English Dub Review: Spy X Family “Avoid Getting Tonitrus Bolts; ■■■■’s Memories”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

When a highly strict teacher begins to inspect the students for misdemeanors, Anya and Damian work to try and avoid receiving Tonitrus Bolts on their records. Later, Loid thinks back to his childhood before a major battle in his hometown broke out.

OUR TAKE

Well, it didn’t take very long for us to get back to a slightly more substantive episode, though before that part, we must first return to Eden Academy for some patented Anya antics. It’s not anything we haven’t seen before with her, just her trying to avoid the school’s more savage form of demerits, Tonitrus Bolts, and working with Damian to do so. She even ends up saving him from getting a couple by seemingly packing an extra handkerchief, but then finds out she only actually packed one, leading to her getting two bolts instead. At the very least, it shows that she and Damian are becoming closer friends, which is certainly better than where things started with them, and there’s no sign of her other friend fawning over Loid, which got really old last season. Though the funniest part comes when she returns home and tells Loid of getting the two bolts, which results in him fainting on the spot. It’s not only funny for the reaction, but also because it works great as a segue into the second half of the episode, which is entirely from Loid’s perspective. So, for all we know, this is just what Loid is dreaming about after fainting. And after checking the episode synopsis for next episode, it turns out it IS!

Speaking of, that brings us to the second half of the episode, and also what will be carrying over into all of the next episode, a flashback to Loid’s childhood when he was but a wee lad playing soldier games with his friends in Westalis, and also long before he went by the name of Loid. What he was called is purposefully left unknown, mainly to show that this was basically an entirely different life for him, but it’s also the first time we’ve seen a look at his past OR a real glimpse at the conflict between Westalis and Ostanians that instigated Loid and Yor to become spies in the first place. We’ve seen plenty about Yor’s past, though it was mainly through her taking care of her brother, and the politics of either country didn’t really end up playing a part. Here though, we see that Loid as someone from Westalis is already fully impacted by the propaganda against Ostanians, though his father is heavily against that line of thinking, which is an interesting subversion of things since flashbacks like this are usually about showing the other way around. But most importantly, the episode ends with Ostanian army attacking the area where Loid and his friends are playing soldier, and we’ll see the aftermath of all that next time when this brief flashback arc concludes and brings us back to the present, likely with Loid waking up from fainting.