REVIEW: ‘Spy x Family,’ Season 1 Cour 2 – Delivers More Laughs And Sweetness

Having earned her first Stella, Anya had taken her first step toward becoming an Imperial scholar. But with a long road still ahead, she and Loid struggle to make headway in Operation Stryx. But life isn’t all schemes and spies. The Forger family gets a little bigger and Yor faces challenges all her own in Spy x Family Season 1 Cour 2.

Humor is a fickle thing. While a joke can be hysterical the first time, by its very nature, the more it is used, the less funny it becomes. To prevent this from happening in an ongoing comedy series, variety is needed to keep the laughs coming. New twists on old themes, as well as all-together new situations and jokes, must be incorporated to keep the fun feeling fresh and entertaining. Sadly, it is this variety that often feels lacking in Spy x Family Season 1 Cour 2.

Don’t get me wrong, there is still a ton of enjoyment to be had in the escapades of Anya, Loid, and Yor. But as the episodes go on, a bit of the shine wears away and each character’s challenges this season come to feel like the ones they have faced before. Anya continues to endeavor to befriend Damian, to largely failure. Loid tries to maintain his cover while keeping his family happy and balancing the ever-growing workload his boss, Handler, heaps on him. Meanwhile, Yor worries about her shortcomings as a wife and mother. Take any episode individually and they are wonderful. The writing is great, the show’s character is unique, and the visuals always pop. It just all feels a bit repetitive as the season goes on.

A big part of this pointlessness is the presence of Operation Stryx in the plot. Few episodes go by without mentioning, yet only in this cour’s last episode does any actual progress get made towards it, and that progress is minimal at best. So much of the series’ time is spent talking about Stryx while failing to do anything about it. The show knows without it, there is no point for Loid to continue with the facade of the Forgers, so the plot will get pushed down the road for the sake of the show’s longevity. It would’ve been better if the show hadn’t incorporated a specific mission for Loid and just had him assemble the family for a generic cover. That way it wouldn’t waste so much time on a plot it feels deadset against progressing.

Despite the near-complete stall of the plot, Spy x Family Season 1 Cour 2 still delivers plenty of fun and charm. Anya continues to be the stand-out character as both her visual humor, as well as her writing sets her apart. How well the show crafts Anya’s vision of her world and how she interacts with it makes her feel like one of the most authentic anime children I’ve seen. And that’s despite her being a telepath. Even with her fantastic ability, she still always feels like a child at her core. Her plans and strategies always reflect her age, making for some of the season’s best sequences.

The animation continues to carry the high bar set by the first half of this season. The visuals from  WIT Studio and CloverWorks allow the show to shine as an amazingly slick and charming experience. From Anya’s reactions to Yor’s superhuman feats of strength and dexterity, the series always lands its visual cues, even when a few of the jokes are overly predictable.

When all is said and done, Spy x Family Season 1 Cour 2 delivers more of what the first half of the season brought. While I wish the show could’ve grown its primary narrative a bit more or expanded the variety of the situations and tasks set before the Forgers, the series still delivers a level of polish and fun that is hard to complain about. It’s still a fun, comfortable ride, and I will happily indulge in more when the series returns.

Spy x Family Season 1 Cour 2 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.