SPY×FAMILY Volume 04 Manga Review
スパイファミリー

–> Buy SPY×FAMILY Volume 04 from Amazon.com!

I’d been looking forward to this fourth entry in the SPY×FAMILY manga series. That’s because with the exception of one omake chapter, all of the material would be new. And to quote Anya, that is “so exciting!”

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

The Story, in Brief

The Forger family go to a pet store, run by Twilight’s spy agency, WISE. However, Anya rejects the vicious looking guard dogs within. Twilight gets called away on an urgent mission regarding an assassination attempt on their visiting foreign minister. Meanwhile, Anya and Yor continue to look at dogs when a man walks by with a huge, shaggy dog. Anya sees an image of her family in the dog’s mind. As such, she sneaks off to find it and lands in a terrorists hideout.

The dog saves Anya, who realizes it must have the power to see the future, based on further reading its mind. However, the terrorists soon corner the dog and Anya. Yor manages to find them just in time, taking out some terrorist, but the leader escapes. Anya senses from the dog that Twilight is about to be killed in a bombing, so she races off, riding the big dog.

Anya reaches the building from the dog’s mind, but she can’t tell time. Further, she doesn’t know how to disarm the bomb. Therefore, she uses ketchup to write a cryptic warning on the booby trapped door. This saves Twilight, who then disguises himself as the minister to fool the terrorist leader. Twilight deals with the bomb-laden German Shepherd. The terrorist leader flees, but Yor finds him, forcing him to wreck his car.

Twilight, Yor, and Anya are reunited. Yor and Anya are quietly proud of their actions while Twilight is wasted. Anya wants to keep the dog, so WISE allows it. Anya tries to use the dog to get close to Damian, but fails as she’s not named it yet. While in a dog park, Anya decides the dog’s name will be Bond, after the character in her favorite show.

Big Dang Heroes!

The awesome thing about SPY×FAMILY Volume 04 is that most of it tells a single story involving the terrorist plot to start a war. It also showcases Twilight, Yor, and Anya doing their part to stop the plot, even if only Anya is completely aware of everything. These three could just about rule the world if they were all made aware of each other’s secrets.

That aside, Yor continues to be an over powered mama bear when she thinks Anya’s life is on the line. It is so awesome seeing her “fly” in and kick some serious arse. And though it is 100% unrealistic, I loved it when Yor literally kicks the speeding car of the terrorist off the road so that he has a wreck. Yor is so awesome, she even makes a vicious German Shepherd cower in fear. I loved it!

As to Anya, she’s just starting to see that a lack of education is not a good thing. She cannot read a clock and so had no clue how much time she had before the dog’s vision came true. I appreciate that Anya didn’t disarm the bomb as she had no way of knowing how to do it. Instead, Anya used her street smarts to leave the warning on the booby trapped door. Then she had the good sense to get well outside the bomb blast zone. Hat’s off to Endo-sensei for this kind of good writing.

Finally, there’s Twilight. He does what he is supposed to do. It is unfortunate that he has no clue about Yor and Anya’s unspoken contributions to his mission.

Big Dog!

The Forger family dog Bond finally makes a proper appearance in SPY×FAMILY Volume 04. It is interesting that the dog has visions of possible future events. No one would know about this if Anya couldn’t read his mind and see the visions for herself. Indeed, that is how Anya knew to save her papa.

That aside, I love seeing Anya and Bond together. They have formed a deep bond (no pun intended) thanks to their supernatural abilities. I’ve no doubt Bond will always protect Anya, and Anya will always take care of Bond. I look forward to seeing more of them together.

Omake

The anime adapted the first omake story in SPY×FAMILY Volume 04. Basically, it takes place after Twilight gave Anya the giant penguin. Anya plays spy, but gets in trouble for trying to sneak into her parent’s rooms.

The second omake chapter deals with Franky falling in love with a girl at a local cigar shop. After working with Twilight, Franky gets the courage to ask the girl out. However, he gets shot down before he can finish. As such, Twilight buys Franky an expensive drink to console him.

The rest of the omake materials are a bit of a note from Endo-sensei, a fake cover for the terrorist story arc, and some art/art assets.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, SPY×FAMILY Volume 04 is a lovely volume, filled with action, but not forgetting the laughs. I’m really happy I picked up this series.