SPY×FAMILY Volume 12 Manga Review
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It is always a good day when a new volume of SPY×FAMILY gets released and I get to read it. So without further ado, lets get to it.

* * * S P O I L E R S ! * * *

The Story, in Brief

Anya basks in the adoration of her classmates as a hero. Teacher Thomas Austin becomes Loid’s patient after the hijacking incident. Handler takes her dog to the park to meet with Twilight, Anya, and Bond. At her cover job, Yor’s coworkers tease her on her perfect marriage. Yor decides that despite her lack of issues with Loid, she should have a gripe to be “normal”. Yuri shows up, and when Loid gets called away, he thinks Loid is cheating on Yor.

Loid’s summoning was for a WISE emergency. As Yuri tails him with Yor, Yuri gets a secret summons from the SSS for an emergency. A mole within WISE took a lot of classified information to give to the SSS. As such, WISE mobilizes to stop him. Loid attempts to disguise himself as a mole, but is quickly discovered and suspected to be Twilight.

Loid changes his disguise to Yuri. However, he has the misfortune to run into the real Yuri. The two fight, and Loid gets shot in the arm. Eventually, Loid defeats him, but doesn’t kill him for Yor’s sake. The mole, named Wheeler, thwarts Fiona (Nightfall). Wheeler then runs into Twilight in his Yuri disguise. However, Wheeler is sure “Yuri” is in fact Twilight. Wheeler defeats Loid and is about to unmask him when an enraged Fiona shows up.

Loid’s Troubles

We’ve seen Loid/Twilight in some tricky situations before. However, he gets into dire straits in SPY×FAMILY Volume 12. First, he fails to fool the SSS when he disguises himself as the mole, Wheeler. That’s not his fault as the mole WISE had within the SSS got uncovered. Thus they fed disinformation to WISE through a previously, trusted source. I loved it from a story perspective as it shows us just how dangerous the SSS are, and how good they are at their job. They are the equal to WISE.

Next up is Loid’s attempt to disguise himself as Yuri. Here too, Loid runs into trouble when the real Yuri shows up and they have to fight. To date, Yuri’s obsession with Yor has mostly been as a joke. But here, his obsession for his sister gave him some inhuman strength to continue to get up when a normal person would have gone down from Loid’s beating. In the end, Loid won. Realistically, he probably should have killed Yuri. So it is interesting to see how his relationship with Yor has affected him in this regard.

Finally, there’s Wheeler’s confrontation with Loid. Wheeler is something else since he was able to logically discern how the disguised Loid wasn’t in fact Yuri. As Twilight, Loid is often able to BS his way out of situations. But here, Wheeler catches him completely off guard and defeats him. The volume ends on a cliffhanger, but it seems as if Fiona will need to save Loid. Good stuff!

Omake

There are three omake manga chapters in SPY×FAMILY Volume 12. The first is a Confidential File manga chapter that features Becky and Anya visiting the zoo. Short Mission 9 sees Loid and Franky come up with a film in an attempt to find an entertaining way to teach Anya and improve her grades. The 10th Short Mission is only two pages, but deals with the space race and the East’s attempt to defeat the West with a rocket launch.

All of these chapters are just fun fluff. I really hope at some point, Anya’s grades improve. Right now, Sensei continues to use her bad grades as a gag opportunity. Nevertheless, I think the rocket launch chapter was the most interesting. Since this manga is supposed to be set in the equivalent of the 1960s, I appreciated seeing Anya’s and other student’s excitement over the rocket launch.

Franky’s Secret File shows off the early character design work for Handler. Then we get a splash page showing Handler being a slob. 😂

Finally, there’s a note from Endo-sensei and some ads.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of SPY×FAMILY Volume 12 with some final thoughts.

• I got a kick out of the aftermath of the hijacking story, where Anya got seen as a hero. It was humorous seeing her get jealous at the thought of others raining on her parade.
• Twilight’s cover as Loid means Loid is a psychiatrist. While we’ve seen him working at the hospital, we’ve never seen him with a patient. As such, I liked that we got a chapter showing Loid doing his cover job. Further, it allows us to see why he’s so good as a master of disguises.
• Learning that the “tough as nails” Handler is a slob at home made me laugh. I liked that she has the German shepherd dog from the arc where Bond originated.
• Yor’s hangups over her fake married life were humorous as well. For someone so good at slaughtering people, she is so innocent as well. I liked how that tale morphed into the mole story.

In the end, SPY×FAMILY Volume 12 had some good, humorous moments. But it also kicks off another intense, serious arc. Can’t wait for the next volume to come out!