#(k)now_name

Zettai MUST Danmen - (K)NoW_NAME

Break a Neck - (K)NoW_NAME

Bus Stop - (K)NoW_NAME

This is an interesting question for a very particular, and a little awkward reason: generally speaking I don't consider the Spy X Family anime soundtrack to be truly outstanding. Don't get me wrong, it's good. It's fairly sophisticated, quite distinctive, has the right choice of musical style with some sweet jazz, and it complements each scene properly... but I don't think of it that much once I finish watching each episode because I rarely find it actually ELEVATES the scene to the next level. So I kinda had to go back to check it out and REALLY think this one through. And ultimately, I have to pick more than one answer. Because what stuck out to me was peculiar. First, two songs that have the unfair advantage to have been written for a VERY specific scene each. Starting with TBD by (K)NoW_NAME, when Twilight has to fight his way against dozens of WISE agents for the sake of the play he's put to cellebrate Anya's acceptance into Eden College. It's increadibly heart pumping, and for this one moment it really sells why he was put on the mission: he's the ace of the agency, and a hundred other agents doing their coordinated best can only hope to barely slow him down. It's ultimately undercut by him getting bodied by his drunken yet monstrously strong wife, but hey, let him shine for a while.

Secondly, Garden (also by (K)NoW_NAME ) which plays when Yor and McMahon fend off against the hitmen hired to kill Olka Gretchen in the Cruiser arc. This was an example where the music did NOT go the direction I was quite expecting and indeed allowed this to be a moment of more complex emotion than it was by just its images. It becomes not only something funny despite the humor at play, or heart pumping in a way that focuses on the intensity of a battle of one against fifty, but rather a moment that emphasizes how regardless of the murky morality of it all, Yor's actions do have a purpose she believes in and is willing to get this bloodied for.

Granted, not long later this the nature of that purpose gets put into question and leads to another musical highlight of the series in the actual emotional climax of this confrontation, but that instant you see the drive of the Thorn Princess.

Lastly, just because I have the perfect excuse to talk about an odd choice that kinda resonated with me for potentially unintentional reasons... Damian's theme, Second Son. It's effectively a light knock off from the Love's theme by Nino Rota, which serves as the main theme for The Godfather (1972). And while it could have been made this way by accident (or just as a cheeky way to insert a melodramatic sounding piece for a character craving for paternal affection), the symbolism around this choice amounts to some potentially disturbing foreshadowing. For those who don't know (which I suspect is a dissapointing but unsurprising lot here) one of the core aspects of the conflict of The Godfather is the generational succession of violence: in that story the head of the Corleone mafia is growing old, and his sons are getting killed due to the war against the other criminal families... with the exception of the youngest one, Michael, who starts as someone not involved in the bloodshed of his patriarch. At least, until the violence hits him by proxy, and trying to make his family proud forces him to instead become the most ruthless head the Corleones ever had. Change some of the terms here and think of Damian in Michael's place. There might be some darkness awaiting the little boy if he follows on his father's footsteps.