Man, the Spy x Family chapter was so good. It was so good, I read it twice.
I was immediately interested from the first page when we saw the SSS director meeting with someone. I wondered who it could be. Handler? Donovan? It ended up being the Shopkeeper. This was awesome, as I’ve been very interested in the Garden and wanting to know more about them for some time now.
I love the jokes about how the men would be killed if they followed the director or how the Shopkeeper would kill the director for smoking indoors. Very interesting to learn more about the Shopkeeper.
I’m genuinely surprised that the SSS is in league with the Garden. Yuri and Yor’s jobs are dangerously close. I was a bit worried when it was revealed that the SSS is working with the Garden. However, I wouldn’t say they are allies or siding with one another, but rather they share common enemies (Clean: Garden accepts some missions from the SSS but remains independent, refusing political assignments). They are NEUTRAL. It makes me wonder if they have any relationship with WISE (though Twilight hasn’t heard of them — it might be higher-ups who are in the know). The Garden is rather autonomous, and they choose which missions to take and even threatened to kill SSS agents ("The struggle for power does not interest me."). The Shopkeeper even flat out states that the Garden acts in service of the nation, not for any politicians. The director even adds onto this, saying that he is loyal to a dead empire.
I like how he rejects the first two cases involving the Prime Minister‘s request and soccer to deal with poachers. He mentioned something about how their intelligence network was unable to identify the perpetrators, which leads me to assume that they get a good chunk of their intelligence from the SSS. This makes sense, as I recall Yor has taken care of a terrorist group (Red Circus), who were also enemies of the SSS.
Another amazing thing from this chapter is that we’re finally meeting more members of the Garden, aside from Matthew.
I could immediately tell Hemlock’s personality from the interaction with the ladybug. I assumed there would be at least one of him in the organization — the cold, detached, serious, and unwavering type. I love how they all get their names from plants (aside from Matthew). I love Gympie already, but can tell that guy is no joke.
Though past the subject, neat thing I noticed: when they receive the mission, Yor interprets it as protecting elk, while Hemlock interprets it as eradicating poachers. I found it cool, as it shows a difference in their mindsets. I just know Hemlock is going to have one weird quirk or another.
Though there’s probably more to it, it feels strange that they’re sending two members plus one support to protect the elk ("sounds like a one-day job"). Each member was previously said to be equivalent to an army. Yor and Matthew were able to handle the Cruise Arc by themselves, which came across as more difficult of a task.
I’m very excited to see how this arc plays out.
On a side note, so that is the Shopkeeper’s hair.
Someone on Reddit mentioned this: we’ve been introduced to five members of the Garden (including the Shopkeeper, Yor, and Matthew). Another was mentioned (Thistle — probably/maybe someone we already know?). Director Wilker said something along the lines of having enough members for a soccer team, meaning that there are at least 11 members.
