Sharp Review of Spy x Family
One afternoon at mealtime, I clicked on Spy x Family and watched three episodes continuously, then decided to stop watching before the plot officially unfolded and write a sharp review.
Preface Before Discussing Anime
Although I have been a dormant otaku for a long time, and have contracted the bad habit of thinking that popular anime with large traffic must be low-quality, I started to try hard to overcome this after realizing this problem.
The reason is that I agree that popular anime indeed have outstanding advantages in some aspect, therefore they can obtain topic heat higher than usual. When evaluating a work, we should set aside the excessively high topic heat that elevates the work to a height not belonging to its level, and only focus on the work itself.
From Attack on Titan to Tokyo Ghoul, The Classroom of the Elite to Re:Zero, setting aside their topic heat at the time, they are all noteworthy works. In these years, I gradually gave up following new anime with high intensity, so I don’t have much memory of the anime that became popular during this period. In my impression, it seems that several light novel isekai works won the championship, and then I started paying attention again when Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen successively became popular outside the anime community. Although my dislike for the large number of low-quality fan groups attracted by these two works remains unchanged, my recognition of the works themselves is very high. And works from regular hit-makers like UFO, MAPPA, and Bones are indeed mostly outstanding among contemporaneous works.
Pre-understanding of Spy x Family
Finally talking about the title. As I said in the preface, I no longer follow new anime. I only got the idea to watch Spy x Family when it was updated to the fifth episode. Therefore, before watching, I already knew this was the hit work of this season, and it was a hit work that had become popular outside the anime community. I also heard that Uncle (referring to the author) even bought opening screen ads on TikTok next door to build momentum for this anime (no accurate source, might have remembered incorrectly). My judgment of its “becoming popular outside the community” came from seeing TikTok soft pornography videos cosplaying characters from Spy x Family and large numbers of Anya表情包 in WeChat groups. But as I said before, I only had a certain degree of preparedness against its bullet comments at this time, and still had expectations for the animation itself.
Formal Viewing Experience
So one afternoon at mealtime, I clicked on Spy x Family and watched three episodes continuously, then decided to stop watching before the plot officially unfolded and write a sharp review.
This decision was actually irrational. After all, the “three-episode rule” is no longer an iron rule for choosing whether to follow an anime. Many excellent works, especially daily-life-oriented works, have the commonality of slow heating. But after watching these three episodes, I still decided to give an evaluation that only represents my personal opinion and is very immature: “Tacky”
This evaluation of “tacky” is not because I think the setting is tacky. For me, the meaning of “tacky” is closer to “cringeworthy”, because a single “cringeworthy” is purely derogatory, which is still a bit different from the evaluation I want to express. What I want to express is “cringeworthy to me, but not to specific viewing groups”, so “tacky” is probably more appropriate.
Giving this evaluation is largely indeed due to my personal taste. Although I watch tokusatsu and buy plastic toys, I actually cannot stand childish plots. Some stories are tacky, such as the kingly journey to save the world hero stories, but they are tacky without being childish, so they are the so-called kingly journey. But Spy x Family is too childish.
This evaluation is obviously very unreasonable. After all, this is a comedy daily anime. Finding real brains in a fictional world has problems. But the problem of Spy x Family objectively exists, because the work chooses to set the male protagonist as an ace spy, the background setting is the Cold War between two countries, and the main plot setting is a special mission. This leads to its unreasonable plot directly causing disconnect and imbalance in viewing experience.
The first three episodes of Spy x Family are character-building episodes. The main responsibility is to introduce and shape the three characters: spy father, assassin mother, and telepathic daughter. The amount of space Bones gives to this part is something I did not anticipate. Because currently popular works often stuff a large number of explosive points and topic plots into the first episode, leaving some suspense for subsequent plots. Most hit works also conform to this characteristic. But Spy x Family’s approach of not even having the assassin mother Yor’s character appear in the first episode is very unconventional. Even neighbors doing episodic dramas usually introduce these characters first, then arrange separate personal episodes for character building in subsequent episodes.
