©遠藤達哉/集英社・SPY×FAMILY製作委員会
Yor’s inherent contradiction of being a gentle person with a warm heart and a highly skilled assassin was probably intended to be funny. And in most cases—from her weaponized cuisine to her life lessons for Anya—the humor of two different sides coexisting in the same body works. But sometimes the story taps into something more and that’s what makes this series shine. It never forgets its goofy roots while also trying to dig deeper into why the characters became weirdos.
This season, with its focus on Yor, really delivers on that as we finally get to know her in all her contradictory glory, and much of that comes from the episode’s monologue This. It’s one thing told in her backstory that she became an assassin to provide for her brother, but hearing it in her own words is a completely different thing. , especially when she slowly realizes that there might be room in her life for a few changes. When Yor first took on the killing contract, it was because she needed to put food on the Briar family’s table and the reward was to keep the world safe for Yury to grow up in. Now, Yuuri is (ostensibly) grown up and earning her own money, plus Yor has a day job and a husband who makes a good living. She still had a child to protect, but in a different way than she had to protect her brother—Anya’s life, as far as Yor knew, was not often threatened because she had no parents. (Yor doesn’t know that Anya was once an orphan.) The best way she can protect Anya is to be there as her mother.
As Yor is about to be struck down by the pretty-haired swordsman, her last thoughts are about the little things she won’t have to do if (or in her mind, when) he kills her. She muses that she won’t be able to get Loid’s shirt from the cleaners or return Anya’s books to the library. These are trivial thoughts, things that are considered everyday annoyances if your car breaks down or you’re late. That they are also what Yor thinks might be her final thoughts is what matters: they show where her priorities now lie. Now she’s more than just a sister and an assassin; she is a mother, a wife and a human being in her own right. Yuri has grown up, but so has Yor, and it feels like this is the moment she realizes that she has a say in her own life. And would she want to focus on her role as Mrs. Forger instead of Princess Thorn? That’s a choice she’s allowed to make.
Yor still isn’t as dynamic a character as Anya and Loid, or even Bond and Franky. But this arc does great things for her, and watching her fight is always a joy; the animation does a great job of capturing the weight of her movements, the moments she slows down, and the grace of every swing and kick. Even the blood flying through the air has a viscosity that makes viewers pay attention. Add to that the combination of fireworks, peace songs, and Yor’s fight against a series of assassins who she kills before they can even finish introducing themselves. This is a winner! The violence set to music is a bit of a shortcut, but when it works this well, who cares?
It’s too bad they decided to add a short bit about Yuuri at the end of the episode. Perhaps this was done to get another full episode out of Yor’s storyline. It’s fun to see little Yor stumble back from picking herbs with a dead boar, but unless Yuri is your favorite character, he’s not someone I’d focus on on after such a strong outing. However, the rest of the episode was excellent so I can forgive this for once.
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Spy×Family is now streaming on Crunchyroll.