3 SPY x FAMILY Anime Problems I Hope Doesn’t Have in Season Two

The first season of SPY x FAMILY ended last weekend but even before its end, it was announced the second season with a movie, both to premiere in 2023.

I started reading the SPY x FAMILY manga right at the beginning of it, and I’ve been following the manga ever since, so I went to watch the anime being a manga reader and what can I say? Those who read the comments in these months know.

I wasn’t a big fan of the anime.

At the same time that I was watching the anime, I was also watching videos of reactions from various YouTube channels of various Youtubers reacting to the SPY x FAMILY episodes, when the anime premiered the vast majority enjoyed the anime but as the episodes went on, I saw some of them making more and more criticisms of SPY x FAMILY and showing a certain discouragement too.

I like to see reactions….

The anime did certain things that I honestly didn’t like, I highlight here the 3 main problems that in my view were what caused the anime to not be what it could have been, obviously, in my opinion, the vast majority of people loved SPY x FAMILY and that’s why the anime has a high score on MAL.

It’s really just me that’s complaining.

Come on! Let’s see if you share the same thought as me.

3 SPY x FAMILY Anime Problems I Hope Doesn’t Have in Season Two

1 – To beat around

Watching the episodes of SPY x FAMILY you notice something that happens a lot, which are “stopped” scenes, the characters stand still for a few seconds looking at nothing, or they take time moving from one corner to another, or they stay in the “hum” , “ha”, etc.

These little twists are something that the anime brought, in the manga the events don’t take long, we have a page limit so the story progresses, but the anime WAS and I can say with certainty that the anime WAS made to gain time for them could have content to produce a second season.

Which brings us to another point on this topic, we had original stories in the first season despite having lots and lots of chapters available to adapt…

Why create original content if you have several chapters that haven’t made it to the anime yet? Simple, to roll up and leave it for the second season.

The famous episode of Anya’s castle, despite having it in the manga, was extended with a lot of original content, at least there I agree with the expansion, in the manga it was very fast and dull and the anime made everything better.

But the episode when Yor went to take Anya’s school uniform to school, this story is an original anime and even in it you realize that the story is slow, a lot of still scenes.

Another original anime is in episode 20, when Anya wants someone to crack her “secret code”, this space could have been used to advance the story in some way.

SPY x FAMILY suffers from Dragon Ball syndrome, they don’t want to catch up with the manga and they stall where they can.

2 – Too much recap

How many times have we seen one of the characters or the narrator reminding us what each character is really like, what their mission is, etc?

Off the top of my head I can think of one in episode 4 or 5 something like that, we had one in the last episode of part one, then right in the first episode of part two we have another recap right at the beginning and then we have another one of Anya.

So for those of you who are going to watch SPY x FAMILY straight through, all 25 episodes together, they will see a recap at the beginning of episode 12 and another at the beginning of episode 13!

One of the girls I reacted to the anime noticed this and wondered why all the time they have to remind us what they do, what they should do etc.

It pissed me off too much, unlike the manga you can skip the panel quickly, not in an anime.

3 – Yor Assassin? Only in flashback or thoughts

Anya went to school, Anya got involved with terrorists, saved Loid from dying, played dodgeball against a huge 6 year old boy, hit Damian.

Loid prevented the minister from dying in an explosion, saved Damian’s notes, discovered that Yuri is from the secret police, entered a clandestine tennis tournament to retrieve a secret code.

And Yor? Which episodes showed her in her assassination work? Yeah, only in bloodstained thoughts or flashbacks.

This is a very valid criticism that I saw some people make, there was no Yor in her work as an assassin in this first season, there is a chapter in the manga that did not make it to the anime, and that chapter is Extra Mission 2.

Extra Mission 2 was published between chapters 15 and Short Mission 1. Chapter 15 for you to have an idea is the burnt episode, so after the burnt episode we were supposed to have an episode showing Yor in her work as an assassin.

I won’t give details of what happens but it’s a good episode and more focused on Yor where Anya makes fun too. However, it is, we would only have 1 episode showing Yor working as an assassin, which is the only chapter in the manga at that time that deals with that, but better than nothing.

4 – Too much Slice of life and little progress in the mission

How many episodes with “action, missions” did we have and how many were just Slice of Life? This is a point that I brought up more because I saw others complaining than necessarily something that I think is bad.

In reality, I want the SPY x FAMILY manga to last a long time, after all, it has already been said that Operation Strix is a long-term mission, things will go very slowly, so we will have slice of life and in the middle of daily life we will have some missions to do.

But answering the question, referring to “action”, did we have action in like 8 episodes out of 25? We basically just had the Bond arc and the tennis tournament as the two biggest arcs with the most hyped scenes.

Second season we will have more action!

What does Season Two have in store?

To be honest with you, we have a lot of slice of life chapters ready to be adapted into anime, there’s more of Anya with her classmates, there’s more of Damian, there’s a really fun Bond one.

What about more serious stories? Yes, there is, there is Yuri, and there is one of the arcs that I was most looking forward to, which is a great arc in which Yor has more prominence, but I can imagine them dragging it out enough to adapt that part only at the end of the second season ( if it has 12 or 13 episodes).

We have one focused on Loid too, we have a story with the Wise agents, there are a lot of good stories waiting to become anime.

Conclusion

The anime adapted up to chapter 38 of the manga, but skipped Extra Mission 2 which is more focused on Yor and her work as an assassin, because of that we didn’t have Yor assassin in the first season.

Well, these are my biggest points of why the SPY x FAMILY anime pissed me off, for those who haven’t read the manga and only watched the anime, may have a much more positive opinion of it than I do, or it could be that I’m just too really boring.

Anyway, I hope they stop with the rambling, the recaps, making up boring extra stories and following the story without wanting to move forward to still have something to adapt later.