You’ll forgive me if I am a little wary of Japanese animation these days. One too many Dragon Ball Z films have left me suspicious that there won’t be any plot to be found. In lieu of such, we’ll have a series of cereal box mascots shoot lightning from their hands until the film ends.
And if you’ve got a better way of describing Japanese superhero anime, I’d love to hear it.
I am happy to report that despite an enigmatic and possibly racist title, Spy x Family Code: White
did indeed have a plot … and only contained a single scene of lightning thievery. Oh, sure, the plot was -how shall I put this? – inane, but it wasn’t terribly difficult to follow or guess motivation.
“Operation Strix” collected a spy family: Loid, the “dad” a super spy who is introduced to us in drag, Yor: the “mom” a first-rate assassin, and Anya: a child telepath. There’s also a family dog who shouts “BORF!” and sees the future. The only way we can tell the dog sees the future is when Anya reads its mind. OK, fake family of spies. potential for fun. Got it.
When Loid has a street encounter with sexy spy Fiona Frost, a spying Yor suddenly thinks divorce is on his mind. We even get a lecture into the three signs of infidelity (in your fake marriage): business trips, change of clothing style, and, I dunno, feeding after midnight. Now, you might ask, “If this marriage is fake, why is this woman concerned that it’s going to be ending?”
Then the child gets in on it, telepathing that “Operation Strix” will end soon. Suddenly Anya fears that her family is breaking up.
Are you guys a fake family or what? I honestly do not understand. Why would you care about the family breaking apart if this is not your husband or these are not your parents?
Then they all take a trip to get a world-famous Meremere dessert in a restaurant several hours away. On the train, Anya eats a MacGuffin. In the restaurant, some army douchebag steals the Meremere from the child, causing the spy family to track down the secret Meremere ingredients. While this plot was silly, I felt involved at this point – have I ever gone to several different stores tracking ingredients for a recipe? Oh yeah, many times.
Of course, 
I’ve never had to crap out a MacGuffin, the importance of which leads Anya to fantasize about the “Poop God” taking her to the “Land of Toilets.” You know I’m not kidding here; I would never make up something this stupid.
Tell me, when you get a job animating manga for the movies, and you spend a full month poring over the “Land of Toilets” scene, do you tell your spouse and children about it? I’m imagining a weary worker coming home to the fam and lying, “I was laid off today.”
Spy x Family Code: White was good enough for me to want to see the climax. That hasn’t happened in a manga/anime for me in many moons. It wasn’t better than that for the reasons enumerated above, but it was good enough to keep my attention until the end of the film, which is a rarity with this genre at this time.
There once lived a God of Poop
Who brought the “Land of Toilets” to the group
He ruled all clogs
Yet his favorite was dogs
Cuz after their business, he had a scoop
Rated PG-13, 110 Minutes
Director: Kazuhiro Furuhashi, Takashi Katagiri
Writer: Ichirô Ôkouchi, Tatsuya Endo
Genre: When fake families fight
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Anybody who can just roll with it
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Children of divorce
