“Spy x Family Ch. 66”: Yor And The Further Plot Thickening [Review]

The main plot thickens in Spy x Family Ch. 66. Mostly due to Yor and her casual misunderstanding of the situations at hand. Loid doesn’t exactly help, and Anya definitely doesn’t.

Spy x Family Ch. 66: Details

Spy x Family Ch. 66 is the latest chapter of the action comedy spy manga by Tatsuya Endo, and is in fact a direct continuation of the events of Ch. 65. Shueisha originally published this manga in Japan in their Shonen Jump+ magazine under their Jump Comics+ imprint. Viz Media licensed this manga for its NA release.

Spy x Family Ch. 66 was released on August 7, 2022. You can read it entirely for free on Weekly Shonen Jump on Viz Media. Ch. 66 will remain free for 2 chapter releases. On the 3rd chapter release after Ch. 66, it will go into Shonen Jump’s vault, and you will need a paid premium account to read it.

One last thing: Spy x Family now has an anime adaptation. You can watch it only on Crunchyroll. However, Crunchyroll has locked the entire anime behind their shiny new paywall. Thus, you will need to cough up cash for a premium account to watch it.

Warning: spoilers for Spy x Family Ch. 66 below. If you want to watch Yor and the rest of the Forger family accidentally advance the main plot by leaps and bounds, then stop here, and come back once the accidental chaos has ended.

Spy x Family Ch. 66: Plot Summary

Spy x Family Ch. 66 picks up where we last left off, with the nice lady Yor helped revealing herself to be Melinda Desmond: Damian’s mother and Donovan’s wife. Yor madly apologizes for Anya’s behavior, but Melinda Insists that it’s fine. Indeed, while Yor back to her home, Melinda seems quite insistent that Anya and Damian remain friends, trembling as she mentions it. No explanation about this is given.

Yor of course reports this all to Loid upon arriving home. This kicks Loid’s spy brain into high gear as he mentally goes over the intelligence his agency has on both Melinda and Yor. He then decides to support Yor becoming friends with Melinda. Part of the reason is to potentially gather intelligence from Yor’s gossip with Melinda, but another part is to try to cultivate Yor’s friendship with Melinda as a backup plan to potentially give him a “new avenue of attack” against Donovan Desmond. WISE’s intelligence initially assumed that Melinda was estranged from her husband, but if that intelligence is wrong, then Yor’s friendship with her might pay off. This seems like a perfect backup plan just in case Anya’s friendship plan with Damian goes south. Which of course, since Anya can read minds, results in her finding out about that logic.

The Misunderstandings of Anya AND Yor Forger

Fearing that Loid will replace her if Yor’s friendship with Melinda goes well, Anya resolves to double down on her attempts to befriend Damian. Meanwhile, though, Yor has a meeting with her boss for her assassin job: the mysterious individual known only as the Shopkeeper. Upon Yor reporting to the Shopkeeper about Loid’s apparently conservative political orientation, it seemed to trouble them. What this means for Loid, we don’t know. Yet.

Meanwhile, Anya steps up her efforts to make friends with Damian at school. Under Becky’s advice, Anya attempts to bump into Damian with bread (read: yakisoba burger) in her mouth. Unfortunately, Anya interprets Becky’s advice as: to charge into Damian at full sprint in a “Friendship Crash”. Damian handily dodges the crash, but not the burger Anya accidentally spits out in rage, resulting in Damian wearing said burger on his head in a weird mimicry of Anya’s hairstyle. Suitably enraged, Damian begins a chase of Anya offscreen, resulting in a mission failure. How will Anya attempt to befriend Damian next time, and how will she fail in that? That’s what we’ll find out in the next chapter of Spy x Family.

Spy x Family Ch. 66 ~ The Good

The story is definitely the best part of Spy x Family Ch. 66, especially in terms of the main plot. You know, because it’s actually moving along. Tatsuya Endo’s storytelling for this manga is very good, but the main plot does admittedly move along at the pace of an undermotivated snail. So seeing said main plot start moving via Yor’s interactions with Melinda is basically watching the plot advance in leaps and bounds.

The characters of Spy x Family Ch. 66 are another great part of it. After all, you can’t have a great story without great characters. Fortunately, Tatsuya Endo delivers in the form of the Forger family and their misunderstandings with each other. Loid’s background as a WISE agent gives him knowledge of the situation that no other Forger would have, with Yor’s innocent observations of Loid apparently now set to cause him trouble with the Shopkeeper. Then we have Anya, who while being a mind reader, is also a small child who only has a very limited understanding of the information she has access to and childish goals pertaining to her limited understanding of said information. This makes Anya the source of some of the best comedy in this manga, and this chapter is no exception.

Lastly, the art of Spy x Family Ch. 66 is as good as always. Especially in the Anya facial department. The various faces she makes during her farcical attempt at a “Friendship Crash” on Damian are hilarious. Of special note is her face when Becky literally rammed a yakisoba burger into her mouth. Becky, I appreciate your gesture, but please: no choking your BFF with burgers, okay?

Spy x Family Ch. 66 ~ The Bad

I admit: as a longtime fan of Spy x Family, I find that I’m more than a bit biased towards it. Nevertheless, the only fault I can find with this chapter is that there isn’t more of it. Especially in regards to how the Shopkeeper now sees Loid. I suspect that Tatsuya Endo will answer those concerns shortly though, so this is fine.

Source: Viz Media