はたらく細胞 – Anime QandA

Cells At Work! – Full Season QandA Rundown

What’s the important information? Cells At Work! is a Summer 2018 anime that aired 13 episodes between July and September. It is based on a Shonen manga by Akane Shimizu.

What’s it about? The series takes place within a human body and focuses on the daily lives of anthropomorphised cells—specifically AE3803 a plucky but directionally challenged Red Blood Cell and U-1146 a no-nonsense White Blood Cell who always seems to cross path with the aforementioned cell—often defending her from nefarious germs who threaten the body they live in.

This gif pretty much sums up the standard episode!

Why did you watch it? It’s a pretty unique premise for a show, and more than anything I was just interested to see what kind of show this would be!

Did you enjoy the show? Consistently, well that’s not to say it was the most consistent of anime it did have the occasional weak episode but it was significantly more focused and delivered an entertaining experience with ease and expertise expected of a series that’s been around for decades. The fact that this is the mangaka’s first work is all the more surprising! Though clearly those working on the anime adaptation have the experience to deliver a spectacle week after week.

What was your favourite episode? It’s hard to pick a favourite considering how consistent the series is, but Episode 8 “Blood Circulation” had a certain endearing charm to the whole endeavour that made it especially great. It promised a lot, and while in the end the series didn’t deliver on the ~specific~ promise, it still was a worthwhile experience.

What were your most favourite things about the show? Platelets! Ahem, sorry… it’s just that Platelets were a consistent bright spot of the Summer anime season and now that they’re relegated to memory it makes me all the more fond of them. The show is fun and quirky and mirrors certain aspects of Japanese society while never getting bogged down in being allegory.

What were your least favourite things about the show? The show fancies itself as educational—which may be true—but it almost doesn’t need to be. Sure it’s great that a series can entertain and inform in equal measure but the repetitive voice-over that explains in detail the specifics of any given encounter or introduction to a character is overused and halts the action too often. The series is at its best when it just allows its character to interact but feels bogged down in minutiae when it pauses every few minutes to explain something that kind-of could be left unexplained—or at the very least explained by a character in the show and not an omnipotent narrator.

Who was your favourite character? While the Platelet’s will always have a piece of my heart, a ‘group’ of characters can’t ~technically~ be a favourite character as there’s multiple of them. So that’s why Red Blood Cell waifu AE3803 gets the pick from me. She’s just such a hard working cutie pie that I can’t help but love her!

Thoughts on the OP (opening) and ED (ending) and the soundtrack in general? Both are fantastic in their own ways. The OP, “Mission! Ken –Ko- Dai –Ichi” by the cast is an infectious (no pun intended) tune that never fails to set the mood in an energetic fashion. While the ED “CheerS” by ClariS is just straight up a delightfully sweet song that bookends each episode with a smile on my face.

What’s something unique about this show? While the series is about ‘cells’ in the human body they quickly become so much more than that, never before has the concept of making something anthropomorphised engendered me to something so deeply. I felt like these anime cells were actually within me, and I wanted to protect them by eating more healthy and taking better general care of myself. Well, up until the anime ended, and then the bad habits returned. But that just goes to show the power of this anime and the characters, that I could be protective of something that is nothing but artistic license.

What other anime are most like it for the sake of comparison? While it shares some tropes with Shonen action anime there really isn’t any other anime like ‘Cells At Work!’ it is a singular and unique experience.

Who would you recommend it to? Everyone. Yes, while the show might be a little violent for some youngsters, I’d say anyone between the age of 9 and 90 is bound to find something endearing and entertaining about this series.

Sum up the season in one sentence: ‘Cute Cells Doing Critical Things’.

Final score? 82 out of 100.

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
In Cold Blood – Episode 13 Review

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In Cold Blood – ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 13 (Finale) Review

In Cold Blood – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 13

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.

I mean after all she’s been through she’s entitled to an ‘ugly cry’.

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.

They didn’t kiss either, turns out that was the *least* of my issues though…

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!

Nothing disappointing about Platelet’s though! Hope to see you again soon!

Previous Cells At Work Reviews:

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All Cell Breaks Loose – ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 12 Review

All Cell Breaks Loose – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 12

What’s the show? Cells At Work!, Episode 12.

