The Forgers embark on their biggest "ooting" yet…
SPY×FAMILY CODE: White is a 2023 anime film based upon the SPY×FAMILY manga by Tatsuya Endo. The cast and crew of the anime adaptation return for the film, which was released theatrically in Japan on December 22, 2023, not long after the premiere of the anime’s second season. Crunchyroll will distribute the English subbed and dubbed versions of the film in North America on April 19, 2024.
The film has an original story conceived by Endo, once more following the Forgers — comprising father and secret agent Loid, mother and secret assassin Yor, daughter and secret telepath Anya, and dog and future-seer Bond. When the family takes a trip to the snowy region of Frigis, they naturally find themselves entangled in a plot to ignite all-out war between Westalis and Ostania. With the status of their fake family — and the fate of the world — in peril, they will once more have to face the threat without exposing their secrets to one another.
Previews: Teaser (Japanese
, English), Trailer, English Dub Trailer
SPY×FAMILY CODE: White includes examples of the following:
- Aborted Arc: An entire scene is spent early in the movie fleshing out the chef at the Rubbles & Bonds (a former fighter pilot in the Great Offscreen War who retired to start a family and, being a proud chef, doesn't like sharing his secret recipes), with the plot of the next leg of the film revolving around getting him the ingredients to make them the shop's special meremere cake. After the airship crashes into the water outside of the city, rather than getting him the ingredients, the family just goes home to make the cake.
- Ace Pilot: Loid used an old propeller plane to chase after the airship where Anya was held captive. He used some intense acrobatic piloting to dodge multiple turrets and anti-aircraft missiles.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: A key point of ambiguity in Spy X Family is what exactly the Ostanian government and Desmond's intentions are towards starting another war. Setting aside the plausible but never hinted at possibility that the Colonel, who claims to be following his orders, is working for some kind of Renegade Splinter Faction or has gone rogue and is lying to his men, this film makes it plain that the Ostanian government is scheming to start such a war, and have built superweapons to try to win it. This also retroactively makes Operation Strix itself pointless; once Desmond's intentions are a known quantity why keep the mission going, beyond to try to find out details of said plans?
- And the Adventure Continues: The film ends with the family going to the southern regions to learn the new judge's favorite food (fortunately, Bond foresees nothing but a normal, happy family vacation).
- Anti-Air: Snidel's airship has anti-aircraft missiles that are fired at the propeller plane Loid is flying.
- Animation Bump: Though it's to be expected since it's given a movie budget, animation for the action sequences are breathtaking and certainly a step up from the show. The best part is that all three of the main Forgers each get a unique and fluid animated moment to show this off:
- Reaching her limit in holding in her bowel, Anya begins to hallucinate into the point there's a complete different water paint artstyle and meets a stranger named the god of poop, who takes her on a wild ride to the grand toilet bowl.
- Perhaps the best example of this trope is a 360 shot during the climax when Yor has to do a big fight against Type F while the ship has gone ablaze in a fashion similar to Attack on Titan, which makes sense considering WIT studio animated this movie.
- After a narrow escape, Loid uses the dissipating gas cloud to his advantage to quickly swap his disguise and position. He impersonates Snidel while locking hands with him, preventing the soldiers from shooting since they are unable to tell who's the imposter. This later results in a final batle between the two with a dynamic amination artstyle sequence and coloring comparable to Jojo's Bizarre Adventures.
- Arm Cannon: Type F has both of his arms replaces with guns, the right having machine guns and the left can swap between a gatling gun and a Grenade Launcher.
- Big Bad: Snidel is the main threat of the movie, as the leader of the military unit and the one seeking to start a war between the East and West like most of the series' villains, this time using the microfilm.
- Bittersweet Ending: The movie ends on a rather high note, with the Forgers defeating Snidel and his army, and Sylvia obtaining the microfilm that came from Anya’s teeth. But an oven suffers a malfunction on the day of the competition and as a result, the contest is delayed and the judge is changed from the principal to the vice principal. However, the Forgers have another chance to win as they know the vice principal's favorite dessert while planning another vacation that Bond predicts to be more peaceful.
- Blatant Lies: Per usual. When Yor asks Loid if he can fly the giant battle zeppelin , he claims he had a part-time job piloting them when he was in college. Naturally, Yor buys it, while Anya gives him a You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! look.
- Book Ends: The blood of the arms dealer that Yor slays in the film's opening poetically splashes in the pattern of a rose against the wall he dies on; the Type-F Cyborg that Yor battles in the film's finale was also covered in a rose-patterned "fuse" drawn in red lipstick before Yor lights said-fuse into his ammo chassis and blows him up like a powder keg.
