I’ve come to believe that Damian is Endou Tatsuya’s favorite character.  My reasoning is simply that whenever Damian is in focus, there’s a sharpness and emotional intensity to the writing I don’t see often when he’s not.  We know Endou never intended to serialize a series like SxF – he’s said it’s outside his comfort zone.  Success has its obvious rewards, but in Endou’s case there may be creative frustration too (especially when he sees Fujimoto’s other ex-assistants succeeding with darker work).   It’s not Spy x Family’s cash cow (that’s Anya and Yor, mostly) but Damian’s arc may be the mangaka’s way of putting at least a little of himself into the work.

The first part was more the usual forgettable SxF slapstick.  Bond getting a chapter is fine, and there are some amusing moments as he visualizes the terrifying potential futures in store for him if Yor makes his dinner.  The most amusing part of this for me was Bond somehow concluding that Loid’s job was hunting pigs with a spear.  I also thought Loid’s gambit with the note was pretty clever, and it certainly got him exactly what he wanted.  Amusing for the most part but utterly featherweight and forgettable – which is frankly what this series is a lot of the time.

Then we get to the B-part here, which is where the writing switched on as it usually does where Damian is involved.  Damian is cute of course, but his chapters aren’t moe pandering in the same way Anya’s are.  He’s got the most interesting and complicated arc in the series, and while this was mostly comic in nature, it did highlight the conflicts that drive that arc.  Damian is a little kid, he shouldn’t be driving himself the way he does – but it’s all about pleasing his distant, aloof asshat of a father.  When Damian does get in trouble (sleeping in) it’s because  he’s staying up late studying to earn more stellas.

Say what you will about Emile and Ewen, but their unwavering loyalty to Damian obviously goes beyond the issue of status.  And just as obviously it’s about affection, not obligation, and that’s a clue as to Damian’s true nature.  Damian is lucky to have friends like this, and lucky that the staff at Eden seem generally to be a decent bunch, including Henderson-sensei.  They know the score with Damian, and they try to give him what he isn’t getting from his family and steer him off the dark path.  Sending the boys on a “field research trip” with the school custodian Green-sensei (Shirokuma Hiroshi) was punishment in name only.  In truth it was an attempt to get Damian to see that there was more to the world around him.

Green-sensei is clearly a kind man at heart, and taking these posh lads out for a spell of rough and tumble “nature” (as close as well-groomed Eden gets) is likewise a sort of surrogate parenting.  This is amusing stuff, adorable in a way that earns it without having to pander, and it’s always a nice moment whenever we see Damian lower his guard and act (or laugh) like the small child he is.  It’s because Endou-sensei gives Damian’s story real pathos that moments like this matter, and that’s also why we don’t generally see them otherwise – the other threads in the story just don’t have the foundation to support them.  I know Damian will always be a secondary figure in Spy X Family, but I always appreciate his moments in the spotlight and wish there were more (and I suspect Endou does too).