Then is character building done this way in Spy x Family better? I don’t think so either. This work relies very much on narration in its narrative technique. The male protagonist spy father’s inner OS never stops from beginning to end. This is probably also necessary, because daily anime cannot do without narration as joke points, and the telepathic daughter Anya’s ability is mind reading, and the male protagonist is a cold spy, so it’s not suitable to design large amounts of descriptive dialogue. So if the male protagonist doesn’t have the habit of inner OS, it might only be possible to use the expression method of floating text appearing beside the character like in Sherlock Holmes. But the consequence of over-relying on narration is tackiness. Directors who cannot tell stories like to use large amounts of narration, because they cannot achieve narrative through pictures. Animation itself has disadvantages in character performance. Emotional expression entirely relies on exaggerated expressions. After relying on narration, this problem becomes even more prominent. Speaking of exaggerated expressions, we have to mention Anya. Although Anya has considerable popularity, this character really does not suit my taste. I never indulge people’s faults. I wanted to slap Han Duoduo in The Wandering Earth, and Anya’s partial plots of this character really ruined my favorable impression of her, even though she is less than six years old. The setting that supernatural ability children from laboratories are not mature is already a fixed convention, but the IQ shown by Anya fluctuates uncertainly, anyway not like a six-year-old, sometimes normal, sometimes annoying. The most abstract operation belongs to secretly opening the male protagonist’s safe and using the telegraph to ridicule, then putting herself into a dangerous situation.
First, this plot is necessary. On one hand, it lets the male protagonist realize that spies also have emotions, and tasks are not the only important thing. On the other hand, it also needs a plot of showing off in front of Anya. But it still cannot cover up the abstractness of this plot. The male protagonist established a family for the purpose of infiltrating the school where the target daughter is located to obtain information. And in the first episode, there is already a plot of Anya being seen by enemy forces, and after the male protagonist rescues Anya, he doesn’t silence the enemy, and doesn’t wear a mask while pointing a gun at someone’s head to threaten them not to meddle in other’s business.
“This obviously exceeds the level of abstract. As a result, my favorable impression of the male protagonist and Anya both declined. In other works, this kind of supernatural ability child escaping from a laboratory usually has a miserable childhood, so as long as there are a few segments of painful flashbacks, the audience can understand why the character has personality defects. But after all, this is a comedy daily anime. Anya’s childhood is not that miserable, just changed a couple of orphanages and was returned by adoptive parents a few times. Other laboratories all want to train supernatural ability children as killing machines. Anya’s laboratory requires her to not draw pictures, study more, and save the world well. This difference is like Superman giving Batman a family photo, the contrast is remarkable.”
The existence of Anya as a character is the main export of moe elements in this work, and is also an icon-type character. Basically, she is the Paimon of this anime. Her only highlight in the first three episodes is using telepathy to help the male protagonist find the robber while leaving nosebleed. Besides that, it’s repeating the mouth habit of waku waku and showing exaggerated expressions after hearing the inner narration of the male and female protagonists. This set of performances for three episodes is enough. I don’t want to watch anymore. But she is cute, so small problems can be directly ignored. The assassin mother Yor is also a similar situation. Because she looks good, there’s not much to say.
Ending
The extreme remarks above only represent my personal thoughts. Moreover, this work itself should not be subjected to such demands. It’s purely because I have higher expectations for Bones. Previous works from Bones, even if the plot is abstract, the visual aspect has always maintained a consistently high level. But the animation of Spy x Family does not have anything special. Therefore, I have higher requirements for its plot. Actually, holding the mentality of watching for fun is fine without any problems. The main story line also maintains online quality. The OP and ED are also well-made. Hoshino Gen’s song is also good to listen to. I just don’t know why Uncle spent so much money promoting it. Probably because this anime has highlights in setting, and overall it is suitable for newcomers to enter the pit. The characters are also beautiful. It’s commercially very perfect.