Spy x Family – 24

「母役と妻役」 (Haha-yaku to Tsuma-yaku)
“母役と妻役”

Thankfully, we are finally getting to the good stuff after a few dud weeks-it was refreshing to see Spy x Family hit a high point again. Yor’s blushes shout her growing feelings for Loid. With how dense she can be sometimes, I was expecting that it would take an explicit explanation from another character to point things out to her. I give her credit for at least starting to understand on her own that this is becoming more than a marriage of convenience.

Interestingly, Loid changed his suit color for their date-going from an aqua bluish-green to a darker blue, showing how serious he is taking this. He thinks it’s for the job, but I have to wonder if maybe his heart is thinking something deeper.

Twilight should know by now that alcohol and Yor don’t mix-a bad idea for holding a conversation vital to the future of their relationship. Loid hit the nail on the head, reading Yor’s outburst as jealousy. She’s different from the other women he’s tried to “honey-trap” and isn’t the type to fall for that-when she gets embarrassed or feels driven in a corner, she goes into fight mode. Loid certainly was driving her into a bit of a corner there with his confession. It turned out better that she halted those advances. Not falling for his ruse made Loid open himself up to her in a way that he wouldn’t have, if it was “operation honey trap”. That’s the beauty of their relationship-because they don’t react the way they expect a typical person to, they are able to get real with each other (or as real as they can be while still hiding some pretty big secrets), become vulnerable with each other.

You can’t get any more vulnerable than being kicked hard and knocked out. Definitely dangerous for a spy like Loid. I think it is telling of his trust in Yor, that he feels as safe with Yor as with his mother, her song taking him back to childhood. You can really only get like that when you trust someone. What throws a wrench in this is the whole hiding the assassin/spy thing from each other. As much as they open up to each other, so long as they keep up their secret life, they are betraying that trust on some level.

We’ve been seeing this transformation happen in their relationship, where they start out “trusting” the façade that each wants the other to believe. Yet, they more time they spend with each other, they help each other realize their inner self that truly exists, apart from their assassin or spy work. Nay, that perhaps existed before their jobs forced them to bury that part of themselves. It’s as if they are re-discovering their inner selves, something that wouldn’t be possible if they knew each other’s professions.

It was a sweet moment when Twilight realized that Yor, through her care for Anya, achieves the peace and family stability in the Forgers that he is working so hard to accomplish for all families through WISE. Even though they are on opposite sides-at heart are they really? They share common goals and values after all. I think this gets at the heart of this series, that being on different sides really only means using different means or different names to accomplish the same end. It is the labels people give and the propaganda that is used that emphasizes the differences, which ultimately leads to deadly conflict.

The B part started out weak, but got better by the end. We really didn’t need a whole kawaii-pandering Anya fashion show (not to mention some really strange choices in there). It also totally misses the point of fashion as an art form with which to express oneself, more than catering to another’s tastes (at least that’s how I view fashion). It speaks volumes about Anya that unlike Becky, she doesn’t get caught up in the materialism of buying oodles of clothing. Instead, she opts to buy a commemorative key chain for herself and Becky. What matters to Anya is their friendship.

In the end, it turned out Anya didn’t need new clothes anyway. Damian is far more drawn to her happy expressions than to any fancy outfit-if anything, attempting to impress him would most likely have had the opposite effect.

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