Mission: Yozakura Family

Episode 7

Something important to remember about Taiyo Asano is that, despite the literally superhuman gains he has made in his skills and physical abilities throughout the season, the kid is still brand new to this whole “spy” thing. While it has been very fun to watch him continuously kick butt and solve problems over the past few weeks, “Government Spies” brings a much-needed element into the mix of Taiyo's adventures: Failure.

After running into the titular government spies during a mission to rescue Nanao from falling asleep in the middle of an active infiltration mission (!) after intentionally ingesting a lethal bioweapon of mass destruction (!!!), Taiyo gets his ass handed to him six ways to Sunday by the stoic Sui. It only makes sense that our boy would want to redeem himself and keep his name from being slandered in the spy-themed tabloids that exist in this universe—and so he embarks on a mission to prove that he's got the goods by tailing Sui and his partner Oga.

It's a great setup for a character-building journey on Taiyo's part—and that's especially good because one of the episode's only major flaws is that Nanao himself doesn't make much of an impression at all besides being generally pretty nice (and also having a bucket for a face). We were already able to pick up on all of that after Nanao first got introduced, so it's a shame that the episode ostensibly meant to spotlight him ends up doing so little with his and Taiyo's brotherly dynamic. While we're getting through my complaints, I should probably also mention that the art in this episode can get pretty rough at times. It's far from being bad enough to derail the whole episode, but I hope that Mission: Yozakura Family can polish up its production values more in the weeks to come.

Other than those complaints, though, I'd say that this was a very fun episode of M:YF indeed. Sui makes for an excellent rivalry and antagonist to Taiyo and the gag of him casually shredding the clothes of anyone who pisses him off is pretty funny. This is thanks in large part to the capable support of Taiyo's voice actor, Reiji Kawashima, who I last heard in the very different role of Fushi from To Your Eternity. Here, Kawashima is doing a great job of playing up the comedic ridiculousness of Taiyo's circumstances, though he always makes sure to keep his wild howls of disbelief within acceptable ranges of the “ear-splitting screech” spectrum. This is very important because it is all too easy to find examples of how even the slightest step over that fine line can result in comedy that is more heinous than hilarious. Yes, this is me taking another opportunity to complain about Zenitsu in Demon Slayer. I will not stop, I will not forget, and I will not forgive.

What I can forgive are any minor visual or narrative hiccups on the part of M:YF because this show continues to be sweet and delightful—and those two qualities go a long way towards getting me to be in a graceful sort of mood. It also helps that, even though she only got maybe three lines in this whole episode, Mutsumi still managed to steal the show with the best line reading of the week. It's good to know that she will stand by her man no matter how many degrading and slanderous reports of his depraved sexual habits make their way into the tabloids. Mutsumi remains the true MVP of Mission: Yozakura Family and I doubt that will be changing any time soon.

Rating:

Mission: Yozakura Family is currently streaming on Hulu in the United States and on Disney+ in other regions.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.