Cells at Work!

Genre(s): Comedy, Educational, Science, Action

Age-Appropriateness: 13+ (Violence, lots of blood, some language)

Platforms: Netflix, Crunchyroll

Episodes: 14

TheAwersome Rating: 7.6 / 10 (Creative and fun)

Premise: Inside the human body, roughly 37.2 trillion cells work energetically 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Fresh out of training, the cheerful and somewhat airheaded Red Blood Cell AE3803 is ready to take on the ever-so-important task of transporting oxygen. As usual, White Blood Cell U-1146 is hard at work patrolling and eliminating foreign bacteria seeking to make the body their new lair. Elsewhere, little platelets are lining up for a new construction project. Dealing with wounds and allergies, getting lost on the way to the lungs, and bickering with similar cell types, the daily lives of cells are always hectic as they work together to keep the body healthy!

TheAwersome’s Thoughts: Ah, the ever-eternal act of turning any object into an anime character. It actually works rather well in this case creating a fun microcosm of the jobs and societies that exist as cells in the human body. It’s fascinating to see the moe-morphism adaptations of different cells and their functions, and was even more fun watching this with my Microbiologist wife who could vouch for, and further explain all of the show’s representations. There’s a good deal of straight-up educational explanation in this series, so you’ll actually learn something. There’s also a lot of the Immune cells violently destroying antigens, which have no shortage of blood spraying everywhere (odd, since the characters in question are themselves, blood). Despite having a repetitive structure and little character development/growth (wouldn’t really make sense to), you might cry a few times watching this. Both from the stinking cute platelets and erythroblasts, and the few surprise emotional episodes.

TLDR: Magic School Bus meets One-Punch Man in this fun and educational piece.

A Second season has been announced and is slated for winter of 2021, alongside the much darker spin-off “Cells at Work! Code Black,” which takes place in a much unhealthier body (not that the original one was a paragon of health) and features gender-swapped main character blood cells.  An anime movie is planned to release in Japan on September 5.

This is a nice and fun leisurely show for when you don’t want to invest too much energy or thought into something, but still be entertained.