No, “Buddy Daddies” is Nothing Like “SpyxFamily”
Note: As of writing, Buddy Daddies is still airing episodes, so this article is written with the information I currently have now and can be subject to change.
Early January of this year, Japanese animation studio P.A. Works released an anime original series called Buddy Daddies. It’s about two professional assassins who wind up being guardians to a four-year-old. Hijinks will ensue.
Before I started watching this show, I’d already seen it being compared to SpyxFamily. Two people you would least expect to be parents raising a child while being in a dangerous profession. By that description, they do sound alike.
But once I started watching the show, I immediately realized that while both SpyxFamily and Buddy Daddies have a similar concept, they are two completely different shows and there are plenty of things to unpack to explain why.
Story and Setting
SpyxFamily takes place in the fictional country of Ostania which currently has a very shaky truce with the neighboring country Westalis. A Westalis spy (cod-named Twilight) is tasked to go undercover to get close to Donovan Desmond, the reclusive leader of the Nationalist Unity Party, who is the key to ending the feud between the two countries and preventing another war from happening. Since Donovan is only seen out in the public for his son’s school functions, Twilight will have to infiltrate it…by getting married and having kids to enroll them in.
Taking on the identity of Loid Forger, a psychiatrist, Twilight is able to acquire a wife and adopt a child to pose as the Forger family. But little did he know that the other two have secrets of their own. Yor, the wife and mother, is actually an assassin known as Thorn Princess who agreed to the arrangement with Loid so that she can carry on her work without casting any suspicion on herself if she were single. Their daughter, Anya, is an escaped test subject with telepathic powers who knows her parent’s real identities but relishes in the “excitement” her new life will bring.
Together, all three of them will navigate their lives (and Twilight’s mission) posing as a family, but little do they know, the fake part of the family may not be so fake after all.
Buddy Daddies, on the other hand, takes place in modern-day Japan. Friends and fellow assassins, Kazuki and Rei, were tasked to take out a human trafficker on the day that he is hosting a Christmas party. Unfortunately, things go awry when a little girl shows up in the middle of their job, almost derailing things in the process.
Turns out, the little girl is Miri Unasaka, who was sent by her mother to find her biological father…who was the human trafficker that Kazuki and Rei killed. Oops! Thanks to Kazuki’s quick thinking, Miri instead believes that he is her father. Now these two assassins need to figure out how to balance their lives between being assassins and being parents to Miri.
The Parents
If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that the adults of the two shows are people you would least expect to be parents.
And, ironically, that’s what makes them such good parents. They all may be involved in a rather shady profession, but that’s not what defines them. When they’re off the job, they’re entertaining in their own right.
Agent Twilight, a.k.a. Loid Forger, is the top agent of Westalis’ spy organization WISE in SpyxFamily. As Twilight, he’s serious and no-nonsense while as Loid Forger he is a loving father, albeit a bit strict on his daughter when it comes to grades and schoolwork. Part of the humor of the show is how seriously Loid tends to approach even the most basic of things, and how he reacts when things don’t go according to plan.
Then there’s Yor, an assassin known as Thorn Princess. You would think that a character like that would be aloof, emotionless, and essentially a cold-blooded killer. You couldn’t be any more wrong. Because despite how she presents herself to her targets, Yor is in fact a sweet, albeit eccentric woman who works her day job as a civil servant. While she agrees to the arrangement of being a partner to Loid for her own reasons, she very quickly assimilates to the life of a family woman, taking her role very seriously.
Despite being a fake couple, not only are they good parents, they also complement each other. Loid has no experience raising a child, but having to play many different characters as a spy does help him stay in-character in his civilian identity of a husband and father. Whereas Yor, who raised her younger brother at a young age after losing her parents, does have the child-rearing experiences to be motherly towards Anya. Yor is focused on Anya’s happiness and is fiercely protective of her, helping rein in Loid a bit whenever he gets a little too strict with Anya regarding schoolwork. Loid, in return, appreciates Yor’s input, and tries to rework his parenting so as to not put Anya under a lot of pressure.
In turn, Loid provides Yor emotional support whenever she has her doubts about herself in regards to being a wife and a mother. Despite claiming to only need Yor for part of the mission, he does not hesitate to come to her defense, whether it was a catty coworker slut-shaming her or a bitter housemaster during Anya’s school interview, implying she’s a lesser woman for not being able to cook. In fact, Yor is probably the only person the Loid has ever confided with on the rare occasion that he decides to be vulnerable. It leaves you wanting to root for their relationship to grow more genuine.
To contrast, there’s Kazuki and Rei from Buddy Daddies. Kauki is the more upbeat of the duo. When off-duty, he does the cooking and house-cleaning of Rei’s apartment where he, in Rei’s words, is couch-crashing at. With a sociable and warm personality, he’s the ideal version of a father.
