TL;DR – To accomplish his mission, a spy must create a family in order to get close to his target. In doing so, he will discover that being a good husband and father is the toughest assignment he’s ever undertaken.
Review (warning: spoilers)
Spy agent Twilight is on a mission to get close to reclusive Donovan Desmond, a political leader of the rival nation, Ostania. In order to do this, he must pose as a parent and enrol a child into the same private school as Desmond’s son.
The school is stupidly elite and snobbish, and to obtain the best chance of getting a child into the school, he has to “create” a happy family unit.
Twilight, under the alias Loid Forger, adopts an orphan girl named Anya and marries a woman named Yor Briar. Twilight is the type of meticulous spy that he plans for all possible outcomes, but even he is unaware that little Anya is a telepath and Yor has a secret life as an assassin.
Comic situations abound because Loid and Yor do not know each other’s true professions, and neither knows that Anya can read their minds and knows the truth.
Totally ridiculous, but there is a delightful charm about all three characters and the situations that unfold. More importantly, Twilight starts to care more about his “family” than he realises.
The animation is clean and gorgeous to look at. The action is over the top, and the reactions of characters are ludicrous and funny, but interspersed between all this are genuine moments of emotional connection and the conundrum all three of our main cast face.
That is, Loid learns to think and care for someone other than himself, Anya is seeking to be part of a loving family, and Yor is trying to find how she can be “normal” and in a relationship when she has spent most of her life killing people.
The absurdity of someone as intelligent as Loid and as deadly as Yor and neither realising that the other is not who they say they are is something you might ponder for a minute and then let go cause it’s all part of the fun. The fact that Anya is able to read their minds leads to some very hilarious incidents.
Adding to this tangled trio is Yor’s brother, Yuri Briar, who (unknown to Yor) works for the State Security Service (SSS) police. The SSS hunt spies and use torture to identify anyone working against their country.
This puts Twilight and Yuri at odds with each other as they work for different countries and have been told contradictory information. Twilight has been told to get close to Donovan Desmond because the man threatens the peace between his nation, Westalis, and Desmond’s nation, Ostania. Yuri has been told that Twilight is actually the one seeking to destroy the peace within Ostania and seeks to stop him. It seems like one or both of them are being lied to by their own governments.
Yuri also has an unhealthy obsession about his sister and is overly protective, so this leads to further tension and hijinks that are over-the-top funny. His first visit to their home where he gets drunk had me in stitches.
The silliness is balanced with the emotional growth among our main trio. A thoroughly enjoyable ride from start to finish.
The highlight would have to be the dodgeball game. Just watch it.
8 out of 10
JCEnno 