Anya decides to run off again as she reads the haunting future that the fluffy white derpy dog foresees. This episode covers manga chapters 20-21.

Recap & Reaction

The start of this episode begins with Yor facing Keith with a sobbing and frightened Anya. As Anya is scared out of her mind, Yor tries her best to console her. Keith, realizing that he needs to make a quick move to eliminate both of them before it gets out of hand, sends his dog after Yor. Slowly, the dog approaches Anya and Yor with bad intentions and Yor responds with an epically ghastlier look, sending it running away with its tail between its legs.In Keith’s next move, he tries to send his other dog to attack, but it rightfully refuses, resulting in an reprehensible kick of the dog.

If there is one thing this anime does in every episode that no other anime consistently replicates, it is to trigger the most primal of emotions out of you. By nature of Anya being a lovable child, the purity of her actions and the natural display of her emotions just elicits our inherent desire to protect and be in awe of children. Anya’s cries to her mother is triggering. Her fear of her angry mother is triggering. It just continues endlessly with any scene with Anya in it. Add in the fact that Keith kicks a dog, Tatsuya Endo accomplishes exactly what kind of reaction he wants out of the audience.

Keith runs off and Yor tries to chase after him. She stops midway, realizing that she’s not going to abandon Anya. Anya goes on to explain that the dogs are attached with bombs and then Yor inspects the white fluffy derpy dog. Thankfully, there was none. This scene concludes with Yor and Anya having a heartwarming moment as Anya apologizes for irresponsibly leaving Yor’s side.

A classic sitcom-like moment.

Yor goes on to call authorities and Anya reads the white fluffy derpy dog’s mind as he is seeing the future with Loid dead, under the rubble of a crumbled clock tower. Disregarding the moment Yor and Anya had earlier, Anya tells Yor that Loid “forgot his toilet paper” and rides off with the white fluffy derpy dog to try to prevent that future from occurring.

Keith arrives at one of his bases and realizes it’s not the secret police, but the west catching on to them. Sylvia’s men end up arresting all of the terrorists in that location, confiscating all the bombs except the one at the clock tower.

With all the heartwarming heart-to-heart moments taken out of the equation, it’s rare that we get a little bit of insight into characters like Sylvia. These “terrorist” college kids may be a smaller example of what both Westalis and Ostania has to deal with. Sylvia teaching these college kids a life-lesson might be a glimpse into what Donovan Desmond’s greater threat might be.

Sylvia Sherwood Crushes “Terrorist” College Kids

Sylvia Sherwood takes over interrogation of the these college students and lays the smack down on their ignorance. It is revealed that these college kids want war to end Ostania and Westalis supremacy. However, they don’t ever explain what benefits would arise from an outright hot war. Sylvia goes on to explain that they never experienced death, killing, losing loved ones and all the other dark realities of war. It’s not something to be taken lightly.

Truly Understanding Sylvia Sherwood’s Lesson

College students tend to be the faces of every generation’s unrealistic and liberal ideals until they become actual adults. Sylvia Sherwood giving these young college students a dose of reality draws parallel to our own reality.

I think Tatsuya Endo’s intent was to convey that young adults don’t see how much better off the world is today. Like in Spy x Family’s world, there are tons of issues floating around the world and something like starting a war shouldn’t be taken lightly. College students have always been a thorn in the older generation’s side and this scene represents that sentiment.

These college kids don’t know much of diddly and “learned nothing from university.”

If you are a younger viewer of Spy x Family and watched this scene with Sylvia Sherwood, it might hit a little bit different than if you were watching it as an older adult. This scene can be taken in at face value, but it has an underlying learning lesson that only age will teach you. As a college graduate myself, I 100% changed my views on how I see the world and how I perceive many political issues. The world is just extremely complicated than what you are told as 18-22 year olds.

Just food for thought for my young readers!

Recap & Reaction Continued..

