REVIEW: ‘Spy x Family Code: White’ Gets 5 Stella Stars

Spy x Family and its pink-haired psychic, who must be protected at all costs, took the anime season by storm when it debuted. After stellar manga sells for mangaka Tatsuya Endo, the anime won hearts just as fast. Now, the feature film debut, Spy x Family Code White (Gekijô-ban Supai Famirî Kôdo: Howaito) is bringing the series to new audiences.

Centered on a fake family and their daily hijinks, the shonen series follows Loid (Takuya Eguchi / Alex Organ), Yor (Saori Hayami / Natalie Van Sistine), and their adopted daughter Anya Forger (Atsumi Tanezaki / Megan Shipman), all of who have their own secrets. In Spy x Family Code White, it all comes together in an original story from WIT STUDIO x CloverWorks, directed by Takashi Katagiri and written by Ichirô Ôkouchi.

Loid Forger is also known by the professional name of <Twilight>, a secret agent with the goal of saving the world. He finds a fake wife and daughter. The former is Yor, a trained assassin known to her colleagues as the Thorn Princess. And the daughter? Well, that’s Anya, a little girl with a big heart with psychic powers that makes her the only character aware of the reality this fake family is living. Oh, and I forgot to mention that their dog can see the future.

Loid and Yor have been able to keep their double lives to themselves while pretending to be the perfect family. Thanks in large part to little Anya doing her best to keep each of the secrets. While under the guise of taking his family on a weekend winter getaway, Loid is still looking to get closer to completing Operation Strix, the mission that has brought their little fake family together. This time, getting more Stella Stars means that Anya must win Eden Academy’s cooking competition by making the principal’s favorite meal.

But as the family takes a winter vacation to the meal’s origin region, a chain of actions go awry. Yor is concerned with the new beautiful woman she saw at Loid’s side, Anya just wants to make everything work perfectly, and a little someone may have swallowed a micro-film.

Spy x Family Code White is actively building Operation Strix larger, but it’s also deepening the relationship between Loid and Yor. While it’s been apparent that their love for each other (and Anya) definitely isn’t fake, getting to see it loud and even clearer is any AO3 writer’s dream. That said, the film doesn’t just stop at the new characters, light jealousy, and budding romance. I mean, Anya is there after all.

The core of the film is spun around Anya when she mistakenly gets involved and triggers a series of events that threaten world peace. Not one to let the thoughts she hears go unacted on, she sets on her own quest to help Loid fulfill his. She sets out to find one item and winds up “accidentally” eating chocolate that just may contain the only way to keep the world safe.

Spy x Family Code White is a wholesome entry point into the series. No previous series viewing is required; this film works on its own, but when you have the background of the last two seasons of the anime series, everything feels just a little better. This feature film takes fake family hijinks to the next level, with each character getting their due. But more importantly, they grow even closer as a family.

Ultimately, though, it’s the fact that Spy x Family Code White embraces everything weird and adorable about Anya and her family that makes it work. We see Loid be a great spy, Yor be a killer assassin, and Anya uses her power. But all of those little gimmicks that define them against each other are used to bring them together as a family. Loid has to be a great spy to save his daughter, and Yor has to fight hard to save them both. It’s how all of the action moments, as great as they are, return back to the wholesome heart of the series that makes this animated feature worthwhile.

If you had told me one of my favorite movies of the year would have multiple musical sequences about using the bathroom, I would have laughed. In the film, Anya meets with a bathroom god to avoid passing through the microfilm hidden in chocolate to help her dad with his case. But Spy x Family Code White gets completely weird without feeling out of place.

But even with the massive amount of comedy packed into the story for Anya’s section of the story, the little girl actually gets to do things. It sounds weird, but Anya is a character that you want to protect at all costs. However, at the same time, the little quirks can sometimes cause annoyance for the viewer. However, that never happens here. Instead, Anya is active from the beginning of the film and into the very end. She carries her place in the film as more than a narrative driving device, which has happened in the past in the series.

By using multiple animation aesthetics throughout the film, Spy x Family Code White is able to dig deep into this family and bring out their unique voices, perspectives, and place in the story. It’s comedic Dennis the Menace, it’s a battle shonen (explosions and all), and it’s also a little bit of Mission Impossible. It is the series at its very best, proving that WIT STUDIO and CloverWorks deeply understand the source material to build something original and make it feel just as impactful to the characters.

While Spy x Family Season 2 felt too derivative of the first season, the feature film has reinvigorated my love of the Forger family. They love each other deeply, and that’s proven even in the choices they make. Spy x Family Code White’s original story is probably one of the strongest I’ve seen in a shonen feature film tie-in. It stands on its own, charms its audience, and ultimately makes you fall in love with the Forgers all over again.

If this was your first entry into the series, there are small jokes that may not carry the same weight as they do for existing fans. That said, it does provide the best litmus test to see if this is a series for you. When you look at the history of animated feature films connected to existing franchises, the good ones open the door for new audiences. They navigate the balance of bringing in new people and still delivering everything existing readers and viewers want. Spy x Family Code White gets five Stella stars for doing just that with expertise.

Spy x Family Code: White is playing in theaters nationwide April 18, 2024 and you can watch the first two seasons of Spy x Family on Crunchyroll.