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There is no way around the fact that Spy x Family CODE White is nothing but filler. It isn’t adapted from any part of the Spy x Family manga and everything goes right back to the status quo by the end of the movie, just in time for when the third season of the anime eventually comes out. Despite being ultimately inconsequential, it represents the best way to do these kinds of anime filler movies because it distills what we love about a full season of the show into one two-hour film with a massive budget.

The slice-of-life elements of Spy x Family CODE White feel like they could have been taken directly from the show. The Forgers head off to a snowy resort town in hopes of helping Anya secure a much-coveted Stella and move Twilight closer to achieving Operation Strix’s ultimate goal of making her an Imperial Scholar at Eden Academy. This requires them to run around a market, securing elusive ingredients for a local dessert.

It is a silly setup, but it is wonderful to watch because Anya, Loid, and Yor all get moments to shine as characters here. Loid manages to secure the bulk of the ingredients with superhuman precision. Anya uses her psychic powers to try to play matchmaker between her adoptive parents. Yor, after misreading every signal between them, becomes adorably panicked at the slightest bit of affection from her fake husband. We’ve seen these same interactions in the show before, but it reminds us of how fun and silly each of these characters can be together.

That mundane opening goes out the window in the second half of the movie, where an epic fight to secure world peace on a flaming zeppelin takes place. Again, each of the Forgers gets a chance at the spotlight and has a beautifully animated climatic scene that represents the pinnacle of their separate battles. Yor makes an unkillable robot explode thanks to some well-placed kicks and some lipstick. Loid has a wonderfully stylized fight against the enemy commander while in disguise. And Anya is transported to the peaceful land of toilets by a poop god, because she is a kid and sometimes the biggest trial in a kid’s life is simply holding it in.

Each of these sequences is beautiful to watch and highlights something important about these characters. They are silly and over-the-top but still perfectly in keeping with the Spy x Family series. Even on the big screen and with a nearly two-hour runtime, Spy x Family CODE White manages to maintain the perfect balance of action, comedy, and wholesome slice-of-life moments that have made the show one of the most loved anime series in recent years, something that so few anime films can pull off.

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