And what’s this episode about? This is the penultimate episode—part one of a two part season finale—and the first half of the episode kind of gets off to a slow start and I was a little bit confused about why we were having AE3803 introduce her new kohai (junior) to literally everyone who’s ever been on the show. I mean not that it’s not absolutely adorable watching AE3803 getting flustered and perturbed by how cool, calm and collected her kohai is but I was ~kind of~ struggling to see the point—and then shit got real…

Oh? Like something out of a disaster movie a bomb goes off, the shockwave evaporating buildings and sending debris flying—the whole place goes into a panic as bodies are strewn everywhere and alarms are sounding.

Oh no, what’s happened? Well the body has taken life-threatening injuries to the head region and as a result everything is bad—the immune cells are being deployed to the site of the incident to make sure germs don’t get in, and the platelet’s are being mobilised, meanwhile blood pressure is skyrocketing meaning our protagonist and her new junior are finding themselves in uncharted territory.

So how’s this ‘serious turn of events’ justify the low-key start aside from being a contrast? Well for one thing it kind of comes out of nowhere, sure we knew something bad was about to happen by virtue of the episode’s title but I don’t think anybody expected it to this extent. Not only that the seriousness of the tone kind of hits hard—like it’s not mucking around, this is legitimately devastating and confusing and terrifying for the cells, which brings me to probably the most important part at least from a character point of view.

And what’s that? Despite all the chaos, AE3803 remains calm and collected—almost the opposite of what she normally is, while her kohai is all manner of panicked. And it’s not just some out-of-character change for AE3803, she’s been through this to varying extents—she’s practically a veteran by this stage, so it makes sense that she’s composed in the face of this emergency.

Anything else you wanted to add? Before all the ~shit~ went down, there’s a moment where White Blood Cell looks back at Red Blood Cell and it was such shameless ‘ship bait but I still loved it! My new goal for this series is for Red and White to share a kiss by the end of the season, maybe I’m expecting too much but I want it so bad now!

Find someone who looks at you the way White Blood Cells looks at Red.

Uh-huh, so how’s the episode overall? Probably one of my favourites, if only because the dramatic shift between light-hearted episode and super-serious episode was pulled off with such gravitas and flawless execution that it was hard not to be awed—hopefully next week’s conclusion will be just as excellent!

Previous Cells At Work Reviews:

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A Heat Stroke Of Luck – ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 11 Review

A Heat Stroke Of Luck – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 11

What’s the show? Cells At Work!, Episode 11.

What happens this episode? Global Warming.

Excuse me? I mean the show said it, not me. But yeah this episode is about heatstroke and it’s kind of telling that this body fights off cancer but almost succumbs to heatstroke of all things! But then again in Japan heatstroke is a big killer so it’s not surprising the show took this stance.

Right, and how does one defeat heatstroke—at least in the context of this show? That’s something that was the most interesting about this episode is that the usual white blood cell approach to “stabbing the bad things” doesn’t work here. The body has its systems in place to deal with overheating, stuff like sweat evaporating and cooling the body as well as the blood circulating closer to the surface of the skin—but when these two approaches don’t work things get serious!

What happens? Well the body gets dizzy and faints, which as it turns out is a scary prospect for our little cells! The scenes with them all hot and trapped in the dark was like something out of a disaster movie! Poor little things!

Oh no! Is this the end for them? Well without outside intervention it would have been the end but thankfully the ‘body’ gets an intravenous injection—which floods the area with the much needed missing fluids and the body eventually returns to normal!

So it wasn’t the cells that saved the day but rather modern medicine? Pretty much, which is a nice change of pace. There’s still action in this episode, because I guess they assumed not having any would strain our attention span too much but honestly I could have done without the White Blood Cell chasing down the Bacillus cereus germ scenes. I was more than content having the Red Blood Cells babysit the Platelet’s it was so damn cute! But at the same time it did have a narrative purpose in showing that not all problems can be solved with White Blood Cell’s and that there are certain germs that thrive when our bodies are suffering.

So what’s your opinion on the episode? Visually it was great, and it was a nice change of pace seeing ~all~ the cells being affected by something that would seem otherwise innocuous but it just goes to show that heatstroke and dehydration is a big deal! Plus I admit to being a fan of seeing AE3803 in her skivvies, though is it wrong that I was kinda hoping this would turn into a beach episode? Yeah, that’s probably wrong of me to say… Anyway, it was fun—as expected, and the Platelet service was pretty much perfect so no complaints from me!

What an adorable scene, just don’t mind the passed out cell in the background…

Previous Cells At Work Reviews:

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Over Staphed – ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 10 Review

Over Staphed – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 10

What’s the show? Cells At Work!, Episode 10.

