English Dub Review: Spy X Family “The Pastry of Knowledge; The Informant’s Great Romance Plan Ⅱ”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Anya and her school friends compete to eat a pastry that might give them a boost in intelligence. Later, Loid and Yor’s informant needs help getting a cat for his crush.

OUR TAKE

We have another episode with multiple incidental segments this week, both focusing on those other than the main fake couple, though they do make appearances. First, we have a segment about Anya and the kids at her school trying to compete for special pastries that are rumored to give those who eat them greater knowledge, which Anya most definitely needs to maintain some foothold in her classes since…well, she’s kinda dumb? Or at the very least, her grades are pretty bad. This leads to antics between her, her best friend, Damian, and his two friends, all of which are really struggling with their grades aside from Damian. Damian has also been established to have a bit of a crush on Anya, though ironically Anya can’t tell despite having literal telepathy. Even having not seen the first season, there’s numerous fanart and memes about that to help me get caught up with that. Eventually, even though Damian is the superior card player in their game of Old Maid, he lets her win because he likes her. And while their grades don’t immediately improve, it’s noted by Loid that the only issues Anya seems to be having now are spelling errors. Increased intelligence or simply a greater drive to learn and study? You make the call!

The other half focuses on Franky, the informant who works for both Loid AND Yor, despite those two being part of two separate organizations. It’s pretty self-contained story about him trying to get his crush to notice him with Yor and Loid’s help, but it’s also a bit of a set up for a bigger storyline that will be starting properly next week. This segment brings focus back to the organization Garden, who Yor works for and are in opposition to WISE, the group that Loid works for. Honestly, it’s a shock to me how long I’ve been able to go without really needing to know that in this story that it’s only now becoming relevant information, but here we are. But yeah, looks like next week we’ll be putting aside the tiny comedy vignettes and diving into a proper story arc for maybe the rest of the season, focusing on a new mission for our couple that will likely still have them not really aware of each other. We’re a third of the way through the season here so I guess it was about time.