It’s no wonder that Spy x Family is a hit shonen anime given its unique premise. Based on Tatsuya Endo’s manga, the series follows an undercover agent who forms a family as part of his all-important mission: to investigate a threat to political stability. In the build-up to season 2 which is set for a Fall 2023 release, it’s worth revisiting the significance of the story’s setting.
Spy x Family doesn’t take place in the real world as many slice-of-life series do, but it’s also not a totally exotic fantasy realm like in an isekai anime title either. Instead, Spy x Family’s setting is a comfortable compromise between the familiar and fiction, allowing Tatsuya Endo to exercise his creativity freely — a common tactic in shonen anime and manga.
Spy x Family’s Setting Informs its German Cold War Allegory
The setting of Spy x Family, as shown in both the manga and anime, is not based on expansive worldbuilding the way One Piece is, but the author did provide a compelling context for his cold war setting. To begin with, the main feud involves the rival nations of Ostania and Westalis, which are based in the east and west respectively. However, Ostania is more than just “the country to the east;” it’s clearly intended to be an analog to real-world East Germany, a nation of the Warsaw Pact, while Westalis is West Germany, part of NATO. The real-world implications of this are endless, though as a shonen anime series, Spy x Family streamlines the concept to the mere fact that these nations are feuding in a cold war and one major spark will result in a devastating, full-scale war.
All this gives history-minded anime fans some fascinating ideas about what else may be happening behind the scenes in Spy x Family, and not just in terms of the SSS, a clear analog for the Stasi, the East German secret police. Perhaps Westalis and Ostania were once close allies or even shared territory as one nation, but historic events, including war, drove them apart. Spy x Family has the potential to have pretty deep lore that could be explored in a tie-in novel for history buffs, while the manga and anime focus on the meat of this story, the antics of the Forger family. The world-building even includes a map in the manga, with an analog for Denmark being found above Westalis and Ostania and a nation named Hugaria further to the east. No doubt Hugaria is this world’s Hungary, a central European nation that also belonged to the Warsaw Pact. The map of Spy x Family could keep growing until an alternate version of Europe takes form, giving Loid a huge world to explore.
How Spy x Family Presents a Heightened Version of Reality
When creating a work of fiction, the author has three broad options about the setting: create an entirely fictional world from scratch, which is common for fantasy and sci-fi, use a real-world setting, which is a solid pick for slice-of-life anime, or create a fictional world loosely based on the real world. That third option is what anime like Spy x Family and Fullmetal Alchemist use, combining the best of both worlds. By using the real world as a loose reference, settings like Ostania, Westalis and Amestris are more immersive to viewers and easier for the creator to make, since some of the world-building is already in place.
In this way, a manga author such as Tatsuya Endo can create a familiar setting but still make use of creative liberties to suit the story’s needs. Meanwhile, viewers can not only appreciate the details shown directly in the scenes but also fill in many gaps with educated guesses or extrapolations using real-world references. This makes for efficient storytelling, with the author only needing to write or draw basic details while viewers can perceive far more detail in the worldbuilding. In this way, Spy x Family’s setting feels huge and richly detailed, even though the active world-building in the story itself is relatively limited. Something like that cannot be done for a purely fictional anime setting, such as that of Naruto or Berserk. The author must do all the world-building themselves, and that requires some serious time and effort.