Spy

So I just did a re-read of "Spy x Family" and the first thing I'm going to do is mention what I think its only real flaw is:

I do not buy for a second that Twilight doesn't know Yor is an assassin. He correctly deduced her brother was in the secret police just by realizing that what he claimed his job was would be decent cover for it. You cannot seriously expect me to buy that a man as incredibly careful as Twilight would ever in a million years marry a woman he has not done an absolute in-depth background check on, and you cannot convince me that said background check would not have discovered that Yor was not only an assassin but an infamous assassin immediately. It does not fit with Twilight's character at all.

But fine - I'll accept it as the cost of the manga existing at all.

Outside of that, the manga is just a gem. The premise is absolutely ingenious, and the Tatsuya Endo seems to have a really solid grasp of these characters, so watching them bounce in and out of the zany situations he concocts for them is a joy. My favorite is Anya, who is the only character who actually has a full picture of everything going on and who everybody else assumes has the smallest piece of the puzzle. What I like about Anya is that despite her superpowers and the bizarre situation she finds herself in, she still feels like an actual little girl. Anya feels real, which is a treat. The last time I can recall a character of a similar (though even younger) age feeling as realistic as Anya is Tsumugi in "Sweetness and Lightning".

The manga's story arcs don't reinvent the wheel, but the premise is so good that Endo doesn't really have to; he just has to not mess it up. The manga's premise also has this weird feeling where everything is simultaneously incredibly high stakes and incredibly low stakes at the same time. Things like "How will Anya do on her midterm exams?" have world-shaking implications, and we get drama out of "Anya needs to make nice with the jerk boy in her grade by winning at Old Maid, but not by too much".

The art is good, not great; the best artist in Shonen Jump right now is probably My Hero Academia's Horikoshi and Endo isn't there. But it has style and it's appealing. The action is fun. The gags are good. I even like the weird pseudo-incestuous relationship between Yor and her brother in this when most of the time that sort of thing skeeves me out, but this time it's actually funny.

This is a whole lot of gushing, but Spy x Family has humor, heart, and great characters. It's probably not going to knock your socks off with mind-bending storytelling, and the art won't blow you away, but it doesn't need to; it just needs to execute its amazing premise in style. And that it does. Highly recommended.