- Call-Back: Loid's guard dog training to Bond is referenced when he attacks the Luca's arm rather than his legs as he typically used to, incidentally getting a clue to the kidnapped Anya's whereabouts stuck in his teeth.
- The Cameo: Franky and Yuri appear briefly, but have no real importance to the story.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Loid effortlessly catches a carnival worker running a rigged game and proceeds to intimidate him into coughing up prizes to the patrons he tried to cheat.
- Chekhov's Gun: The tube of lipstick Loid bought for Yor at the market as a seemingly simple gift turns out to help Yor defeat Type F in the third act. She uses the lipstick as a makeshift Vapor Trail (as lipsticks contain oil), covering Type F's body and his ammo contained within with it before lighting it all on fire.
- Chekhov's Skill: Colonel Snidel has a very acute taste, being able to outclass Loid (who went undercover as world-class chefs) in a sugar taste test. While Loid wrote down the sugars used in the dishes, Snidel won by writing down the sugars used along with the correct gram amount. This became very handy in sniffing out a disguised Loid, leading to the climax on the bridge.
- Cool Airship: The climax of the film takes place on a giant airship commanded by Snidel.
- Cool Plane: An impressive old propeller plane can be glimpsed in the teaser. It gets used by the Forger parents for the climax.
- Continuity Nod: Endo had previously stated that Loid's skill at cooking came from once having to infiltrate a restaurant. He mentions that he once posed as a chef in a three-star establishment during an inner monologue as part of his tasting-game with Colonel Snidel.
- Dark Action Girl: Fiona defeats two enemy soldiers without breaking a sweat and her aid is crucial to helping Loid's ultimate success.
- Deadly Gas: Snidel has a poison gas grenade that he uses as a last ditch effort to kill Loid. The fortunate timing of Anya untying herself and inadvertedly hitting some buttons to open the windows on the bridge of the airship allows the gas to be blown out before it could kill Loid.
- Diesel Punk: By the time of CODE: White, the Atomic-Era Weird Science of the setting has advanced to the creation of extremely durable cyborgs who can transform their arms into gatling guns, and generate an unlimited rain of ammo from within their half flesh, half metal bodies.
- Disguised in Drag: The Cold Open is one of the scant few times where Twilight disguises himself as a woman (Latex Perfection and all).
- Dowsing Device: Dmitri is seen using two L-shaped metal rods when he and Luca find Anya in their second encounter.
- Drowning My Sorrows: When Yor thinks Loid is involved with another woman (actually speaking with Nightfall in disguise) she proceeds to get utterly plastered on mulled wine at a winter festival so that she can open up to him about her worries.
- Eat the Evidence: Done by accident by Anya, who inadvertently eats a piece of chocolate which hides a microfilm for Colonel Snidel's plans when the train lurches and causes her to fumble it into her open mouth when she accidentally dropped it, resulting in Snidel's soldiers going on a manhunt for her.
- Enemy Eats Your Lunch: This is how Colonel Snidel is introduced. He, along with his troop, barges into the restaurant the Forgers are eating at and demands that the restaurant's last meremere that Loid ordered be given to him.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: You know that General Snidel is trouble even before he actually appears onscreen when his mere shadow entering the frame is enough to cause Bond, a normally timid dog, to menacingly growl in anger and fear.
- Exact Words: Sindel promises to give the Forgers back their meremere dessert if Loid can guess which quality and quantity of sugar is used for each desert they taste. While Loid accurately answers which sugar is used for each dessert, Sindel reminds him about the quantity too, revealing that Sindel also wrote down the measurements used for each sugar down to the gram.
- Ferris Wheel Date Moment: Anya tricks Loid and Yor into one of these. Yor uses the opportunity to confront Loid about what she thought was him cheating on her. After he clears up the misunderstanding, things do take a romantic turn, but Yor gets so overwhelmed by Loid's advances that she slaps him anyway.
- Food Porn: Present throughout the movie.
- The plot begins proper with the Forgers going to Frigis to learn how to make meremere, an old-fashioned Frigis dessert. It is a fruit-filled tart with what appears to be cream or meringue on top.
- The chocolate dessert Anya accidentally ate that contains the microfilm for Colonel Snidel's plans also looks exquisite.
- The food the Forgers ordered at the restaurant is lovingly detailed as well. Anya, fittingly, orders peanut chicken.
- Gas Mask, Longcoat: Type F wears this attire upon meeting Yor. He loses both from Yor's first attack to show he's a human with mechanical modifications.
