WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Spy x Family Chapter #41 by Tatsuya Endo, Casey Loe and Rina Mapa, available in English now from Viz Media.
We don't see many sides of Yor's brother, Yuri Briar, in Spy X Family. We know that he has a "sister complex" and in his job as a State Security Service (SSS) agent, he's absolutely merciless. Meanwhile, he and Loid, Yor's husband, have already butted heads in their personal and professional lives (without realizing it). Yuri wants to make sure that the man who married his sister is worthy of her, while he's also made a professional vow to catch Twilight, aka Loid's spy persona.
Altogether, this makes him fairly easy to write off as an unlikeable character in the Shonen Jump series. But Chapter #41 shows a side of Yuri that we rarely see -- a sympathetic one.
Yuri has already proven himself to be an extremely skilled member of the SSS team. He's allowed to interrogate suspects despite being quite young. And, if his interrogation tactics fail, he resorts to violence to get what he needs. His loyalty to his country is rooted in his desire to create a place for his sister, Yor, to live happily and safely. Therefore, he despises anyone who threatens the peace and treats traitors ruthlessly.
That's why in Chapter #41, when he's tasked to tail a journalist who was arrested for helping anti-government extremists, he's all too eager to do it. But the journalist, who's named Franklin Perkin, doesn't do much news writing these days; instead, he works at a post office. However, something does peek Yuri's attention. When the landlady comes by to demand rent payment, Perkin heads out with his camera, so Yuri and his colleague follow him.
To Yuri's horror, Perkin fabricates a photo of three starving kids going through a garbage can. In actuality, they were trying to retrieve their toy pistol after he had purposefully tossed it in there. The kids threaten to report Perkin to the SSS but Perkin looms over them and warns them that they should be worried about getting arrested and killed. Seeing Perkin abuse his power riles Yuri up but at that point, he hasn't gathered enough evidence to arrest him.
As he continues eavesdropping on Perkin, Yuri realizes that he and Perkin have more in common than he thought. It turns out Perkin lost his job trying to go against the government in an effort to make the country a better place for his aged father to live in -- similar to what Yuri is doing for his sister. To that end, the reason he framed the kids was to financially support his father by selling a story. Upon hearing that, Yuri realizes that Perkin is just a man trying to scrape by.
Despite Yuri getting rid of his own documents on him, Perkin is arrested when Yuri catches him sending off his manuscripts to his publisher. Yuri could have barged into his home to arrest him but, in a rare show of kindness, he waits outside for him so as not to cause a scene. And to top it off, Yuri promises that he'll help his father apply for financial assistance.
Ultimately, all of Spy X Family's main characters are trying to create a world in which everyone is happy and cared for. Loid became a spy because he didn't want to live in a world where children cried anymore; Yor became an assassin because after her parents died, nobody was going to support her and her brother; and Yuri became an SSS agent because he wanted to be the one to take care of his sister, repaying her for raising him when they were children.
During the exchange between Yuri and Perkin, Perkin mocks him, accusing Yuri of acting as a lapdog for a tyrannical regime. But Yuri counters by pointing out that he's not hurting his loved ones, unlike Perkin. But that's also part of the reason why he's choosing not to tell Yor what his real job is. Somewhere deep inside, Yuri knows that his sister wouldn't approve even if he believes wholeheartedly that he's only doing what's best for her. Granted, it's not clear how aware Yuri is of how totalitarian his country is or if he cares enough to do something about it. But if Yor does catch wind of it and asks him to stop, will it be enough to convince Yuri to work against the government?
