Listen, sometimes manga is just weird. Sometimes, it’s the kind of weird you have to make sure the kids don’t stumble across. And sometimes it’s the all-ages, best-of-all-possible-worlds kind of weird everyone can share, like Tatsuya Endo’s Spy X Family.

Twilight is the world’s best spy. A master of disguise, intrigue, and infiltration – never rattled and never bested – he has never failed to conquer his opponents, achieve his objective, and protect his country.

He may, however, have finally met his match in Anya.

As a necessary part of his latest mission, Twilight has adopted 6-year-old Anya in order to infiltrate a prestigious private school: the only place his next, elusive mark is ever seen in public. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know anything about kids. Nor does he know that Anya is a telepath and privy not only to the state secrets he keeps but also to all the emotional baggage Twlight has never shared with anyone… including the fact that he can’t help but start caring about the little girl who was only supposed to be a stage prop.

Of course, acceptance into a school as proper as Eden Academy requires more than the passing grade Anya (barely) obtains on the entrance exam; it requires a “proper” family, which means Twilight also needs a wife. Enter Yor, office girl by day, assassin by night, who finds herself in the bind of needing a fake boyfriend when a chance encounter puts her in Twlight’s path.

The two strike a deal: Twilight will pose as Yor’s boyfriend at a party to get her brother off her back (so she can get back to assassin-ing), and Yor will pretend to be Twilight’s wife at the Eden Academy interview to help Anya win a place at the school (he leaves out the part about his mission).

This whole thing is even more absurd than the regular fake family/fake dating trope, which is, honestly, why I love it so. I mean, what are the odds of a spy, a telepath, and an assassin finding one another? The odds of a chance meeting in a tailor’s shop? Of Yor’s dress needing to be repaired just when Twilight’s suit does? Of Twilight getting beaten up on a mission and slipping up for the first time ever by calling Yor his wife when he’s supposed to be posing as her boyfriend? Yes, I know it’s fiction and Tatsuya wrote it that way, but the utter how of it all – the puzzle he fit together – is so much fun to contemplate. And seriously, what a hook.

I also really enjoy the way Tatsuya plays with traditional romance tropes to both make the characters more engaging and move the story. Of course Anya is going to get attached to Twilight, but in this book, there’s also never a question that he is going to get attached to her; Tatsuya knows it, the reader knows it, and the author just goes for it in having the character lamenting how much feelings complicate matters while never denying they exist.

Tatsuya also uses a common romance trope – “fake dating” – in a novel way. Usually in this scenario, the couple starts out either as friends or not liking each other. Twilight and Yor don’t know each other at all, but they quickly develop a friendship and mutual respect, even though neither knows the truth of the other’s life. There’s no pining or immediate attraction or falling into bed, either. Both Yor and Twilight, though they find each other pleasant enough, seem content to keep a certain distance. (I’m 100% sure this is going to change. Luckily, they’re already married.)

And then there’s Eden Academy, so much a caricature of a typical prep school that if you don’t laugh out loud through the entire last chapter of the book then you must not have a soul. I mean, there are costume changes, guys with monocles, and Van Dykes yelling about elegance… but really, they had me at the exotic animal escape.

I bought the first volume of Spy X Family to see if I’d enjoy it. I will for sure be making the full investment not only for myself but also my daughter, who is sitting next to me, reading the book and giggling as I type this review.

Volume 1 is out now, with 2 coming in September, 3 in December, and 4 in March 2021. Spy X Family by Tatsuya Endo is published by VIZ Media and Shonen Jump.