So what happens in this episode? More of the same really, except I felt even though there were repetitive elements this one felt really cohesive and it’s kind of hard to put my finger on why exactly—I think if you wanted the perfect example of everything this show does well in a single episode this’d be the one to pick!

Staphylococcus aureus was the ‘big bad’ in this episode.

Why do I get the feeling this is going to fall into one of those ‘difficult to review’ categories? So difficult! Like what am I supposed to talk about? Gratuitous Platelet service? There’s only so many synonyms for ‘cute’ that I can bust out of my thesaurus!

Well is there anything unique or different about this episode that caught your eye? Well we ~almost~ had a new character (and I mean ‘technically’ they still are) in the form of the yellow jump-suited Cell’s called Monocyte. I loved how weird and quirky the particular Monocyte AE3803 ended up following but as it turned out Monocytes turn into Macrophages when they leave the cell walls.

Oh well that’s interesting! Yeah it was a fun little twist, but any excuse to get the Macrophages kicking butt—though it was kinda odd/curious that the voiceover felt the need to all but compare them to mothers, but I mean I guess a Macrophage is as close as human bodies have to a motherly-type Cell, wonder if that means people who think Macrophage is attractive have an Oedipus complex?

Well do you? Do I what? Find Macrophage attractive? Uh, duh—she’s a sexy anime lady! Oh I see what you’re trying to do, very funny…

Beautiful and badass, a winning combination!

So thoughts overall, if you can even muster enough words to make another paragraph? I saw a lot of positive remarks about this episode on Twitter after it aired and it’s easy to see why. While it would have been fun to be a contrarian and say something opposing the fact of the matter is this is just prime Cells At Work that pushes all the requisite buttons. Plenty of adventure, plenty of fun, plenty of laughs, plenty of bloody action and ~almost~ enough Platelets, because let’s face it you can’t ever have enough Platelets!

Previous Cells At Work Reviews:

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A Tough T-Cell – ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 9 Review

A Tough T-Cell – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 9

What’s the show? Cells At Work!, Episode 9.

So what’s the episode about? Strangely enough we get another flashback episode to the early life of our cells—unfortunately it’s of two of the more boring (imo) cells in this show that being Killer T Cell and Helper T Cell.

Oh… so it’s not as good of an episode as previous ones? Incorrect! Turns out this show can make anything interesting, as if I had any doubt about it…

Right. So what happens? So it turns out the super macho Killer T Cell was a bit of wimp in his childhood at the training academy and he was actually ~mildly bullied~ by Helper T Cell who used be the “tough guy” back then. Though when I say “mildly bullied” I mean Helper T Cell was just better at everything and occasionally they got into punch-ups. Ultimately though Helper T Cell lived up to his future profession and helps out Killer T Cell, so that was nice!

Even the background characters got into punch-ups!

So the episode is basically just a… training camp flashback yes, educational of course this is Cell’s At Work after all but there’s something more to this episode, something that backs up a sentiment I had with last week’s more ~personal~ story.

And what’s that? These aren’t just personification of cells, these are people—they are characters with backstories and relationships. I mean obviously it helps from a writing perspective to have us grow attached to these characters by giving them inter-personal relationships but I can’t help but think there’s another reason they are giving these characters so much ‘depth’—when they could have very easily just been two-dimensional drone-type characters that just ‘do their job’.

And why do you think the writer has done that? I don’t know! Sorry if you expected some great revelation but I can only speculate—maybe the mangaka just got so attached to the characters they were writing that they decided to give them all this extra information or maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see—maybe this writer is so good at attributing the relationships of different cells in the human body that any perceived ‘connectedness’ is coming from my own internal desire to see characters who can’t in reality be friends “be friends”.

While watching the episode I joked to the irlwaifu that “is that a river of piss?” then realised given this is the human body it very well could be…

I think you’re just thinking too much… Oh you ain’t seen nothing yet!

What’s that supposed to mean? This show dropped a weird sort of reference on us that made me question this whole ‘world’ that these cells live in.

Please elaborate? Well it was a quick reference but Dendritic Cell said that Killer T and Helper T’s shenanigans were akin to a “teen movie” and that just made my mind expand with questions! Like ‘How do they know what movies are?’, ‘Do the Cells make movies and go the cinema?’, ‘Still cameras exist so therefore video cameras must too!’ ‘Does that mean there’s Cell porn movies?!’.

