Review: "Spy x Family Code: White" is obscene amounts of fun

The Best Show has become The Best Movie

In the PhD dissertation I am very nearly finished writing, I am tracing a number of changes anime has undergone in the 21^st century, from the integration of 3DCGI in traditional ‘2D’ animation to the narrative and aesthetic exchange anime shares with video games. One development I haven’t had reason to discuss in this work, but which I find extremely fascinating, is the evolution in theatrical feature films based on TV anime and manga franchises, which for many years were fairly disposable – stories told without the involvement of the original authors that sometimes showcased great animation, but rarely felt like essential parts of the franchise tapestry. You could happily watch all 291 episodes of Dragon Ball Z, for instance, without ever knowing there were 13 films released during its run, even if they sometimes showcased great animation or fun character moments. This paradigm has shifted pretty radically in recent years, as it has become much more customary for anime franchise films to be real events, either adapting substantial material from their manga sources – like Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Train or Jujutsu Kaisen 0 – or bringing in the original authors to help tell new stories that either expand on the existing narrative (as Akira Toriyama did with Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods or Dragon Ball Super: Broly) or flesh out the world in big, meaningful ways (a la Eiichiro Oda’s involvement on movies like One Piece Film Red).

The path to success isn’t the same for every series, though. The wonderful Spy x Family – which became one of my favorite anime pretty much the moment it premiered – is certainly popular enough to warrant a feature film, but turning this particular series into a cinematic ‘event’ presents a unique challenge. It can’t take the Kimetsu no Yaiba path and adapt a big chunk of the manga, because Tatsuya Endo’s comics aren’t structured as movie-shaped stories; nor can it do something dramatically momentous and kill a major character or fundamentally alter the shape of the status quo, since a) it’s a comedy and that would be very tonally dissonant, and b) the manga is ongoing and the anime is still at a fairly early stage in the story. The real bar any potential Spy x Family movie has to clear, I think, is to be true to the spirit of the series and capture that unique blend of uproarious comedy, heartwarming sweetness, and espionage action that makes the series so special, but on a big-screen canvas.

Judged by that standard, Code: White is a rousing success. It is tremendously funny, makes terrific use of the core characters and their relationships, and ratchets up the stakes of the action just enough to feel worthy of a night at the movies, without fundamentally breaking the ongoing world of the story. If you go in expecting an earth-shaking cinematic tour-de-force that forever changes the series’ status quo, you will be disappointed, but I also think you’d be a bit of an idiot. Spy x Family is, at heart, an episodic comedy, and the degree to which Code: White successfully translates that formula to the big screen – neither straying too far afield nor playing things too safe and familiar – is actually deeply impressive.

Working with Endo’s input, the crews at Wit Studio and CloverWorks have made what is essentially a very big, elaborate episode of the TV show, and while I have already heard that line trotted out as a way of dismissing the movie, I very much mean it as a compliment. Spy x Family simply is not a ‘natural’ fit for a movie. Most of its stories are either single episodes or half-episode segments; it has a few longer arcs, and there’s a lot of sweetness and genuine pathos to the characters and their relationships, but this is at its core a gag series whose main goal is to come up with ridiculous scenarios and make the audience laugh. It is no small feat to consistently pull that off in 15- or 25-minute installments, but it is an entirely different skill set to stretch this kind of story to nearly two hours and keep it tight, funny, and engaging from start to finish. Making a movie-sized ‘episode’ of Spy x Family is actually a lot harder than it sounds, and the highest praise I can give Code: White is that it faithfully replicates what makes the series’ individual installments so special within the bigger, more demanding space of a theatrical feature film.

