Spy X Family has become the most popular anime in the spring 2022 season. What's more, at the time of writing this article Spy X Family is the tenth-highest ranking anime of all time on MyAnimeList, a website in which users can log anime they've seen and rank them on a scale from one to ten. With over 750,000 members having logged the anime in their own lists before the first season has concluded, the sudden fanfare over the series has been overwhelming, to say the least.

Spy X Family is a comedy slice-of-life spy anime, adapted from a manga written by Tatsuya Endo and is currently serialized in Shounen Jump. It features the daily adventures of a spy using the alias Loid Forger, who in order to blend in during an important mission must pretend to have a family. He accomplishes this by adopting a young girl named Anya, who is secretly an esper, and by swiftly marrying Yor Briar, a city hall clerk who is a professional assassin at night. Everyone's identities are hidden from each other, except for from Anya, who can read minds and therefore knows everyone's true thoughts. In a world dominated by shounen and isekai anime, how did an unassuming anime such as Spy X Family surge into the mainstream? The manga was well-received, but how did Spy X Family balloon over the rankings of all but one season of Attack on Titan, and other popular series such as Cowboy Bebop, the original Gintama, and Code Geass, among others?

RELATED: Meet The Staff Behind Spy X Family

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First, there seems to be a shift in trending anime in the Spring 2022 anime season. By looking through MyAnimeList's user rankings and popularity, which is measured by how many users have logged the anime onto their own personal list, Spy X Family is the highest-rated and the most popular. However, to see the shift in trends, we need to examine the rest of the anime's rankings and popularity this season as well.

Out of the top ten anime in regard to their popularity, six out of the ten are tagged under the 'comedy' genre. Out of the top six most popular, only one isn't tagged in the comedy genre, The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2. Although it is the second most popular anime this season, it is ranked the lowest out of the six by MyAnimeList users at 6.79. Clearly this season, comedy anime reigns supreme.

When filtering by the 'comedy' tag, 53 of the currently airing anime out of 184 total airing anime shows and movies are comedies. For one genre, having over a quarter of the currently airing anime at 28.8% is rather telling. During the previous Winter 2022 season it was much more varied, with big titles such as Attack on Titan: Final Season Part Two and the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Entertainment District Arc dominating the charts instead.

It Stands Out Among Slice-of-Life Anime

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When slice-of-life is mentioned, it is usually regarding anime where the protagonist works in a café, participates in a school club, or examines the ordinary daily life of the protagonist. There is nothing wrong with anime like this, of course, but Spy X Family truly stands out from these, as well as being a slice-of-life anime, it is also an action spy thriller.

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The combination of these two unique genres isn't something that we've seen time and time again. Trope-filled anime have their place, but Spy X Family isn't one of them. The series balances daily life of a newly married couple and adopted child with heists and evil-doers. The popular slice-of-life tropes that Spy X Family does have, like found family, are reimagined in ways to weave in the secret agent and deadly assassin plots that carry the series through the Forger's daily life.

Unique And Interesting Characters

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One of the most important aspect of any piece of media is the characters. Spy X Family capitalizes on this and makes their characters as unique and interesting as their premise. None of the characters seem to be rehashes replayed in every other slice-of-life, and the online adoration of the characters shows that people are taking notice of that.

Loid Forger is a secret agent with the codename "Twilight". He presents himself as cold and emotionless to match the job, however, he became a spy to protect children from events similar to what he went through as a child. He truly cares for his new family, even if he tries to remain unattached since he is only pretending to have this family for the sake of a mission.

Anya Forger is a pink-haired psychic child of unknown age and adopted from a sketchy orphanage by Loid Forger. Despite being a small child, since she can read minds she is the only character in the whole series who knows everyone's true intentions and secrets. Being a child, however, she thinks that her new parents are cool and doesn't spoil their hidden identities to teach other.

Yor Forger, the final character of our main trio, is masquerading as a wife to get her family and friends off of her back about her singleness, while being a deadly assassin known as the "Thorn Princess" at night. She lacks social skills, and is known for being timid. Secretly, she is an assassin and especially in the manga often has incredibly dark thoughts involving solving all of her problems by murdering everyone around her. She does however suppress them and tries to live a normal life otherwise.

MORE: Spy X Family: The Secret Organizations Of Loid and Yor Forger

Spy X Family is currently simulcasting on Crunchyroll.