What’s the show? Cells At Work!, Episode 13.
So here we are at the season finale! Indeed, seems like only yesterday we were at Episode 1 and I was awkwardly confessing my attraction to a Red Blood Cell… ah the memories…
Yeesh, don’t remind me… so how’s this episode? Well, if I’m completely honest—it’s kinda disappointing. This episode has so much padding for time at the expense of almost ~everything~ that made the other episodes so good that’s really a letdown. This show had such a rock solid formula for success in place and while last week’s set up was so good, this episode felt like it was stretching 10 minutes worth of content out to 25.
Well that’s certainly not good—especially as you said for a show with such a proven track record of quality. Can you give some examples? Okay so there’s a scene early on when AE3803 and her kohai come across some Cells that are suffocating and need oxygen and the back and forth between them where the cell keeps saying he needs oxygen and AE3803 keeps asking what’s wrong, I don’t know if it was meant to be funny but it wasn’t—it was just annoying. And throughout there’s just a lot of scenes where there’s one or two people walking about barren wastelands and nothing is happening. There’s ways of selling desolation and isolation and a sense of hopelessness that are still interesting but this wasn’t pulling it off—speaking of which it almost felt like the budget was slashed or they ran out of time because during the ‘rescue’ scene there sure was a lot of slapdash and ‘rough’ looking animation work.
It’s gotta be bad if you’re mentioning it, you usually hate criticising the animation in things. Only because I feel like it’s sometimes unfair criticism because of the anime industry, plus a great story and characters can overcome nearly any animation deficiencies. And while the show has used “hyper-deformed” caricatures and exaggerated, low-detail close-ups to emphasis an emotion or joke in the past it felt really over-used here. Maybe they were just trying to overcompensate for how dark the previous minutes had been but to me it just felt like cutting corners. And in some respects it robbed the moment of its poignancy, AE3803 and her kohai surviving when ~literally~ trillions of her compatriots died during the Haemorrhagic Shock should have been emotional but it was lacking something, at least for me.
So sounds like the season finale didn’t live up to expectations, huh? Unfortunately, yeah. Due to the episodic nature of the show, this lacking finale doesn’t really hurt the show on the whole, but it is still disappointing that such a solid and usually guaranteed good-time was brought down slightly. The ‘reconstruction’ epilogue was about as close as the show got to getting back on track but by then it was too little too late. Ah well, I’m still holding out for a second season of this regardless!
Previous Cells At Work Reviews:
Who Knew Blood Cells Could Be So Attractive? – Episode 1 Review
Made In Abrasion – Episode 2 Review
World War Sneeze – Episode 3 Review
Codzilla – Episode 4 Review
Rise of the Medication – Episode 5 Review
There’s No Place Like Bone – Episode 6 Review
A Cell On Death Row – Episode 7 Review
Taken To Heart – Episode 8 Review
A Tough T-Cell – Episode 9 Review
Over Staphed – Episode 10 Review
A Heat Stroke Of Good Luck – Episode 11 Review
All Cell Breaks Loose – Episode 12 Review
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Anime QandA 
Wow, honestly am a bit surprised at this😊 But of course I totally respect your opinion. I really enjoyed the final episode to be honest. There were definitely quite a number of times where I thought they would end the series going all dark after all. But in the end it did brighten and I liked the way they solved the problem in the end with the blood transfusion. All in all though I really enjoyed this little gem of a series, and I really wanted to thank you for pointing it out to me in the first place. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we are getting a second season, because I for one would not mind seeing more of this show at all 😊
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Yeah I figured I’d be in the minority with this opinion but oh well, these things happen sometimes! I’m glad you decided to watch this series and enjoyed it too! 🙂
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Absolutely, but that’s the fun in watching things and discussing it with other people, everyone experiences it differently. Which is pretty much why I love watching movies/anime in the first place 😊
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It was close! They almost killed them all off! And they’re on borrowed time anyway. I think it would have been more interesting to also see them puzzle over a new wall or pathway that was put in via surgery. I didn’t think this episode was out of character with the rest of the season at all. I think it’s always felt a bit stretchy throughout, so it wasn’t much of a change.
Overall, I felt like it was an ok series. It’s an informational series, not a story series. It kind of felt like it ran out of tricks, so the latter half of the season got a little slow without an overarching plot. I’d be fine without a second series of this show. Maybe a mini-series with the other manga about the body who smokes and has health problems would be better.
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Yeah, Cells At Work BLACK needs to be an anime! I’m not sure why I was so negative about this episode to be honest.
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