Cells at Work! is an anime series based on the manga of the same name. The first season is thirteen episodes long plus an OVA that was released later. The anime is set inside the human body and focuses upon the amount of hard work that the cells of your body put in in order to keep it running. Even though everything is personified with cells appearing to be human, the body being a city, and viruses or bacteria as monsters, it is mostly scientifically accurate. The fiction comes from the liberties taken for humor and making it sillier to be more exciting.
Most of the classic humor comes from the exaggerated reactions of the characters. While the anime doesn’t have protagonists in the normal sense, there are two characters that turn up in every episode. We have the stoic white blood cell whose purpose is to kill invaders to the body and be the first line of defense; and the adorable yet clumsy newbie red blood cell whose job is to deliver oxygen and transport carbon dioxide to and front parts of the body. The red blood cell is the butt of a lot of jokes since she is an airhead and very clumsy. The pair always somehow gets involved in the issue of the episode.
A bunch of other cells make regular occurrences. Maybe it is because they have the most exciting jobs but pretty much all of them are immune system cells. There is a friendly rivalry between the characters and it even finds time to incorporate quirks into their personalities that mimics the cell’s abilities. Each episode is a melodramatization of normal events and how the body deals with the trauma. It ranges from germ and bacterial invasions, scrapes, viruses, food poisoning and allergic reactions. While at the beginning, the series tend to focus more on foreign invasions into the body, the second half has some moments dealing with the day to day functions instead. There are even episodes where it shows the effects of medicine and other types of medical procedures that is not natural to the body itself.
It is very interesting when the anime dives into the aspects of how your body reacts in order to try and expel the invaders. It provides you with a fun way of understanding why your body feels that way when you’re sick. This makes every episode a dawn of realization. It simplifies the messaging down into easy to understand chunks without too much of an information overload.
On the flip-side, with some of the topics covered, it can be scary when you realize what exactly goes wrong when your immune system cannot handle the illness. There are certain points where the invaders tries for empathy and you might even take their side. However, at the end of the day, they are the abnormalities that need to be killed for the body to stay healthy. The designs of each cell, bacteria, germs and viruses are fun and creative. There are enough hints in their design to fit what they are supposed to represent. One of the cleverer designs is how it depicted viruses invading the body… they’re just virus shaped hats that pounce onto normal cells and then turning them into zombies! This is a nice parallel to how viruses hijack normal cells to force them to do their bidding in reality.
The anime doesn’t shy away from violence. The white blood cells are the first line of defense and they’re involved in a lot germ killing. Blood gushes everywhere like a fountain, and these characters tend to be covered by blood afterwards. The red is striking against the complete white of the white blood cell’s design.
On the more informative side, each episode frequently throws in quick explanations of relevant functions of the body and how it fits in the grand scheme of things. It’s pretty interesting that your body does actually do all these kind of things. There are elements that feel too incredible to be real and yet it is. You’ll learn things such as how certain cells are responsible for communication to cells that transform into other functions as required.
Although while the anime manages to avoid it for most of the time, there are one or two episodes where it is a load of exposition. When this happens, it doesn’t even try to hide that it’s explaining the whole inner workings to you without much tact. Overall, Cells at Work! is both educational and entertaining. It is surprising at how well the story manages to personify and incorporate the cells’ abilities and roles into a coherent story. You look forward to each episode and what type of scenario it is going to cover next. Cells at Work! is an excellent anime.
---------------------------------------------
For other anime reviews, have a look at this page.