- Hate Sink: Snidel, whose screentime is mostly spent being as cruel and reprehensible as possible. He's introduced threatening his way into a table at a family restaurant and demanding a special dessert from a child, then has multiple scenes showing his nature as a Bad Boss and cruelty towards Anya to drive this home.
- Here We Go Again!: Averted. As the Forger family plans to go on another culinary quest at the end of the film, Bond peers into the future to see that it's going to be a perfectly ordinary and fun vacation.
- High-Speed Missile Dodge: Loid manages to dodge several high speed anti-aircraft missiles in the plane, along their explosions, much to the dismay of Snidel and the entire military crew.
- Holiday Motif: The main trailer shows the family in a snowy festival in Frigis, with booths decorated with holly and ornaments, much like one would use at Christmas. Very fitting, given the close proximity between the film’s Japanese release date of December 22, 2023 to Christmas.
- Improbable Piloting Skills: As another testament to his immense capabilities, Loid was able to fly an old propeller plane with such a high skill level, he's capable of evading several turrets firing from several angles and even anticraft missiles with it, despite the plane not being in use for a while.
- Improvised Weapon: This movie allows Yor's credentials as a seasoned warrior, capable to turning any object into a weapon, to truly shine:
- On top of General Snidel's Zeppelin, a soldier attempts to throw a hand grenade at Yor from his pill-box. She throws her jacket back and intercepts the grenade in mid-flight, letting the snowstorm's winds carry it and the grenade back to the soldier, causing him to scurry away in terror as his grenade explodes, starting the fire that eventually crashes the Zeppelin.
- She then took out a line of firing soldiers by hurling a fire extinguisher towards them like a bowling ball and knocking them over like nine-pins (complete with a comedic strike stock sound effect)
- As she battled Type-F in the inferno of the crashing Zeppelin, Yor proves she is just as skilled with any sharp object at hand, be they S.O.G Military Combat Knives or Fire-Axes, as she is with her signature custom-forged Stiletto-daggers. She then destroys the steel cyborg with an inexhaustible Gatling Gun for his right-arm, by painting a rose-patterned fuse across his otherwise extremely durable body into the exposed ammo chassis of his torso with a red lipstick on her left hand as she distracted him with a combat knife in her right; after her knife shatters, she calmly lights said lipstick-fuse from a safe distance, causing the invincible bio-mechanical horror to explode like a keg of black-powder.
- Kick the Dog: Colonel Snidel does this at the beginning when he wrests the Forgers' meremere dessert from them at the restaurant.
- MacGuffin: A roll of microfilm which is crucial to Colonel Snidel's plan to incite war. It is hidden inside a chocolate dessert that Anya accidentally ate. We never actually learn what the microfilm contains, or why it's so crucial — Twilight is briefed on it, but we're not privy to the conversation. All we know is that Snidel's so desperate to get it back that he's willing to disembowel a six-year-old girl to retrieve it, and that he keeps trying to get it even while in the midst of trying to reignite a second war between East and West with his fancy superweapons.
- "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: Loid utilizes this at one point in the movie, sneakily lowering himself into a wine cellar in search of a rare cherry liqueur.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Yor thinks Loid is cheating on her after seeing him talking to an unknown woman and seemingly kissing her. It was Fiona in disguise and they were talking about WISE business. The "kiss" was Loid just stepping forward to catch Fiona's hat from blowing away in the wind. The angle Yor saw things from made it look like an intimate act.
- Mushroom Samba: Anya experiences one of these due to an extreme need to use the toilet. She even meets "The God of Poop" during her vision.
- Morphic Resonance: In this movie, Fiona's wigs when in disguise always have the same Hiding Behind Your Bangs haircut as her natural hairnote to make her easier to identify.
- No Communities Were Harmed: Played with. At one point, the camera lingers on a mountain in the background that looks suspiciously like the Matterhorn.
- The Nose Knows: Being a foodie, Colonel Snidel has a keen sense of smell, which allows him to see through Loid's Latex Perfection disguise.
- Not in Front of the Kid: Played for Laughs. When Yor bursts through the door that Dimitri and Luca locked to prevent her daughter from escaping and was told that the duo were "bad guys who tried to hurt her." Yor quietly tells Anya and Bond to "please close your eyes." The little girl and old pooch shield their faces in panic as we hear multiple loud thumps and cries of pain, followed by Yor cheerfully telling them "Anya, Bond. You can open your eyes now! The Bad-Guys... well... they kind of fell over..." all the while standing over their comedically bruised and battered unconscious bodies.
