Spy x Family - Season 2

 Spy x Family is a comedic slice of life espionage series based on the manga of the same name by Endo Tatsuya.  The second season originally aired during the Fall of 2022 for a total of 12 episodes.

 The following picks up where Season 1 left off, some spoilers may be presented below.

 

    Everything is in place for the mission to continue.  Loid's cover remains intact.  While still struggling to get Stella, Anya is still in school at Eden academy and is in constant contact with the targets son.  Yor, continues her secretive work as an assassin and has Loid as a cover for suspicion.  All is well, even if the mission Loid is undertaking is progressing slower than he would life.  Loid tries to smooth things over with Yor after she returns home late from work one night and appears to be in a foul mood.  In reality, she is desperately trying to conceal a wound she received in her last mission.  He takes her our for a date, in hopes of soothing whatever shes angry about.  the activities of the date make her seem more angry, given her continued discomfort and struggles with keeping her secret.  After the date we get to see some random adventures of some of the other characters as they go about their own isolated adventures.

    Yor's employer summons her for an important and prolonged mission as a bodyguard instead of an assassin.  They come up with a work cover that would allow her to be away from home for a period of days, as the mission takes place on a cruise ship.  In an unrelated event, Anya wins a pair of tickets to the same exact cruise, allowing them to join Yor.  The cruise is large and Yor will be in first class, while her family is stuck in third class, but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of crossing their paths in awkward times.  Yor's mission is to protect the widow and last remaining child of a powerful underworld crime boss who was recently killed.  One of his underlings has taken over the empire and is shifting its focus to different set of specialties.  He doesn't want any of the old bosses family to reclaim what he took and has set up a large bounty on the woman and her young child, large enough to attract killers from near and far.  Yor's boss owes a debt to the deceased crime boss and has assigned his best people to protect his widow as she makes her way to safety.

    This was a fantastic return to the series and kicked it off strongly with the first episode.  The next few episodes that showed random stories, usually with lesser characters, wasn't as enjoyable though.  The episodes long arc of Yor protecting the mafia boss though was the best story in the anime so far.  It progressed naturally, had a lot of variation in the story it told and the characters that were part of it.  It also doesn't hurt to have Yor as the focus of the story.  This season heavily favored the waifu-for-laifu, so there is no complaint on that end.  What these episodes didn't do was to advance the central plot of the story.  The final episode of the first season gave us a great moment when Loid and his target make contact, even having a short conversation.  Yet we get no further advancement in the Project Strix in these 12 episodes.  But, given the quality of the story we did get, that can be excused.  No word on when the next round of episodes will be airing, time will tell.

    Spy x Family is overall a well done series.  The artwork is good but not heavily detailed.  There is an air of sophistication with in its art deco style world.  The characters are all lovable and incredibly quirky.  Its strongest part is the story telling.  The story is a spy thriller but its always handled in a way that's humorous and humble.  The characters are confident in their skills and go about their real jobs with unwavering confidence.  There is always a heavy lair of absurdity and comedy in the resolution of the struggles, just believable enough to not break the spell of the story.  This season though made me realize that I enjoy Yor's stories the best and don't enjoy the plots that take place with in the school its self, even though that at the core of the story.  The multiple episode long arc showed that the story could survive quite well if it moved away from being episodic in nature.  I suspect the next season will return to advancing the goals of the mission, but will still be enjoyable and cute.

The anime was simulcast and is available on Crunchyroll.