allows it to create something truly unique in the anime landscape. The way the plot explores and expands upon each of its main characters only reinforces how special the series is. 

Each member of the newly minted Forger Family comes with their quirks and strengths that are utilized to craft the show’s charming and hilarious 12 episodes. With every character coming into the situation with a different goal, the series uses their varying motivations to play them off each other in interesting ways. While Twilight simply wants to complete his mission, Anya just wants to get to be a kid and have a family, while Yor seeks to keep suspicious eyes off of her so she can continue her work in secret. 

While the general setup is interesting in and of itself, it is the wonderful personalities that make up its starring family that sells the series. The way each interacts with the others produces many of the series’ best moments.

While the starring trio provides the story with a fantastic foundation to build upon, some of the show’s supporting cast doesn’t land quite as strongly. There are a couple of characters that Spy x Family Season 1 brings into its narratives that hurt the show far more than they help. This is doubly true for Yor’s younger brother Yuri whose obsession with his sister flirts with some rather uncomfortable lines and makes the character one I am not looking forward to reappearing. 

The other noteworthy thing about Spy x Family Season 1’s story is how it blends the spy elements of its narrative with the more mundane elements. The show creates a lot of its unique humor from when the two sides of the story crash together. This is particularly true with Anya. Despite her being a child, thanks to her telepathy, she knows what is really going on around her. This creates some wonderfully humorous moments where she attempts to help her new dad complete his various tasks, but in a way a child would think to. This leads to some truly comical moments as Anya struggles to help Twilight without his knowing.

The animation throughout this season is some of the smoothest I’ve seen. The comedy is greatly enhanced by the visuals’ delivery of its characters, especially Anya, while it goes to great lengths to give the show’s infrequent action sequences a truly unique sense of style and flair. It then manages to tie both together so that the two halves of the plot never feel out of place when they meet throughout the series. 

When all is said and done, Spy x Family Season 1 is an outstanding anime and will certainly be in discussions for the best of the year. Its charm, wit, and adventure form a uniquely pleasing concoction that makes it stand out amongst the growing list of anime offerings. 

Spy x Family Season 1 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.