I just wrapped up this week’s episode of SPY X FAMILY, and I have to say it was quite alright. This season however, every week feels like a battlefield with so many huge contenders and chainsaws on the loose. I hate using this term, but “mid” was all I felt as I watched the comedy playout for 20 minutes. This anime simply has no feeling of weight or stakes to anything as every incident has been played off for laughs or resolved without taking any damage emotionally or physically, so why worry that something bad may happen? So far it never does. This reminded me of a story I heard about in July of this year that apparently the mangaka revealed he doesn’t really care about the series that much. I wanted to do some digging and see what he meant.

Obviously when translating is required things can get muddy fast. From the interviews I read, he doesn’t hate SPY X FAMILY per se (as many clickbait pieces were purporting), but rather he’s not that close with the characters. His original designs were rejected by the editor, and this happened several times until he arrived at the Forger family’s current iterations which he thought were mainstream and boring. None of his other series were taking off though, so the editor didn’t budge an inch. In fact, apparently the mangaka doesn’t care much about the spy backdrop either, though he did state he found the general concept of a hidden identity interesting. Still, he clarified that the series was initially a relaxing break for him and that he enjoyed working on it to chill out and provide something the editor approved of, different from his other series that did not gain attention or approval. As we all know SPY X FAMILY has popped off and he recently apologized for a short chapter due to overworking, so I doubt it’s a relaxing series to create anymore.

Ah yes, the average mangaka working at 3 A.M.

I think it’s quite interesting how someone’s favorite work can be swept to the wayside while something they consider to be more basic and mainstream fires off. I have to admit the more I watch SPY X FAMILY, the more I am starting to feel the lack of overall inspiration. It is a comedy after all so I don’t blame the anime for having a ton of jokes, but these days Big Smoke has taught us that “the same things that make you laugh, make you cry” and I think that’s true for the greatest comedies. So far I don’t even come close to being tense with this series after season one taught me that the stakes are low and they’re probably going to stay low. That sent me on a spiral, so here I am at 11pm wondering how many designs/plot points/ideas had to be changed to appease editors and management. And like, I can’t even hate on it too much cause the shit did work. SPY X FAMILY reached stardom, as I’m sure many other series did by listening to feedback and applying alterations which in many cases is for the better. But when a creator doesn't even really care about spy stuff… in an anime about a spy…no wonder there’s no interesting spy storyline happening.

If this was the first face design, I would of rejected it too.

Don’t get it twisted, I’m not anywhere close to dropping this show. I’m still a mainstream drone who loves Anya and the Forgers’ wild antics. However, I am starting to see the cracks in the formula and I’m praying that the latter half of this season is going to shake the status quo up somehow. Are you watching SPY X FAMILY? Do you know of another series that was drastically changed to appease editors? Throw on your disguise, slip past the security, and infiltrate the comments below!