Spy X Family - What Makes this Anime So Popular?

 

Tatsuya Endo - Spy X Family on Crunchyroll

The anime that seems to be on everyone’s lips deserves the hype.

When it first started airing in Japan, and the rest of the world from the beginning of April to almost all of June 2022, on TV Tokyo, it was only available for paid Crunchyroll Fan tier or higher.

Now though, you can watch the Simuldub on selected streaming services, such as Netflix, depending on your country.

I found when I started watching Simuldub English and switched to Japanese to see the differences that the series is charming and unique, not dumping too much backstory or internal commentary too early.

There are always subtle differences in language and the nuance of the voice actors, which intrigued me.

Loid Forger, in the English dub, played by Alex Organ, has some complexity but is still warm and caring while being firm with Anya. The Japanese dub by Takuya Eguchi makes him sound a little stricter and much more burdened, but he has his sweeter moments as he loosens up in the storyline.

 The only difference I could find in Yor Briar’s (Later Forger) subtlety between Saori Hayami and the English dub by Natalie Van Sistine is that in the Japanese dub, Yor addresses Anya as Miss Anya and seems to act more like a nanny that is fond of Anya despite the plot basis that she is her mother.

In the English Dub, she just refers to Anya by her name or directly, which may be different because of how Hounourifics work in Japan or how the Actresses both decided to play their characters given the character brief.

Anya Forger is still played pretty childishly and somewhat clueless due to her background by Atsumi Tanezaki in the Japanese version and Megan Shipman in the dubbed English; despite her power of telepathy, she still thinks in the way a small child of four or five does.  

The opening song, Mixed Nuts, tells us a story of how peanuts in a bag symbolise how Loid has to pretend he is like everyone else and has an everyday life with his daughter and his wife, who Yor is the stepmother of Anya because Loid told her a different story.

The importance of peanuts to Anya is because of their symbolism in Japanese culture.

Peanuts often symbolise family, and protection, something Anya is revealed early on in the second episode never to have had as an orphan.

 As more is revealed about her power of telepathy, we learn why she clings to the cartoons, peanuts and toys she never was allowed to have. 

In reality, Loid is a spy, codenamed Twilight, who needed a wife and child for a mission, Operation Strix, gathering intelligence about a prominent company owner, Donovan Desmond. 

To do this, he would need to enrol the child into a private school, where Desmond’s two sons attend, and his youngest, Damien, is Anya’s age. Anya would need to excel and gain Loid a place in a party for students and their parents, ones of excellent standards, known as imperial scholars.

Yor, meanwhile, is an Assasin for a company, and due to the cold war type climate, needed a Husband to avoid looking suspicious to secret Police. 

The official album cover, for Mixed Nuts, by Official Hige DANdism.

An English cover of the intro to go with the lyrics

From all around the world, we gather around like nuts in a bag. We stay

And where you go, we'll be snuggling up as we meet today

We're smiling as we say

Who knows, in this bag, we might get mixed with peanuts

We're all the same

And like we're nuts, we'll be crazy; at least I'll play pretend to be

We'll use happiness as a template.

Hide ourselves under the surface

Keep this act up, and say it's who we are

Living out our life like it's a lie

We'll keep it up this disguise we're hiding

We'll act like one big family at our dinner tonight.

Even with secrets as a whole, each one of you makes me feel at home, you know?

Feelings that I hide

I still feel them inside

Choking up, I can't help but reveal it sometimes

This stress inside my mind it's stopping me from living out my life, and I know.

Even if tomorrow is a mind-numbing day, like always

It doesn't matter either way, cause I'll be here with you

All of this will be my honest truth cause you will be here for me too

We're not like all the rest; we're like a bitter peanut. All left behind

To all the world, we're just rejects they think aren't worth the time

They instantly pay no mind

But when I look at you, I always want you here, right by my side

They may joke, they may roast, we'll get mocked more than most, yet though

Together they'll never break through all our pride

Even if you're born at the top or worked your way up non-stop

It's all the same; there's barely any difference there

Let's just live our life out here hoping we'll get blessed instead of coping that we'll

Reap all the benefits this unforgiving world will yield

Even from out our window, the world outside appears to be so cold, you know?