Sylvia sends Twilight to the clock tower after learning about those bombs from the earlier interrogation. Anya and the white fluffy derpy dog makes its way to the clock tower, but realizes she doesn’t know how to tell time! She asks an old man how long it will be before it goes “bwong,” and he answers that “it will happen in 30 minutes.”

Keith gets out of his car with a bomb dog as Anya and the fluffy white derpy dog hides. She reads the fluffy white derpy dog’s mind saying “they are going to get caught if they don’t get out.” Anya and the fluffy white derpy dog continues into the clock tower to try to find a way to stop it from exploding. Eventually, they find the bomb and try to figure out a way to relay the message about the door exploding without exposing herself. The scene cuts to a random bottle of ketchup in the room.

Anya and dog watch from afar as Loid makes his way to the clock tower as the bell dongs. She reads fluffy white derpy dog’s mind and Loid pops back up in the future not dead. Loid and his crew see’s the message on the door and decides not to open it. He uses a mirror through the small hole in the door to see the bomb. Loid notices that the secret police is catching on and lets them handle it by leaving Anya’s message up. Loid’s partner makes a funny comment by saying “this isn’t an eggplant?”

The adventures of Anya and the white fluffy derpy dog, deserves their own side adventure series!

Anya is 100% like how girls get giddy over small little puppies. I now know that feeling with this god-tier anime daughter.

Sylvia sends Twilight on his next mission to protect Foreign Minister Brantz. He ends up going undercover and switching places with him. Then, drives in circles as he leads Keith to be tracked down by Twilight’s partners. A chase ensues as Loid’s men start shooting at Keith’s car.

That’s pretty high risk and don’t you want Keith alive? But ok..

Keith is able to avoid their bullets and throws a bomb at them, blowing up their car. Loid’s partners somehow survive the explosion and Keith continues tracking down undercover Twilight. Twilight gets out of his car and proceeds to do super athletic maneuvers while Keith continues chasing him down. Even though Keith has been questioning everything that’s been fishy up to this point, he still persues. Next, Keith releases his dog to go after Loid and jumps to attack Loid while it’s in mid-air. In dramatic fashion, Loid takes off his disguise getting ready to do something he’ll most definitely regret, but must do as he aims his gun at the dog, thus concluding the episode on that cliffhanger.

Everything You Can Ask For in This Episode

Never a dull moment. From beginning to end, the plot, the characters and everything that you would deem to be good about Spy x Family was expressed in this very episode. Keith ends up being the perfect antagonist to spearhead this “college kids committing terrorism” plot. Highlighted by Sylvia’s speech, this episode finally gives us a taste of the main plot with these little political uprisings brewing underneath this thin veil.

What can I say? The combination of Loid, Yor and Anya has to be everyone’s favorite anime family at this point, right? Every endearing quality you would want out of these characters, hit you directly in the feels. There’s just no way that Anya isn’t every anime fan’s number 1 daughter. As I’m writing this post like a giddy little fan girl, I just can’t get over the fact how charming, delightful, sweet, adoring and outright genius these characters are.

As political as the main plot can be if deeply explored, keeping it vanilla and diplomatic is what is going to carry this series for the long-term. The world is political because there is no true right answer where everyone wins. Power is tricky and extremely political. What’s not political and universally accepted is the importance of family.

What makes Spy x Family incredibly relatable is the cohesion of the family as their lives are literally politically driven.

Loid is a spy.

Yor is a “for hire” assassin.

Anya is the result of a scientific experiment.

In the end, they must come together because that is what 99.9% of us regular people must do. We all just want to live in peace with our families like what Anya wants. It’s these political entities and radical terrorists like Keith and his buddies that take our lives for granted for some grand ideology. Family matters most and this anime finds the most endearing and humorous ways to portray that.

In an episode where everyone shines with an emphasis on the life-lesson told by Sylvia Sherwood, this episode is a stunningly non-debatable 10 out of 10 in every aspect.