This sixth volume of Tatsuya Endō's spy spoof does things a little differently. Mostly that means that there's less Anya in this volume, which is definitely too bad, but Nightfall very nearly makes up for it. When we last saw her in volume five, she was bound and determined to prove that SHE was the better fake wife for Loid, with dreams of finagling it into a real marriage, and this time she thinks she has the perfect way to win his heart: by entering them in an illegal underground tennis competition!

Yes, you read that right – SPY x FAMILY is never afraid to break out the absurdity, and the tennis competition, Campbelldon, is amazing. Billed as a shady underground Wimbledon, the competition is hosted by an art collector who offers winners their choice of item from his fabulous (and possibly illegally obtained) collection. This is what inspires Nightfall to enter the match: she figures that if she and Twilight win, not only will she have proven to be a better partner than Yor, but they'll also be able to simply ask for the painting rather than having to come up with an ingenious way to steal it. And on the surface, that actually sounds like a pretty clever plan. The problem is that this is, as has been previously mentioned, a shady underground tennis competition, so winning it is less about being good at tennis than one might expect.

The result is everything that we could have hoped for. From Nightfall's decision to enter she and Twilight as the awesomely named "Twain and Nafalia Foney" to the increasingly ludicrous competitors, this is not just a great spy spoof – it's also a pitch-perfect send-up of sports manga. Rival tennis players go from bad to worse as the competition goes on, opening with tennis pros who have been training in the mountains and are seeking more dangerous games than are typically afforded by legitimate tournaments, moving onto guys who will dope with literally anything, and ending on Campbell's own kids who use tennis rackets that could be weapons in a fighting game. Since those last also have Daddy's backing in the least legal of ways, Nightfall and Twilight's spy skills actually do come in handier than any tennis knowledge that they've acquired. That "Nafalia Foney" spends the entire game swooning over people thinking she and "Twain" are really married just adds to it, as does her Aim for the Ace! costume. (Twilight, meanwhile, is concerned that there's something seriously wrong with her.)

Nightfall's dream comes to an end, however, when she foolishly challenges Yor to a match upon their return home. Anya, thinking that her dad is just going to play tennis with business acquaintances, gets bitten by the tennis bug herself, and she, Yor, and Bond have been playing up a storm while Loid was off on his mission. Not that it's been good tennis – Anya keeps thinking she's hitting “homeruns” – but Nightfall's still not making a sound decision when she asks Yor to play against her. She, of course, has no idea that Yor's an assassin, or that Yor's biggest concern is that every time she hits the ball, she shreds it with the strings of her racket because she's just too strong. Suffice it to say that Nightfall is outmatched in a variety of ways.

Interestingly enough, although Nightfall's one-sided rivalry with Yor is the focus of her character, her larger role in the book doesn't necessarily translate into more pages for Yor herself. There's the tennis wrap-up chapter and then one where Loid takes Yor out to reassure her that he's not leaving her for Nightfall, resulting in Yor getting the absolute wrong idea and getting drunk to try and get up the courage to tell Loid that she understands if he's leaving her. Even this is more about Loid than Yor, though, because as Nightfall has accurately noted, he's become increasingly attached to his makeshift family, and he can't imagine someone besides Yor as Anya's mother. The downside is that even in her own chapters Yor is sidelined; at this point it's feeling like Endō. doesn't quite know what to do with her as a character, which is too bad.

Anya, however, is still top-notch, and she does get two chapters to herself, one where she and Becky go shopping, which features an Anya fashion show and is adorable, and another where she tries to figure out how she can get Loid to be able to meet Damian's dad. Becky, little soap opera addict that she is, is completely convinced that Anya has a crush on Damian, and she's determined to help Anya catch his attention. In her mind, this means dressing up for him, never mind that their school (as Anya points out) requires uniforms. Underneath this, however, is the very sweet realization that Becky's never really had any close friends before Anya, and she just really wants to share her second favorite pastime, clothes shopping, with her pal. Anya's completely out of her element, but she kind of always is, and at this point Endō. is excellent at showcasing that. The fashion show, set up like a fashion magazine spread, does a wonderful job with this – we watch the outfits go from “sophisticated” to “bizarre” as Anya starts to pick out her own clothes, much to Becky's horror and chagrin. In the end Anya only buys matching keychains for herself and Becky, but that's the perfect finale to the story, because it wasn't really about shopping in the first place – it was about showing that Anya's not just the weird psychic girl and that she and Becky have a real friendship.

The second Anya chapter really brings us to a major turning point (or at least a potential one) in the series, so there's actual plot to make picking up the next book feel urgent. A special gathering of members of the school's elite scholars is taking place, and although neither Anya nor Damian will be attending, Damian is hoping that he can use the moment to actually see his dad for a change. This tells us a lot about Damian's inner sadness and difficult homelife (poor kid barely gets to talk to his brother on the phone), and that's more likely than anything to be Loid's in with the Desmond family. He does manage, through a combination of Anya's mindreading and his own reconnaissance, to get to talk to the man, and the fact that he does so specifically as Anya's dad seems very significant. Loid went into this scheme knowing that having a family would be very useful, but this new arc seems like it will prove the truth of that much more strongly. Whether or not it will make Loid think even more about what Anya and Yor mean to him in a nonwork capacity remains to be seen, but it's definitely something worth paying attention to in volume seven as SPY x FAMILY continues to prove that it's got two of the requisites to be a great series: a solid sense of humor and a lot of heart.