Dude—you really need to get out more. I know.

Anything else to add? Maybe this is the weakest episode yet, I don’t know—I’m glad that this wasn’t just another ‘monster-of-the-week’ episode but I’m just curious if this ~character development~ is going to mean anything in the long run or if it’s just for the sake of something different but even then we’ve had three episodes like this so it’s not even that different now. Am I complaining about something relatively minor? Yes. But what else am I supposed to talk about? ‘Cell porn?’ No I don’t think so… Platelet’s however? Yes that’s something everyone can get behind!

I love how the White Blood Cell on the left looks like he’s thinking “I have the best job”.

Previous Cells At Work Reviews:

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Taken To Heart – ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 8 Review

Taken To Heart – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 8

What’s the show? Cells At Work!, Episode 8.

So how’s this episode? I make the comment occasionally… okay frequently that this show is hard to talk about because it’s consistently good and does its job and moves on—kind of like how the cells in our body do the same (nice connection, me!) But this episode, I don’t know it was kind of special—it felt different to the usual format this show quickly established and played to week after week—it felt (ironically) more human.

This reminded me (fondly believe it or not) of Tokyo Disneyland.

Oh? So what does that make previous episodes by comparison? This show has never been cold, but it’s kind of been detached from reality, maybe it’s because it’s the personification of something as abstract as the cells of our human body and while I loved AE3803 from the very first episode it was easy to just see her as a cute comic foil rather than an actual human being. And yes, the flashback episode absolutely humanized her more but there was something undeniably warm about this episode. It’s almost like…

Almost like what? Maybe this is a bit of a leap, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it’s almost like (some of) the cells are becoming aware of their allotment in life and are on the cusp of reaching self awareness. I mean White Blood Cell U-1146 always been stoic but here it was like he was breaking his programming just so he could help out Red Blood Cell. And when he was talking to Killer T Cell it was almost like he was a different person—nay, he was an actual person with hopes and dreams and desires. The way he was stammering over his words to explain what was going on in his head was genuinely touching.

It’s a bit hard to understand what you’re saying but I understand the sentiment. Exactly!

No I meant with your review— ugh, never mind. So I take it you enjoyed this one more than the ones that came before? More? Maybe. Better to say I enjoyed it on a different level—it’s kind of hard to put into words, I almost feel like White Blood Cell with his inability to put his thoughts into words!

Right. Anything else you wanted to add? I do wonder if they’re intending to go full romance with this—the scene at the end where AE3803 tells White Blood Cell about her first ever successful trip around the heart (despite the fact he was helping from afar the whole time) was cloyingly sweet—but I loved it all the same! Also, obligatory thanking of the Cells At Work gods for the Platelet-service, much appreciated!

Previous Cells At Work Reviews:

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A Cell On Death Row – ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 7 Review

A Cell On Death Row – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 7

What’s the show? Cells At Work!, Episode 7.

So here we are, the big serious episode about cancer cells—how does the show approach such a subject? Omg look at the little Platelets aren’t they just the cutest things ever—I just want to poke their cheeks they are just adorable!

Oi! Focus! We’re supposed to be talking about the plot of the episode not the blatant Platelet-service! Grr, fine then. So cancer is here and it’s big trouble, because cancer cells in the body means everyone is at risk—no cell will be spared from their wrath! Previously I’ve compared other episodes to specific movies or genres of movies, and while influenza back in episode 3 was akin to a more traditional zombie movie, this one is full-blown mutation horror the likes of The Thing or even some of the Resident Evil films—initially I was reminded of Tokyo Ghoul:re but those comparisons subsided when I saw actually competent action scenes.

Savage! The action is exciting, visceral and gory—everything you’ve come to expect from this show just with the stakes raised that little bit higher because the life-threatening risks that cancer cells pose. What I didn’t expect was to get a very allegorical but nonetheless evident take on the criminal justice system in Japan—and what was seemingly a pro death-penalty message thrown in (sort of, maybe)…

I think you’re going to need to explain yourself a bit because that seems… unlikely… I don’t know maybe I’m reading too much into it but the way White Blood Cell was talking to Cancer Cell about the cost of living in a society with a certain set of rules and any aberrant subversion of those rules that puts that law-abiding society at risk is something that must be eliminated. It’s a very Japanese way of thinking, part of the reason they have the lowest crime rate in the world—but it’s also a very uncompromising way to look at people, that anything that threatens peace should be eradicated—even if the person in question had no choice to be the way they were.

