SPY x FAMILY: Season One

Name: SPY x FAMILY: Season One
Item: SPY x FAMILY: Season One
Author: Lillie Jaenchen

"Japanese Action Comedy with Family Values"

Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

SPY x FAMILY is an animated TV series from Japan streaming on Hulu and Crunchyoll. As a way to maintain peace in the Cold War, Agent Twilight poses as Loid Forger to infiltrate the inner circle of an East German diplomat. To do so, he must acquire a wife and child. The child he adopts is a little girl named Anya, who secretly is a scientifically engineered telepath. Loid and Anya recruit Yor, a woman who secretly happens to be an assassin. In Season One, the three people form a legal family unit but keep their true identities to themselves. The rest of Season One is a series of misadventures, but all three become better people while interacting as a family.

Season One of SPY x FAMILY is well made, with beautiful animation. The basic story is not only intriguing but also well executed. The comedy is funny, and the characters are dynamic and captivating. Season One of SPY x FAMILY has a strong moral, pro-family worldview. However, Season One has moments of violence, drunkenness, lots of lying, and secrets.

Content:

(BB, C, L, VV, N, AA, DD, MM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral, pro-family worldview with some redemptive content where a spy’s mission during the Cold War is to maintain peace between countries and not plunge into another war, spy wants everyone to be able to live their lives free of the worry of war, a school makes a point of encouraging good role models in parents as well as encouraging conservative values, Yuri is a part of the secret police to keep his sister safe, on top of that when Loid and Yor become parents they both go out of their way to become better parents to love, support and raise Anya to have good values, Loid even gives up smoking and goes out of his way for her safety, Yor goes out of her way to learn to cook so she can be a better wife and mother, there are no religious explicit views, however the politics tend to be more about Anti-War vs Pro War in a cold war of espionage, the young female protagonist prays to God in “The Target’s Second Son”;

Foul Language:

Two “s” words in the dubbed version of the episode “Disarm the Bomb”;

Violence:

In the episode “Operation Strix,” Loid fights off a bunch of spies in hand to hand combat and people are shot at; in the episode “Secure A wife,” Yor kills a gangster and all his thugs; in the same episode, Loid and Yor both fight of terrorists as Loid Proposes to Yor; in the episode “The Friendship Scheme,” Yor beats up some kidnappers and Anya punches a bully; in the episode “The Counter - Secret Police operation,” we see the secret police torture a guy; in the episode “Penguin Park,” Yor beats up a guy for kidnapping Anya, and Loid beats up a terrorist; in “Project Apple,” a terrorist sect attacks Anya and her Dog only to have Yor beat them up, which continues into Violence into the following episodes “Disarm the Bomb,” and “A New Family Member”;

Sex:

No sex occurs;

Nudity:

In the Episode “Prepare for the Interview,” there is a portrait in a museum of a woman naked on a bench and although the painting is blurred, Anya makes a comment about being able to see the woman’s “boobies”;

Alcohol Use:

There are a few instances of alcohol use; in the episode “Will They Pass or Fail?” the forgers celebrate Anya’s acceptance into Eden with alcohol, and the “mother” gets intoxicated, but Anya never drinks; both Yor and her brother Yuri get drunk, in the episode “The Counter-Secret Police Cover Operation” when they’re upset but Loid tries to help them; when Frankie is rejected by a girl in the episode “The Informant’s Great Romance Plan,” he goes to a bar to drink his sorrows away, and Loid joins him to make sure he’s okay; and, Yor gets drunk in the episode “The Role of Mother and Wife,” because she’s worried Loid is going to divorce her for another woman, but Loid chastises her;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

There are a five instances where cigarette smoking occurs, the informant smokes cigars to get the attention of a girl who works at the cigar lounge although he hates smoking, and there’s steroid use in a tennis game in the episode “The Campbeldion,” but the steroid use is depicted as bad; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Many characters lie and keep secrets from one another, a little girl develops a crush on the married male protagonist in the episode “Shopping with Friends” and plots to marry him although her servant tells her not to commit adultery, the episode “The Campbeldion” is devoted to the evils of gambling, the adult female protagonist’s younger brother, who’s a member of the “German” Secret Service in the story, has an intense, obsessive bond with his sister in “The Unwavering Pass,” and it’s explained that his psychological “love map” is out of order.

More Detail:

What happens when a spy, an assassin, and a telepath find each other? They form a fraudulent family in order to accomplish world peace. As ridiculous as this sounds, this is the logline for the popular anime series SPY x FAMILY from Japan. The world itself takes place in an earth-like world about espionage during the Cold War. However, although the world isn’t directly stated to be Earth, the situation in SPY x FAMILY seems to parallel Eastern Europe sometime between the 1960s and 1970s.