- Old-School Dogfight: Twilight snatches a plane and gets engaged in a rather intense and action-packed one. Granted, he isn't trying to shoot the opposing war aircraft down due to the fact that Anya's held captive within it.
- Pinball Projectile: Loid pulls off this maneuver throughout the movie.
- The first time is when he shot all the prizes in a rigged carnival game.
- The second time is during the climax, where he managed to hit one of the soldiers a skilled ricocheting shot.
- Potty Emergency: Anya desperately holding it in actually becomes a key detail of the plot in the final act, since the truffle she accidentally ate earlier held a microfilm hidden within. Sindel decides to wait until she defecates the microfilm before killing her, which leads Anya to avoid doing so for as long as possible up until she finally finds a bathroom where she can go in peace.
- Room Disservice: Fiona disguises herself as a hotel worker in order to directly contact Loid in Frigis.
- Sequel Hook: Even though Handler's newspaper at the end of the film indicates that Luca, Dmitri, and everyone else on the zeppelin are presumably dead when it crashed into the lake, Twilight did order a shipwide evacuation while disguised as General Snidel, a good 12 or so minutes of onscreen time before the actual collision, giving all surviving soldiers onboard more than enough time to escape with their lives, the unconscious Snidel (maybe even Luca & Dmitri) included; allowing them to return in possible future motion pictures to exact revenge.
- Smoking Barrel Blowout: Anya imitates this with her toy ray-gun when playing with Yor.
- Status Quo Is God: Since this is a Non-Serial Movie, don’t expect any drastic developments for the main story. Loid’s planned replacement got into deep trouble for cheating which allowed Loid to keep on with Operation Strix. Anya’s entire journey to learn meremere to impress the principal who is the judge for a Stella is all for nothing as the cooking class is delayed due to exploding equipment, resulting in a change of judges.
- Shout-Out: CODE: White has two distinct and affectionate tongue-in-cheek outs to the Mission: Impossible Film Series.
- Loid suspended above a cellar floor on a harness while trying to steal a rare bottle of cherry liqueur is a blatant allusion to how Ethan Hunt must similarly hack into the mainframe of a supercomputer without touching the floor in Mission: Impossible (1996).
- Yor's Action-Sequence Leitmotif "Code White" is a deliberate countermelody to the Danny Elfman rewrite of Lalo Schifrin's original 1967 "Mission Impossible" theme.
- Spot the Imposter: The final battle has Loid disguising himself as Snidel as the two are fighting each other with the latter's soldiers hesitant in attempting to shoot the imposter. Loid wins the fight and declares himself the real Snidel, which the soldiers accept, lacking the Colonel's infallible nose.
- The Stinger: One at the very end, after the credits roll. Franky arrives at Frigis with the cherry liqueur that Loid requested, not knowing that the Forgers have gone home already.
- Those Two Guys: Luca and Dmitri, albeit a more dangerous version of the trope than is typical.
- Toilet Humor: Due to Anya accidentally eating the chocolate covered microfilm, the military tries forcing her to poop it out. After a long time holding it in, she soon has a fantasy of being visited by the Poop God, who tries to let her release it.
- Vacation Episode: The film mainly tells the story of the Forgers going on a family trip to the snowy region of Frigis, to experience firsthand a dessert recipe that can hopefully get Anya to win her school's cook-off event.
- Villain Respect: Colonel Snidel admits that he's impressed by Loid's palate after winning their tasting game, and with his impossible ability to sneak aboard the airship during the finale.
- Weapon Jr.: The teaser ends with Anya brandishing a toy ray-gun. She later fires a toy rifle at a shooting game booth at a winter festival.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Luca and Dmitri were last seen lying in a broken, unconscious heap aboard the airship, and after Loid wins his duel with the Colonel and takes his place, he directs the soldiers to carry the real colonel's unconscious body off the aircraft and continue the mission on land before crashing the ship. Were the two bumbling henchmen killed in the crash? What happened to the Colonel and his team after leaving the airship?
- Would Hurt a Child: In the trailer, Snidel brandishes a knife and orders Anya’s death. Dmitri and Luca demonstrate that they're willing to do this too, but they're at least very reluctant to do so until ordered to. Even then, they do rock, paper, scissors to see who actually has to do the deed. Luca lost and would have gutted Anya had fate not stepped in.
- Wrecked Weapon: Type F's Nigh-Invulnerable body destroys two S.O.G Military Combat Knives Yor stole from a soldier, requiring her to figure a different method of defeating him.
- Wronski Feint: Loid manages to lead an anti-aircraft missile with a maneuver to make it crash into a mountain.
"I'll see you in hell, baby!"
