The following contains spoilers for Spy x Family Episode 10, "The Great Dodgeball Plan," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
What do you get when you throw a bunch of six-year-olds into a dodgeball game in Spy x Family with the promise of earning a coveted Stella Star? A chaotic but perfect amalgamation of every single shonen sports cliché that ever existed. It's dramatic, over-the-top, and fits exceedingly well with the overall vibe of Spy x Family.
Fans of Hunter x Hunter have likely noted the similarities between Spy x Family's dodgeball game and the one on Greed Island. However, there are more references to iconic anime like Dragon Ball Z, My Hero Academia and Naruto as well. Episode 10 of Spy x Family is the series' shonen sports/battle episode -- but with a twist.
The Classic Training Arc, Dragon Ball Z-Style
To get in tip-top shape to play the most important dodgeball game of her life, Anya enlists the help of Yor to help train her to execute a killer move -- and the training is intense. Anya's expression every time she struggles to do a sit-up is relatable on every level. This is followed by some running to improve her stamina and some nighttime training using a dodgeball.
Anya undergoes training similar to that of other shonen protagonists, like Deku in My Hero Academia when he was trying to train his body into being ready to accept One For All. Her training gear even looks like it came straight out of Deku's collection with the number of weights and stretch bands in there. Episode 10 of Spy x Family is really playing into the "expectations versus reality" meme through its parody -- like the iconic waterfall scene in which characters sit under to meditate -- and then completely subverts it by showing Anya sitting in her bathtub.
Damian's training is just as intense, if not more so, than Anya's. With the help of his friends, Damian trains for the game by climbing up treacherous cliffs with Emile to travelling to Namek (who doesn't love a Dragon Ball Z reference?) and attempting to block what looks like the Death Ball. Even the way Damian endures the impact and energy of the attack is reminiscent of how shonen heroes block it with the ground literally breaking under their feet. The illusion gets utterly shattered when it reveals that Damian was just climbing a jungle gym and swinging around on a tire swing, complete with a bouncy-ball sound effect.
Anya's Not-So-Killer Move
Spy x Family went all-out with its sports arc, even including the typical mid-episode title card that usually appears in sports anime. Class 4's secret weapon acted exactly like the kind of antagonist usually seen in shonen, down to him viewing his opponents as targets. Bill Watkins, who looks nothing like a normal six-year-old, has the musculature and size of an army soldier and the voice of someone who has hit puberty. He even has the ominous soundtrack that accompanies bad guys playing in the background.
Dragon Ball Z wasn't the only anime referenced in Episode 10. Fans also saw Emile doing the iconic Naruto run during Formation G and even name-dropping Naruto's Shadow Clone move. Not even shonen's standard tear-jerking sacrifice scenes are safe from Spy x Family's parody: Emile's sacrifice had the slo-mo hazy effect with the slowly crescendo-ing music, and his 'final words' to Ewen sounded like they came straight from a script. It's even funnier when realizing that all these kids are acting like they're in a life-or-death situation -- when they're really just playing a game.
Of course, clichés aren't complete without someone tripping over their feet -- which Anya does, landing spectacularly in the path of Bill's killer throw where he screams for Anya to "Die" (Bakugo, is that you?). Damian throws himself in front of Anya to intercept the ball from hitting her. The sheer force of Bill's dodgeball attack is a brilliant callback to how Damian imagined himself blocking the energy ball when he was back on Namek.
Now with only one person left, it's up to Anya to save the day. The light shining at the corner of her shoulder, her hair blowing in the wind, the flashback to her training with Yor, and Anya solemnly swearing that Damian's death will not be wasted -- Anya is setting up for her big shonen moment. The music that accompanies the animation of the camera doing a wide pan to a 360 with the focus on Anya preparing her body to unleash her killer attack is perfect: the drum intro sounds similar to the drums in My Hero Academia's "You Say Run" before it transitions into the jazzy style of Spy x Family.
It's the perfect subversion and reminder to fans that they're not watching a typical shonen anime, even though Episode 10 continues to play it up with the animation when Anya does her Star Catch Arrow move -- right up until her ball fails to even cross her team's boundary line.
The parody works so well because Spy x Family is so utterly self-aware when it comes to clichés. Fans tend to forget that the heroes we see in shonen stories are kids; luckily, here is this episode that looks like it came straight out of a battle shonen -- thrown into the context of a dodgeball game between six-year-olds.