Spy X Familyhas become the most popular anime in the spring 2022 season. What’s more, at the time of writing this articleSpy X Familyis the tenth-highest ranking anime of all time on MyAnimeList, a website in which users can log anime they’ve seen and rank them on a scale from one to ten. With over 750,000 members having logged the anime in their own lists before the first season has concluded, thesudden fanfare over the serieshas been overwhelming, to say the least.
Spy X Familyis a comedy slice-of-life spy anime, adapted from a manga written by Tatsuya Endo and is currently serialized in Shounen Jump. It features the daily adventures of a spy using the alias Loid Forger, who in order to blend induring an important missionmust pretend to have a family. He accomplishes this by adopting a young girl named Anya, who is secretly an esper, and by swiftly marrying Yor Briar, a city hall clerk who is a professional assassin at night. Everyone’s identities are hidden from each other, except for from Anya, who can read minds and therefore knows everyone’s true thoughts. In a world dominated by shounen and isekai anime, how did an unassuming anime such asSpy X Familysurge into the mainstream? The manga was well-received, but how didSpy X Familyballoon over the rankings of all but one season ofAttack on Titan, and other popular series such asCowboy Bebop, the originalGintama, andCode Geass, among others?
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There Is A Shift In Anime Trends
First, there seems to be a shift in trending anime in the Spring 2022 anime season. By looking through MyAnimeList’s user rankings and popularity, which is measured by how many users have logged the anime onto their own personal list,Spy X Familyis the highest-rated and the most popular. However, to see the shift in trends, we need to examine the rest of the anime’s rankings and popularity this season as well.
Out of the top ten anime in regard to their popularity, six out of the ten aretagged under the ‘comedy’ genre. Out of the top six most popular, only one isn’t tagged in the comedy genre,The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2.Although it is the second most popular anime this season, it is ranked the lowest out of the six by MyAnimeList users at 6.79. Clearly this season, comedy anime reigns supreme.
When filtering by the ‘comedy’ tag, 53 of the currently airing anime out of 184 total airing anime shows and movies are comedies. For one genre, having over a quarter of the currently airing anime at 28.8% is rather telling. During the previous Winter 2022 season it was much more varied, with big titles such asAttack on Titan: Final Season Part Twoand theDemon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Entertainment District Arcdominating the charts instead.
It Stands Out Among Slice-of-Life Anime
When slice-of-life is mentioned, it is usually regarding anime where the protagonist works in a café, participates in a school club, or examines the ordinary daily life of the protagonist. There is nothing wrong with anime like this, of course, butSpy X Familytruly stands out from these, as well as being a slice-of-life anime,it is also an action spy thriller.
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The combination of these two unique genres isn’t something that we’ve seen time and time again. Trope-filled anime have their place, butSpy X Familyisn’t one of them. The series balances daily life of a newly married couple and adopted child with heists and evil-doers. The popular slice-of-life tropes that Spy X Family does have, like found family, are reimagined in ways to weave in thesecret agent and deadly assassin plotsthat carry the series through the Forger’s daily life.
Unique And Interesting Characters
One of the most important aspect of any piece of media is the characters.Spy X Familycapitalizes on this and makes their characters as unique and interesting as their premise. None of the characters seem to be rehashes replayed in every other slice-of-life, and the online adoration of the characters shows that people are taking notice of that.
Loid Forger is a secret agent with the codename “Twilight”. He presents himself as cold and emotionless to match the job, however, he became a spy to protect children from events similar to what he went through as a child. He truly cares for his new family, even if he tries to remain unattached since he is only pretending to have this familyfor the sake of a mission.
Anya Forger is a pink-hairedpsychic child of unknown ageand adopted from a sketchy orphanage by Loid Forger. Despite being a small child, since she can read minds she is the only character in the whole series who knows everyone’s true intentions and secrets. Being a child, however, she thinks that her new parents are cool and doesn’t spoil their hidden identities to teach other.
Yor Forger, the final character of our main trio, is masquerading as a wife to get her family and friends off of her back about her singleness,while being a deadly assassinknown as the “Thorn Princess” at night. She lacks social skills, and is known for being timid. Secretly, she is an assassin and especially in the manga often has incredibly dark thoughts involving solving all of her problems by murdering everyone around her. She does however suppress them and tries to live a normal life otherwise.
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