Rei, Kazuki’s partner-in-crime, is the complete opposite. While Kazuki tends to focus on the more technical side of their work, Rei focuses on the physical, nitty-gritty part, being the one who usually takes down their enemies. Aloof and perpetually grouchy, when he’s not on the job he stays holed up in his apartment all day playing videos games. Unlike Kazuki, he would sooner raise a cat than raise a girl. Though his inability to keep house wouldn’t make him a good cat owner either.
Despite being polar opposites, and tend to bicker about many things when it comes to their jobs or daily life, it’s clear that both are not only good friends but also compatible partners to the job. A good level of trust is a necessity for being able to do the jobs that they have. For both Kazuki and Rei, raising a child is a whole new experience for them, so unlike the Forger parents, they struggle a lot more on that aspect. But because they’ve grown fond of Miri, they’re very willing to learn so that they can give her the best life possible.
The Kids
Now obviously, I can’t not bring up Anya and Miri, who are some of the biggest draws to their respective shows next to their parents. And why wouldn’t they be? They’re little, cute, and can bring a smile to a viewer’s face.
Firstly, Anya is no ordinary four-year-old. As already mentioned, she’s an escaped test subject with telepathy powers. It’s how she was able to get Loid to adopt her as part of his cover as the Forger family even though she’s actually younger than the age requirement to attend Eden Academy, the school Loid needed to infiltrate.
While excited with her new life with a spy and assassin for parents, Anya does help Loid and Yor out whenever she can, subtly manipulating the scene in either of her parent’s favor while keeping her powers a secret.
But at the end of the day, Anya is a little kid. Loid does have a handful with her whenever she misbehaves.
Miri, unlike Anya, is obviously no test subject and has no mind reading powers. She’s just an ordinary little girl. But after Episode 2, it seems that Miri has already gained some detractors based on the comments I’ve seen. They found her to be annoying and obnoxious, not helping that she unwittingly derailed Kazuki and Rei’s mission, forcing their informant to hand their job over to someone else.
And…yeah? She’s four. Hyperactivity and obnoxiousness are a given. And, again, not only does Miri not have mind reading powers like Anya, she doesn’t have as awful an upbringing like Anya did. Because of this, she doesn’t have the acute awareness of how serious a situation can be and as a result won’t take things seriously.
Also, a lot of the scenes that involve child-rearing were based on real-life experiences of some of the staff members who worked on the show. Little kids can be adorable little things…when they don’t make you want to put your head through the wall at times, that is.
That isn’t to say that Anya herself doesn’t have her bratty moments. In fact, Loid and Anya’s constant conversations regarding schoolwork is a good example of that. The point is that these two girls are not in any way the same; there’s really no way to compare them as such.
No kid is the same. Some kids are more well-behaved than others, and some are just more hyperactive.
I guess when it comes down to it, SpyxFamily gives viewers an idealized version of having kids while Buddy Daddies tests the viewers and whether they’re absolutely certain that they want kids.
The Tone
Both shows have a light-hearted tone in spite of the premise, but do periodically explore darker themes and have their somber moments. Just for different reasons.
SpyxFamily focuses on the Forger family growing closer as an actual family, but the show doesn’t forget to remind us that the story takes place at a time after a war had taken place, with the threat of another boiling underneath the surface of a fragile truce between two countries. Not only does this heavily impact both Loid and Yor’s childhood growing up, their actual work treats us to scenes of violence, corruption within the government and the upper class, not to mention terrorist groups who are keen to start a war between the two countries once again.
Because neither Loid or Yor are aware of each other’s identities, it often leaves them worried over being exposed or having their family get caught in the crossfire of their work.
And there’s also the biggest question of the story: what will happen once Twilight’s mission is over? This is something that he ponders from time to time. Sure, Yor has her own reasons for taking on the part of a wife and mother but she’s clearly grown attached to being a part of the family compared to Loid. He keeps trying to tell himself to not get too attached since everything is for the sake of the mission, but any astute viewer can see that he too has become attached as well. Only time will tell how things will play out.
Buddy Daddies leans more toward a comedic tone while still not hesitating to show death on screen. Sure, there’s no threat of war, but the life of being an assassin is still not a pretty one. Through some flashbacks and dialogue, we get glimpses of what Kazuki and Rei’s life was like before the present day, which all but leaves them to believe that they were never cut out to have a “normal” life. And in Kazuki’s case, being absolutely certain that he’s fated to not ever being a father like he wanted. Sure, raising Miri brings a bit of light into their life, but even that has its downsides.
In Episode 5, their informant, Kyu, even reminds them of the uncomfortable truth of being parents with jobs like theirs. As he lays it out, either one of them could die on the job, or an enemy could use Miri against them. Are they willing to accept those risks?
At the end of the episode, Kyu allows them to continue to raise Miri and encourages the two to do so with no regrets, but the uncomfortable reality of their situation will continue to linger through the show’s run.
Final Thoughts
Buddy Daddies by no means is anything like SpyxFamily, but it’s hardly a mark against the show. I find that if you watch it as its own thing rather than a “clone” of an already existing show, you might enjoy it more.