In Season One, the story starts with the two countries of Ostania and Westalis, East and West Germany, caught in a Cold War after surviving this world’s equivalent of World War II. In order to maintain peace between the two countries, the secret Organization WISE comes up with a plan to figure out the plans of war supporting diplomats in Ostania. This plan is called Operation Strix, which involves the most talented spy they have, Agent Twilight. Twilight is not only a master spy but also a master of disguise. Twilight gets his mission to infiltrate the inner circle of Ostanian diplomat Donovan Desmond. In order to do that, Twilight is ordered to acquire a wife and child.

Desmond is a known recluse and only makes appearances for social gatherings at the prestigious Eden College, a private elite school for students ages 6 to 19. Twilight must get a child who can get into Eden college in order to join Desmond’s inner circle. When Twilight gets to Berlint, the capital of Ostania, he takes on the role of Loid Forger, a psychiatrist and immediately adopts a young girl named Anya from a questionable orphanage. What Loid doesn’t know is that Anya is a telepath from a rejected secret scientific project and has been in and out of orphanages. Anya immediately takes a liking to Loid and assumes the role of his daughter.

After a few bumps, Anya manages to pass the school’s entrance exams. However, in order to actually get accepted, Eden is strict about meeting with BOTH parents and the student, as Eden College likes good traditions and morals. This poses a problem because, as Anya cries, “But, there is no mama!”

Loid tries to find a suitable partner. While in a tailor shop, he bumps into a local, 27-year-old civil servant named Yor Briar. However, when Anya reads Yor’s mind, she finds out Yor needs a date and, more importantly, Yor is an assassin whose job is to kill dangers to her country’s security.

When Yor and Loid get to talking, prompted by Anya, Yor agrees to pretend to be Loid’s wife for the interview if Loid pretends to be her boyfriend for a party. Loid agrees and although some mishaps happen, Yor is impressed by him to actually marry him on paper to keep suspicions off her, and Loid accepts. After having their marriage license forged, the three become a family. Yor immediately loves Anya, and Anya loves her new mama.

From there, Anya manages to get into Eden College, where the next stage of the plan unfolds. In order to get into Desmond’s inner circle, Loid must do one of two things. The first is to make Anya an imperial scholar where she must earn eight merit awards called “Stellas,” or have her befriend Desmond’s second son, Damian.

However, on day one of classes, Anya gets a merit called a “Bolt,” and gets on the wrong foot with Damian. From there the family tries its best to be a functional happy family while getting into various hijinks with other side characters including Loid’s best friend and informant Frankie, his boss Handler, Yor’s younger brother Yuri who’s secretly a member of the secret police, Anya’s best friend Becky, and Anya’s teacher Henderson.

After getting her first Stella for saving a little boy from drowning, Anya demands a reward in the form of a dog. Loid agrees and on the day they go to get the dog, Loid is called to stop a terrorist group. The terrorists plan to use dogs as suicide bombers with dogs from another failed government experimental project.

Before Loid runs into the terrorists, Anya on her own bumps into them and makes friends with a big white fluffy dog, who’s not only more intelligent than most dogs but has also been transformed into a clairvoyant. Together Anya and her new dog friend help Loid stop the terrorists. After all that, Anya adopts the dog, naming him “Bond,” as the final member of the Forger family.

Surprisingly, although Loid and Yor start off having no feelings toward each other and initially had no intention of becoming parents, both rise to the challenge and end up being the best parents for Anya. On top of that, it seems that despite the family being a sham, it has made both adults into better people. Yor becomes more house savvy and Loid becomes more trusting and relaxed, whereas Anya gets the love and stability a child needs.

SPY x FAMILY: Season One is all about finding and being part of a family, giving the series a strong moral worldview overall. Family values are the central beliefs of multiple characters including Eden College, the Briar siblings, and even the WISE spies. Thus, the program’s purpose is to show why children and even adults need to have good family values. On top of that, the whole purpose of Loid’s mission is to maintain peace and prevent war from breaking out again.

Despite all the good in SPY x FAMILY: Season One, the program has some problem areas. For example, the entire foundation of the Forger family is based on lies. Also, Loid’s missions have him lying constantly, and the same goes for Yor. The program also has lots of action violence. Yor is an assassin who’s so good at her job that it’s hard for her not to hurt people sometimes. Also, her younger brother, Yuri, is a member of the secret police and is more than willing to use torture to get information.

Overall, however, SPY x FAMILY: Season One is an adorable action comedy. It’s nice to see the importance of family values being celebrated.

A theatrical movie of SPY x FAMILY has been released by Sony Pictures Entertainment between Season Two and Three of the series, which streams on both Disney’s Hulu outlet and Sony’s Crunchyroll outlet in the United States.