Spy×Family 10

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

Damian hears the rumors that the MVP of the dodgeball event will earn a Stella. As such, he’s determined to win to step out of his older brother’s shadow and gain acceptance from his father. Anya also hears these rumors and is determined to earn a Stella to help Twilight’s mission. She reports this when she gets home. Yor agrees to train Anya, though Twilight isn’t convinced about things.

After surviving Yor’s intense training, Anya is ready for dodgeball. She reads Damian’s mind and discovers why he’s so motivated to win. Unfortunately, their opponent class has “Bazooka” Bill Watkins in it, who looks like a 30 year old man instead of a first grader. He too has a reason for wanting to win. Due to Bill’s size and strength, he easily overcomes most of Damian and Anya’s class.

However, because Anya can read Bill’s mind, she’s able to perfectly dodge all his attacks. Damian gives her reluctant praise, causing Anya to produce her smug smirk. Anya trips and falls to the ground. Realizing how vulnerable she is, Damian attempts to catch Bill’s next throw to knock out Anya. He fails, leaving Anya as the last person standing.

Anya decides maybe Damian is a nice guy after all. She uses Yor’s lesson to make a big production of throwing the ball. However, the throws the ball into the floor, allowing it to bounce to Bill. He picks it up and throws her out. The House Master corrects the rumor of the Stella. Meanwhile, Damian goes off on Anya, who decides her original impression of Damian is the correct one.

Thoughts/Review

More Anya goodness is always a great thing, and Spy×Family 10 gave us that goodness.

Dodgeball

I was never very fond of dodgeball as a kid, mainly ’cause I sucked at it. Still, I did enjoy dodgeball as the setting of Spy×Family 10. The montage of Anya training with Yor was pretty funny. Yor is so good at throwing the ball due to her job, throwing people and limbs around. 😂 I laughed out loud when Yor’s one throw not only hit multiple trees, but also shattered part of the base of a dead tree, causing it to fall over. And a later throw caused a trench to form in the ground. 🤣

The unexpected moment was the Bill Watkins character. Bill not only looked like he was 30, but had a deep voice. He was voiced by YASUMOTO Hiroki, who seemed to be channeling NAKATA Joiji’s voice (Giroro in Keroro Gunsou, Kirei in the various Fate franchise titles, Gaav in the Slayers franchise, etc.). That made things even funnier.

The only thing that disappointed me in the episode is that they went with the gag joke that everyone had to expect. After all of Yor’s intense training, naturally, Anya would flub up her only throw of the ball. Considering how Anya cold-cocked Damian, I was hoping they’d let her do this, even if Bill still caught the ball. Alas, that was not to be. But at least we got a smug smirk moment from Anya to Damian.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

As usual, I’m running behind, so let me wrap up my review of Spy×Family 10 with some final thoughts.

• Twilight only gets a couple of cameos in the episode. But I’m okay with that as it lead to more bonding between Yor and Anya. It is a shame that Anya reaches the wrong conclusion about the results of Yor’s training.
• I’ll eventually check the manga, but I wondered if the montage of Henderson exercising and stuff is anime filler. I had no problem with it per se, but it wasn’t necessary to the story in the episode. It stood out to me more on second viewing.
• I really liked the animation in this episode. Usually, the only time I notice animation is when it is very good or very bad.
• I’m not happy with Cruncyroll’s use of profanity in the subtitles. It seems very out of place for Anya to use profanity. In fact, while I know she’s saying rude stuff from what I can hear, the translator opting for a profane translation smacks of fansubbers who enjoyed doing that rubbish back in the day.

In the end, Spy×Family 10 was a funny, highly enjoyable episode. Outside of CR’s poor adaptation choice to insert profanity, and the writer’s (and almost certainly the manga-ka’s) decision to opt for the most obvious gag joke to end the game,  the episode was top notch.