My latest piece for The Everyman went up today, where I get to talk a bit about Spy x Family:

Following a devastating conflict some decades prior, a tense cold war persists between the nations of “Westalis” and “Ostania” (fictionalized versions of West and Easy Germany circa the 1960s). Ace Westalis spy ‘Twilight’ works tirelessly to protect the peace, giving his entire life to his job and eschewing all emotional attachments in favor of his career. His current objective: to make contact with an important Ostanian government official who potentially holds the balance of war and peace within his hands, and whose life is so controlled and guarded that the only way to reach him is at a social event for top students at an elite preparatory school. Thus, in order to reach this man, Twilight must embark on his most demanding mission yet: get married and start a family.

A series of events leads to Twilight – under the name ‘Loid Forger’ – adopting an unspeakably adorable and affection-starved orphan named Anya (“You are to call me ‘Father’.” “Papa!” “Close enough”). Soon after he meets and joins forces with a beautiful, kind-hearted, but socially-inept office worker named Yor Briar, who agrees to a ‘fake marriage’ with him in order to avoid attracting the attention of the Secret Police by her suspiciously single status.

Unbeknownst to him, Yor is actually one of the deadliest assassins alive (though she only targets truly horrible people and her sweet personality is genuine), code named ‘Thorn Princess,’ who is using their marriage as cover to carry on her work.

And unbeknownst to either of them, Anya was the subject of a top-secret experiment that has left her with the power to read minds. Meaning that she alone of the whole cast knows all of what’s really going on. Though, as she’s six years old (at most: it’s hinted that she’s lying about her age), her understanding of and ability to use her knowledge only goes so far. A lot of the jokes revolve around her being shocked by thoughts that were never meant for her ears (“To make this simpler, I’ll just think of it as a dismembered body…”).

From that setup all kinds of adventures and hilarious mishaps ensue, as Loid tries to get the precocious, but unfocused Anya into the elite school, then make her a model student, all while he and Yor continue their respective secret careers of thwarting bad guys and preventing war.

As I say, it’s a really wonderful series; a kind of affectionate parody of the classic James Bond films while turning the material in a more wholesome, family-oriented direction to preach the message that one of the most important things anyone can do is simply to get married, raise a family, and put their children first.

Read the rest here.