The basic formula of most Spy x Family stories is that one member of the eponymous family is presented with some challenge, and as the others are gradually drawn in to the mayhem, Loid and Yor strive to keep their true identities as a spy and an assassin hidden from each other while Anya, thanks to her telepathy, understands what both of them are up to and triangulates between them. Code: White builds itself on this foundation too, as Anya is tasked with a cooking competition at school, and Loid – being both the world’s greatest spy and the world’s greatest dad – decides to take the family (including Bond, who true fans will be very excited to see heavily featured here) on a trip to the nearby country Frigis to research the perfect dish. Naturally, things go awry, in ways I don’t want to spoil here, but suffice it to say there is a tremendous amount of fun to be had in watching how the film plays with the inherent elasticity of the Spy x Family premise to push that basic formula further than we’ve seen it go before. The way the film establishes multiple layers of ongoing and intersecting gags and comedy subplots between the family, and keeps escalating and paying those jokes and dynamics off over the course of a feature-length run-time, is genuinely impressive in terms of storytelling and structure. That Code: White never overstays its welcome but instead ratchets up the laughs, thrills, and pathos in equal measure on through its final act is something of a miracle.

Much of the praise must go to screenwriter Ichirō Ōkouchi, who returns from his head writing duties on the series’ second season, and is generally one of the best and most seasoned writers in the anime industry. As in the most recent batch of episodes (which I reviewed here), there is an immense sense of confidence on display here, not just structurally and tonally, but in how fluidly Ōkouchi’s script understands each character and their respective dynamics and relationships. While Endo did supervise the production in an unspecified capacity, this is the first major piece of Spy x Family anime with no manga source material to draw from, but there is never any sense Code: White is less authentic as a result. If anything, the film features several of the series’ all-time best gags, with a particular Anya-centric sequence in the film’s second half – you’ll know it when you see it! – providing the biggest laughs this series has ever given me; my face was literally sore from laughing. And when the film wants to tug on the heartstrings, it is equally adept at that. Nothing in the narrative here is built to have a real impact on future stories, but the progression of the characters feels completely of a piece with the anime so far, and a particularly good companion to the stories told in the second season, where each member of the family came to realize how much they want this ‘pretend’ life together to continue for real.

Where Ōkouchi is a heavy-hitting anime veteran, director Takashi Katagiri makes his feature film debut here, after working on several prior Wit Studio productions and directing three episodes of the Spy x Family TV series. It is an extremely impressive production, and while it takes a bit for the film to ramp up to its big, expensive cinematic visuals, the second half more than delivers on that front: not just in the big action sequences – though Yor fans will be well-compensated on that front – but also in some key moments of striking stylization, one with Loid taking on an opponent in a bright pop-art landscape that looks like a classic spy movie poster come to life, and one with Anya in a world that looks like her own crayon drawings (it’s the aforementioned scene where I laughed so hard I hurt myself). The final scenes make some truly gorgeous use of color, and the storyboarding throughout is rife with smart, clever, soulful, and funny visual storytelling, many frames awash in delightful background detail. There is so much playfulness and passion shot through the entire production, and you can very much feel how hard the teams at Wit and CloverWorks are working to get this transition to the big screen right.

All the main members of the voice cast are present and accounted for, and all as excellent as ever; if season two tipped a bit more towards showcasing Saori Hayami as Yor and letting Takuya Eguchi play different sides of Loid, Code: White gives Atsumi Tanezaki center stage as Anya, and she continues to deliver one of the most superhumanly hilarious performances in the history of anime. We also get a few big-name guest stars here, with the great Banjō Ginga – a legend who has been playing anime villains since Gihren Zabi in Mobile Suit Gundam 45 years ago – taking point as the film’s villain, and nailing a perfect balance of humor and intimidation.

Code: White is, in short, absurd amounts of fun. In its own way, relative to what Spy x Family is and what I wanted from it in movie form, the film is just as successful as many recent anime franchise hits, and if you have any love for the series, I think it’s going to play like gangbusters. Spy x Family is one of the most purely joyous pieces of media out there these days, and that fundamental spirit of raucous, loving creativity that animates it has survived the transition to cinema very much intact. I can’t imagine asking for anything more, and I don’t think the smile on my face could have been any bigger when the credits rolled. Waku waku indeed.

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