Another day in Hollywood, another red carpet premiere. Compared to a few years ago, when we were lucky if we could get anime movies in theaters at all, we’ve come an exceptionally long way, with film spin-offs of popular anime series from recent years taking over prestigious venues like the Directors Guild of America Theater Complex for red carpet exhibitions of their English dub premiere. SPY x FAMILY lit anime fandom on fire when it premiered on Crunchyroll two years ago, and through subsequent installments has endured as a wholesome crossover favorite leading into the North American run of its first feature film, CODE: White, which launched in Japanese theaters at the end of last year. Kicking off this release was Crunchyroll and TOHO animation’s event that brought its dub cast and crew, among others, from Texas over to LA for the world premiere of their dub of the film, which also doubles as its North American premiere in any language.
The lineup of guests included the full Forger family – Alex Organ (Loid), Megan Shipman (Anya), Natalie Van Sistine (Yor), and Tyler Walker (Bond) – alongside Cris George, the ADR director for both the series and the film, and several members of the supporting cast, some appearing only in this movie. The rest of the guests ranged from Crunchyroll executives to influencers and other celebrities. It was a very dub-focused event, naturally premiering the dub and featuring its voice actors and director, but it would’ve been even more exciting if some of the Japanese staff behind the film were able to be there as well.
At any rate, the venue was nicely decked out with the red carpet itself, its big wide backdrop, custom signage throughout, a display of some figures and other merch, and a VIP lounge. But of course the main attraction was the film itself, in a theater with the class you’d expect from the Directors Guild. Although I had already been there for a few hours, between the pre-reception and the red carpet, I was still surprised that the screening didn’t include any introduction or panel with any of the guests in attendance, just a brief acknowledgment of them sitting in the audience from the Crunchyroll executive introducing the screening.
I didn’t request a spot to actually interview the actors this time, mostly because the dub has been a blind spot for me until this night; I had never heard any of them perform a single line as their respective character. Because of that, watching the film dubbed gave an added sense of unfamiliarity, as switching languages often does, particularly partway through a series. Matching up to the standards of Saori Hayami and Atsumi Tanezaki is something of a fool’s errand, but the cast is clearly giving their all, and the actors from the series feel especially comfortable in their characters. For audiences that prefer dubs, I imagine this was a fine ensemble to start with, and even coming to the dub for the first time, I got used to their portrayals of the characters before too long. It’s always good to have a solid dub for a series that not only has great mainstream appeal but also a western setting, and SPY x FAMILY fits all of that criteria.
It’s been interesting to watch the evolution of the long-running Jump manga movie paradigm. Historically they’ve always been self-contained side-stories that by their very nature can’t impact the ongoing story of the manga or TV series and therefore must inevitably return back to the status quo despite their almost invariably ambitious scopes. For a while, many of these were short films packaged together as double features. One Piece Film: Strong World was a major turning point in 2009 in that it established a new paradigm of the films being marquee events every few years that the original creator would be deeply involved in, and that not only the TV adaptation but even the manga would try to reference if possible, in order to give them a sense of greater importance to the franchise and even the ability to argue that they may be “canon.” They’d still be side-stories that can be skipped while running through the series in either medium, but they didn’t feel quite as disposable compared to what was essentially “filler” that defied the very premise of filler by not being within the series at all.
Now the anime adaptations of long-running shounen manga series have largely switched from the long-standing tradition of airing every week for years or decades until the series is completed to being adapted a season at a time, eliminating the need for actual filler, allowing a theatrical quality within the TV series itself, and allowing the main staff to work on films without neglecting their roles on the main series. This doesn’t inherently change the function of a movie in one of those franchises, but that switch also happened to bring some new approaches regarding what a Jump movie could be. Most prominent is of course Demon Slayer’s first (and arguably still only) film Mugen Train, the greatest success in the history of Japanese cinema by every metric, which simply adapted the next arc of the manga as a feature rather than a TV season (at least, initially). Now Demon Slayer gets away with literally just playing episodes in a theater and calling them films, going even further down the path started by the long-established compilation film that many other popular anime series have received over the decades.
SPY x FAMILY CODE: White returns to the classic Jump movie formula of making up some grand new adventures for its characters to embark upon without affecting anything within the series proper. SPY x FAMILY is a better candidate for this kind of film than most long-running Jump series, because most of its content is already inconsequential character antics. You could sneak filler in there anywhere and no anime-only viewer would know the difference. Ironically, it’s also the nature of these films to take advantage of their theatrical format to depict big, broad adventures with impressive action spectacles on the big screen, so it quickly loses some of the advantage this particular series has by trying to make its story epic and eventful. As with countless such spin-off films over the years, it manufactures artificial stakes even though we all know we’re going back to the status quo by the end.
These somewhat conflicting paradigms certainly shape the priorities of SPY x FAMILY CODE: White. It is every bit the silly Forger gag romp you signed up for, while also trying to be as cinematic and grandiose as possible. The staff clearly loves using Yor for action, because most of the big spectacles, intricate animation, and particularly “cool” moments were centered entirely on Yor. Anya served as the comedy mouthpiece, to the point that nearly every time she said a line the audience exploded in laughter, which isn’t too different from experiences I’ve had at other such fan screening events, but I’m sure it felt fulfilling to Megan Shipman, and to Cris George for establishing her vocal style that played so well with this crowd. Loid balanced the two sides while also serving as the primary exposition and plot force, often accepting ridiculous contrivances, but that’s more or less in line with the series in general. Of course, the family as a whole has its fair share of heartwarming material that inspired “aww”s as vocal as any of the laughs. It’s a film that knows exactly what it’s doing and opts for maximum crowd-pleasing, potentially at the cost of a narrative you realistically have any reason to care about.
Although clearly the comedy was largely a rousing success with this room of people, the volume of toilet humor was not something I was expecting, not something that SPY x FAMILY is really known for, and not something that I thought worked very well for an audience older than the in-universe subject of that particular subplot. If you thought the one thing SPY x FAMILY was missing was 15 consecutive minutes of jokes about Anya almost crapping her pants, this is the film for you. Otherwise, it’s a little rough. On the bright side, they do use some of Anya’s visions in this process to explore different animation styles, something the series has employed in its opening and ending sequences, which adds to the value of the film as a visual spectacle worth seeing on the big screen, even if the subject matter isn’t always of the highest caliber.
Overall, SPY x FAMILY CODE: White sits comfortably between the old pattern of Jump movies being unengaging isolated filler and this brave new world of films standing on a comparable level to the series proper. It’s a fun ride, and that’s what you want from a SPY x FAMILY movie more than any other Jump series in recent memory. If nothing else, the combination of action set pieces, large-scale scenery, and various elements that play well in large groups, it’s more than worth seeing in a theater. I’ll be seeing it again for its wide release next week on April 19 (April 18 in most theaters).
