Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission And Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart Of A Child / Waking Up”: 4 In 1 Starring Yuri The SSS Agent [Details]

Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up” is as complex as the title suggests. Or maybe not. For as complex as the title reads, the episode composition isn’t all that complex. This episode is basically 4 stories mixed up into a 4-part episode. One of those stories is not like the others, seeing as how it’s a very dark and serious Cold War-esque spy story.

Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up”: Details

Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up” is the third episode (you can read reviews of Ep. 1 and Ep. 2 here) of this latest season of the anime series. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the manga of the same name by Tatsuya Endo. Wit Studio (Attack on Titan season 1-3, Ranking of Kings, The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 1) and Cloverworks (Horimiya, Wonder Egg Priority, My Dress-Up Darling) remain the animation studios behind this anime.

Hayato Sakai is the director behind Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up”, with Ichirō Ōkouchi and Ayumu Hisao writing, and Sakai is also responsible for the storyboard. Kazuhiro Furuhashi along with Takahiro Harada (starting with this season) are the directors of Spy x Family season 2. Ichirō Ōkouchi is the writer for season 2 of the anime this time, taking over from Furuhashi. (K)NoW_NAME is still the composer for the music you hear in the anime.

Voice Cast

Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up” features the voices of Kensho Ono (Dallas Reid in English dub) as Yuri Briar, Atsumi Tanezaki (Megan Shipman in English dub) as Anya Forger, and Natsumi Fujiwara (Caitlin Glass in English dub) as Damian Desmond. Bondman’s voice actor is currently unknown. Other notable voice roles for this episode include Saori Hayami (Natalie Van Sistine in English dub) as Yor Forger/Thorn Princess, Takuya Eguchi (Alex Organ in English dub) as Loid Forger/Twilight, Hana Sato (Macy Anne Johnson in English dub) as Emile Elman, and Haruka Okamura (Michelle Rojas in English dub) as Ewen Egeburg.

When and Where to Watch

Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up” made its debut on October 21, 2023. You can currently watch this episode only on Crunchyroll. You can watch the previous season either on Crunchyroll as well, or on Hulu.

Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up”: Synopsis

Normally, this would be where I proceed to give you all a spoiler-filled plot summary of Spy x Family season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up”. All 4 parts of it. However, this is the spoiler-free version of my usual reviews. Thus, you will all be getting the official synopsis from Crunchyroll instead. You can check that out below:

Yuri is doing great at his job with the Secret Police. His assignment today is to investigate a former newspaper reporter suspected of selling articles slandering Ostania to Westalis. Anya’s favorite cartoon hero Bondman shows off his elegant spy moves!!

Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up”: The Good

For fans of Cold War spy thrillers, Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up” is your cup of tea. However, as you can tell by the screenshots above and below, Yuri Briar is the star here. In fact, it’s the SSS that gets the spotlight for this episode instead of WISE for once, with Yuri Briar’s job in a very in-depth focus. We not only see how he goes about his job (very fanatically), but also his self-justification for being a secret policeman. Needless to say, this pretty pretty dark by this anime/manga’s usual standards. But then again, Tatsuya Endo loves going into the dark and gritty details of a Cold War spy thriller for this story. Thus, this episode would actually be on par with that.

It’s not all dark and edgy spy thriller action though in Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up”. The latter 3 parts of the episode are basically slice-of-life comedy. In fact, “The Elegant Bondman” provides a wonderful example of in-universe fiction. It’s effectively an episode of Anya’s favorite cartoon: Spy Wars, giving us a look at what she sees when she’s watching it. We even get her and Loid’s reaction to the episode at the end of the segment, both of which are utterly hilarious. Then we have the last 2 segments that are just pure and utter fluff.

It’s this blend of dark spy thriller and slice-of-life comedy that makes Spy x Family season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up” great. It’s like dark chocolate in anime form.

Spy x Family Season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up”: The Good

Honestly, if there is any complaint about Spy x Family season 2 Ep. 3 “Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / The Heart of a Child / Waking Up”, it’s probably about the composition of the episode. It’s effectively a main episode starring Yuri, with a bunch of extra comedy episodes. Fans of having a single continuous plot per episode would probably not like this format that much. That said, it’s also hard to see where else the animators could put those latter 3 segments. All of them are either very short bonus chapters of the manga, or fillers that feel canon. If there’s any good place to put those bonus chapters, it’s probably in this kind of mosaic episode.