No stars in the night, thunderstorms in our sight, even then I know with you

everything will be alright.

When we make mistakes, we'll improvise and carry on the show, but I know

This is all a part of normal daily routine, like always

It doesn't matter either way; I'll carry on the show

Even with secrets as a whole, each one of you makes me feel at home, you know?

Come take a seat 

We got some meals for a feast

Let's eat up all our dinner as one big family

This stress inside my mind it's stopping me from living out my life, and I know.

Even if tomorrow is a mind-numbing day, like always

It doesn't matter either way, cause I'll be here with you

All of this will be my honest truth cause you will be here for me too

This life I wanna spend my time and seconds on, any moment I'm with you

Even in the ending song, Souvenir tells how the trio are accidentally growing closer, despite knowing the reasons they told everyone and themselves. 

Anya seems to love her mother and father not just for their small family-like moments that they put on for others, Or because Anya loves how Loid is like Bondman, her favourite cartoon character, but because she sees them as her family, no matter what.

The aesthetic in most cold war Esque animes is there- Buildings similar to those seen in Germany, mixed with Oxford for the famous private school, Eden Academy in Westalis.

From other Anime, like Kiki’s Delivery Service, the 1940-50s look and the way it shows what the war looks like in development, in people’s clothing, thoughts, and how they act, is recognisable, even if the audience is younger.

It shows war through Anya’s eyes as her early experiences of it were of a test subject for the previous government of Ostania, and in more mature ways through both Loid and Yor’s experiences and pasts.

As we get further into Season 1, we see one instance when Yor begins to worry and doubt that she is helpful to him and Anya.

This results in hilarity until Loid takes her to a bar so they can talk, and through misunderstanding and panicking, Yor kicks him in the jaw.

She holds his unconscious body on a bench and sings a lullaby that he recognises from his past. It shows how the propaganda of war can take away people’s humanity by thinking one side or group can’t be anything like them.

Except both were affected by war as children, sometimes almost as young as Anya or Damien, who commit terrible acts of violence in the name of peace - just to survive and live in the world.  

Yet, Loid and Yor grew up in different parts of the country, with Loid from Westalia and Yor in Ostania, on two different sides of the iron curtain.  

If they knew about working for the country’s spy and assassin groups before knowing each other, I think they’d just see the otherness that war propaganda is.  

Aside from the violence of war and terrible bigotry with arbitrary state lines and nationalism that go with it, they are just two people trying to survive who forgot what it was like to feel and have someone besides yourself to rely on.

 

Even the base plot of fake marriage or hidden relationship with complex meanings may be recognisable, especially if you look at films like In the Mood for Love which does show two people in 1970’s westernised Japan learning to navigate everyone’s suspicions and struggle to have a relationship that everyone is doubtful of.

The anime itself is aimed at fourteen and above, but the fact that you don’t exactly need to show horror to be present works well.

Even in scenes with persuers of Loid or Yor due to their double lives, blood is almost too brightly coloured like grapefruit juice, except when Loid was bleeding and again when Yuri was.

The funny antics of Anya, and later on, the dog, Bond, or Agent Bond as Anya calls him when playing, are hilarious because he’s learning, just like Anya is, what it’s like to play, be loved, and learn.

Loid will happily buy his fake wife an apple tart because she likes them, and she finds out immediately and remembers enough on the way home one day to get Anya a caramel nut cake because she likes peanuts.

That must be why this show is so popular. Because they wanted a spy to be a pretend family, and instead, three wartorn people became a real one along the way.

The show is even getting both a second season and a movie in the coming year, according to Anime News Network, as the original manga creator Tatsuya Endō will be at the helm of both projects, with the film having a new storyline not seen in the Manga comics.

In fact, the last episode of the Season will be released on the 24th, with the ninth volume of the manga coming out around February, with three DVD and Blu-ray disks already out, and the fourth will be released on the 19th of January.   

 Spy X Family Part one DVD on eBay