True of all of us, but especially cancer cells.

Do you think that was the author’s intent? I don’t know, I think it’s more the fact that being an inherent Japanese production means that the human body as it’s represented in this show is akin to Japan or probably more accurately Tokyo a busy, efficient place that manages to work almost flawlessly all the time almost in spite of itself and the cells are representative of its people—hard-working, committed, almost single-minded from a distance but full of life and energy on a personal level. And when there’s a crisis they come together to combat it—and when the crisis is a cell that’s acting contrary to the ‘flow’ of these hard-working cells it’s understandable that the instinctual—dare I say—organic reaction is to get rid of it at any cost.

Okay, you’ve sorta sold me—maybe it wasn’t the direct intent of the author but it’s hard to deny the similarities and that the author was probably inspired by Japanese society—still I think it’s a bit heavy handed to say this series is pro-Death penalty. True, and they did make ‘Cancer Cell’ a sympathetic type of character, which is one of those sentences I never thought I’d say!

Only Cells At Work would have me thinking “must protect cancer”… this show, I swear…

Anything else you wanted to add? I love that Red Blood Cell AE3803 wasn’t just a passive bystander (at least not initially) and realised something was amiss with the large nutrient deliveries and was head-strong and confident enough to raise the alarm to Macrophage. Speaking of which I also loved the shot of all the cell’s on the edge of the battlefield coming to the rescue of White Blood Cell, NK Cell and Killer T Cell, felt like beating cancer was a group effort with every cell in the body contributing in some part to fight it off—not sure how realistic that is to real life but it was still a heart-warming sight! Also I doubt this will be the last we see of Cancer Cell—he teased a return and I could totally see him coming back for a season finale kind of confrontation. Even if things were resolved kind of easily I still think this was a great episode and I swear that has nothing to do with the Platelet-service!

Previous Cells At Work Reviews:

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There’s No Place Like Bone – ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 6 Review

There’s No Place Like Bone – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Cells At Work!’ Episode 6

What’s the show? Cells At Work!, Episode 6.

So what over dramatised dastardly illness do the cells have to battle this week? Cancer.

Oh. Yeah…

I see… well that kinda puts a downer on this whole review… Well not exactly, the first half of the episode is a super light-hearted flashback to when AE3803 was just a kid living in bone marrow and if you thought Platelets were adorable—well they’re still the most adorable thing in anime but our protagonist Red Blood Cell is pretty damn close! Also White Blood Cell U-1146 knew her as a kid too and was (trying) to save her all the way back then too! But though she doesn’t remember the face of the boy who saved her so she can’t confirm the fact that they’re destined to be together!

Well I guess all Blood Cells do kinda look the same… Wow, that’s actually very racist I can’t believe you just said that!

Wait, no! What?! Just kidding. But yeah this flashback was ~probably~ unnecessary but it’s cuteness and adding the extra layer to their “relationship” felt like it was probably going to be important some time later… Or maybe they just wanted Cute Cells Doing Cute Things, either way I enjoyed it!

And so then the second half is about Cancer? Well~ kinda, more of a prologue to what will be the ‘main event’ next time—this episode is just setting it all up. Also it allows us to be introduced to a brand new character so they don’t have to bother with introductions in the next one and can just focus on beating that no-good disease!

Oh yeah? Who’s the new character? It’s the super powerful NK Cell whose whole job is seeking out dangerous viruses and cancer cells and she’s an absolute badass! And it’s great that we have a women kicking some butt here, while Macrophage had a few awesome moments early on most of the fighting in this series seems to be done by the muscular White Blood Cells and the super macho Killer T Cells. More powerful female fighting cells like NK Cell please! Also, obligatory “more Platelets” comment—because it wouldn’t be a review of Cells At Work without that!

So a good episode then? Yeah, the opening half was a nice change of pace for the episode, it even managed to squeak out a tear from me when little AE3803 was saying “bye bye” to U-1146 (so sweet!). Plus NK Cell is great and will make for a strong addition to the team. Yes it could be argued that it’s more of the same but it’s more of good same, and I’m not going to start complaining about that. It’s not like this is a hundred+ episode Shōnen series, it’s 13 episodes and we should all enjoy each one of them while we can because we’re sure as heck gonna miss it once it’s over!

Previous Cells At Work Reviews:

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