The second of Fall 2023’s kaiju trio returns with a pretty characteristic episode. But what do we call it? I hate to obsess over it but the official title card says “Episode 26”, so in theory one should go with that. Problem is, I feel like as a resource I’m doing my readers a disservice by not differentiating when this was clearly pitched as “Season 2”. And “Spy x Family Season 2 – 26″ makes no sense and is even more confusing. So I’m going with the above and damn the torpedoes.
I like SxF the best among that trio, but that’s not to say it’s an unconditional love affair. There’a a yawning gap between this show’s best material and its worst, and we don’t see the former as often as I’d like. Maybe it’s a product of a mangaka who by his own admission is writing outside his comfort zone because that’s what sells. This episode is at neither extreme. It’s a perfectly amusing and pleasant lark which gives ample screen time to all three main characters and doesn’t impact the larger story much either way. Which is perfectly fine for a season premiere.
In fact, this entire episode is premised on Yor getting shot in the ass while on a job. And of course for her a “job” means murdering people, which is something Spy x Family studiously avoids confronting head-on for obvious reasons. Getting shot would seem to be an occupational hazard with being an assassin, so she really has no call for complaint. It does present a sizable inconvenience to be sure, given the challenges of hiding it from her fake family. If she knew the truth about Anya at least Yor wouldn’t have to stress about that, and it would probably have been best to claim she pulled a gluteus maximus while lifting a box or something. But Yor as presented is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so her response is in-character.
This is not exactly Algonquin Round Table stuff here, but as dumb humor goes it’s pretty funny. Loid, naturally, has no idea why his fake wife seems so grouchy so he does the worst possible thing, invite her out on a date. He gets (bribes) Franky to babysit Anya, but the latter is obviously worried about her fake parents and talks him (it wasn’t hard) into tailing them. Her disguise is basically Jackie O., which feels contemporaneous but doesn’t quite look natural on a five year-old. These hijinks are pretty low-hanging fruit for SxF, but the series knows how to play up what it knows works.
The climax of all this is a dinner at a Fugu restaurant (I’m sure those were all the rage in cold war Europe), where one of the terrorists who survived Yor’s attack has gotten a job after deciding to go straight. The convenience factor of all this is off the charts, especially when he tries to poison Yor with fugu venom and winds up giving her pain relief (well, it is a neurotoxin). And even with her esper abilities Anya being able to build a bomb (in about two minutes, yet) is quite a stretch. But hey, we’re not in this for the realism.
Again, it’s all very sasuga and safe. The most striking element of the premiere in fact is the Yuasa Masaaki OP – when you have budgets like Spy x Family has you can do that sort of thing – which is pretty rad. In fact it looks as if he could have done the ED too, though I haven’t seen it attributed to him anywhere. By the looks of the preview next week’s episode could be much more interesting, so I’ll look forward to that.
skyhack
October 9, 2023 at 1:30 amAnd Yoko with the SEATBELTS doing the OP music!
QueenofNerds
October 12, 2023 at 12:38 amHaha thanks for the screenshots! I finished the manga a month or two ago, and was waiting for Yor’s funny faces lol
Nicc
October 9, 2023 at 9:32 am“Spy x Family” is back for the 2nd season (Yep, it is weird that episode order suggests a continuation of the 1st season, but all of the marketing materials keep calling it as the 2nd season) and it starts off with a cracker of a 1st episode. It was indeed very safe, but it did a good job with re-introducing our main trio. It starts off with Yor doing her night job, which we haven’t seen in a while. She definitely got careless here, leaving one person mostly dead and one more very much alive. The former gets in one last shot and, yep, she got one in the tuchis. It looks like she was able to get some very quick surgery, but I guess the docs forgot the painkillers? It’s either that or she’s built an immunity to them too. So, she’s in a foul mood and Loid gets worried about their fake marriage.
Yor is not able to sleep off the pain and Loid has got a lot of date plans to improve her mood, most of which are blown up because she isn’t able to sit. Uncle Franky is brought in to babysit as Loid and Yor got out on their date, but Anya isn’t planning on staying home. She and Franky put on disguises to tail them, which of course doesn’t fool Loid for even a second. Ah well, as long as Franky is watching over Anya. The date doesn’t really go well, which is understandable when one of the partners can’t sit down. It’s at the fancy restaurant when Yor must sit and then it seems like Anya’s and Franky’s adventures are done for the day. However, her powers pick up danger in the restaurant. One of the staff is the surviving terrorist from the beginning of the episode and he plans to get in one last job to take out Yor.
Franky just thinks that Anya wants to listen in to what their parents are doing, but Anya has got her own plans. Indeed, I’m sure that blowfish was a big hit in Ostania at the time! She’s given a cocktail made of the venom and… it gets rid of the pain. Loid thinks that the alcohol has mellowed her out. Well, whatever, it works and now the both of them are having a great date. I still find out strange that her poison immunity doesn’t work on alcohol, but like you said about realism… Anya is a competent agent here and corners the would-be assassin. We should be concerned that somebody of her age knows how to make an IED in such a short about of time (The peanut bomb might have been deadly if the would-be assassin had a peanut allergy), but it works out and the former terrorist decides to turn a new leaf for real. You’re working at a high-end restaurant and the pay should be good. Go settle down and have some kids.
The date was a success and Yor had a great time, but the poison wears off the next morning and Yor is in a bad mood again. Oh well, it’s just another day in the somehow functional Forger family. The next episode does look very interesting as we see Damian and the other kiddos again. I enjoyed both the OP and the ED and it’s a good start to the second season.