A Genuinely Educational Anime (Cells at Work Review)

Genre: Comedy, shounen

Rating: PG-13

Studio: David Production

Episodes: 13

Available on: Crunchyroll

Overview:

There are over 37 trillion cells in the body. This anime follows a handful of those cells as they work hard to look after and protect the human body. From Red Blood Cells carrying oxygen around the body to NK Cells fighting off diseases, this anime has it all and creatively portrays the inner workings of all of our bodies.

Review:

When first hearing about the concept for Cells at Work I was automatically intrigued and new it would be an interesting addition into the anime community. One thing the Japanese do well is personifying anything and everything they can think of and an anime about personified cells of the body seemed like a cherry on the beautifully bizarre anime cake.

Cells at Work is something I wish I had when I was younger studying science in school. Many of you may already be aware of my weird fear or blood and guts and so on. Because of this fact I always struggled with biology class in school. Whilst I didn’t struggle with the actual work, I did however struggle when it came to discussing the human body. Every time it came up from being in primary school to now it brings on a strange sensation which becomes increasingly worse the longer it’s discussed. Veins, organs, blood, anything and everything minus the skeleton structure caused me a great amount of discomfort which I was often to embarrassed to admit to. This anime would have been a perfect tool to help myself and I’m sure many others understand the runnings of the body. As the visual learner that I am this probably taught me more about each job of the cells in the human body than all of my biology classes combined. Personifying things and using relatable visuals does genuinely help, at least myself, understand things better.

 

Cells at Work is not only an enjoyable anime but an educational one. From my own experience I feel that some people often frown upon others learning anything from an anime or manga series. Learning any Japanese from watching anime seems to be the biggest taboo in the community but I have no shame in saying anime has let me pick up a thing or two. I admit, you certainly cannot learn everything about a certain subject such as the cells in the body through a thirteen episode series. That being said it was still highly informative and I appreciated the sweetly spoken narrator who explained each new topic as well as the consistent text descriptions on each cells job within each episode. Having constant reinforcement helped me remember who does what. I even learnt about cells I’d never heard of before.

The characters were a solid part of the anime as they were all likeable and easily identifiable. Although each group of cells had the same uniforms they were unique and easy to remember as they all had their own unique looks. The macrophage were brilliantly done as they were portrayed as beautiful, seemingly sweet and kind hearted maidens dressed head to toe in frills who were actually badass, ruthless killers who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.

The platelets were just, well you just have to look at them and you’ll have the same feelings I do.

Cells at Work has given me this new, weird appreciation for the cells in the human body. I envision the characters running around doing their job but I also must say this series has made me a little too aware of what happens when I get a cold or a cut. Thinking about it too long may give me some kind of anxiety about my poor cells working hard. If you want a fun and pretty educational anime then Cells at Work is perfect for you!

Overall rating: 8/10

Until next time thanks for reading and I hope you’re having a great day!

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