Highlights
- The second season of Spy x Family is expected to maintain its comedic, slice-of-life formula while also delving deeper into the main characters and exploring their pasts.
- Season 2 will pick up from where the first season left off, with Loid and Yor's professional lives taking center stage and the Thorn Princess receiving a significant assignment.
- The same production team and cast from the first season will be returning for season 2, ensuring consistency in the animation and voice acting. The upcoming film will likely mark the end of the first cours of the series.
With the Fall 2023 anime season around the corner, it's time to preview one of the most anticipated titles, the second season of the anime adaptation of Tatsuya Endo's Spy x Family. The first season had an immensely positive reception, turning out to be one of the most popular anime titles of the past few years.
Here's what you can expect from the upcoming second season, which is set to broadcast October 7. The first season of Spy x Family is available on Crunchyroll.
Plot and Background
The Spy x Family story is set on the backdrop of the brewing conflict between Westalis and Ostania, two neighboring European states in the midst of an espionage war. Legendary Westalis spy, codenamed "Twilight" is given a mission of utmost importance: Operation Strix. He is to start a family, adopt a child, and send them to the prestigious Eden Academy, an institution where only the children of the highest elites are able to attend; where the children of his target, Donovan Desmond attend. Assuming the name "Loid Forger", Twilight's mission is to pose as a regular elite family man while getting closer to Desmond, who is a prominent Ostanian figure, and ensuring the persistence of peaceful relations between the two countries.
Loid adopts six-year-old Anya, whom he doesn't know is psychic, and later enters a marriage of mutual convenience with one Yor Briar, a woman who, unbeknownst to Loid, is a legendary Ostanian assassin known in the underworld as the "Thorn Princess". Together, Loid, Anya and Yor pretend to be a family while hiding major secrets from each other and the world. Created by Tatsuya Endo, the anime is based on the manga which is currently being serialized in Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ online platform from March 2019, with the first season of the anime airing over two cours from April to June 2022 and October to December 2022.
Depth
While it is a great comedy series, the second season of Spy x Family is expected to follow that same humourous, slice-of-life formula that is punctuated with moments of dazzling, explosive action. This time around; however, fans can also expect more heartfelt moments in and among the comedy as the series begins to delve a little deeper into the main characters and offer more insight into how they ended up in their current situation. Flashes of Loid's past have come up briefly in the first season of the anime, and season 2 is going to give us the breakdown of his tragic past and his raison d'être.
The first season adapts up to 38 chapters of the original manga in its 25 episodes, which means that fans can expect the series to pick up from the beginning of the manga's 7th volume. The first season ended on a high note after Loid got the brief opportunity to leave an impression with both Damian and Donovan Desmond, gaining a much-needed look at the family dynamic – valuable intel indeed. With more focus on both Loid and Yor's professional lives, season 2 will definitely pack a bigger punch than the first as the Thorn Princess is set to receive her biggest, most important assignment yet which will have her fighting off multiple waves of other experienced assassins aboard a luxurious cruise ship; while elsewhere, other WISE operatives get their time to shine in various missions.
The Same Production Team
Other than a change in scriptwriter from series director Kazuhiro Furuhashi to Ichirō Ōkouchi (Original Creator, Code Geass: Akito The Exiled), the staff from the first season of the anime return to produce season 2 at WIT Studio and Cloverworks, and the original cast members are expected to reprise their roles. This is also the same for the upcoming Spy x Family Code: White film directed by Takashi Katagiri and is set to arrive in Japanese theatres in December this year, which follows Loid and Anya's attempt to win a cooking competition at Eden Academy to prevent the former from being replaced in Operation Strix by the higher-ups at intelligence agency WISE. Should the second season also run for 25 episodes, then it is likely that it will run similarly to the first season, which was split into two cours.
Given that the same staff and cast are behind the production of the upcoming film, which has had its fair share of marketing – including collaborations with the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One film and Capcom's Street Fighter 6 – it is very likely that the film will mark the end of the first cours. The second season of Spy x Family is set to drop on October 7, and is expected to be simulcast on Crunchyroll as was the first season.