September 4th, 2019 
Charles Solomon 
Both upbeat and offbeat, Cells at Work! (2018) is a quirky fantasy series that may initially remind some viewers of Osmosis Jones (2001). But the program is lower key and much less hip: It feels closer to the old police drama “The Naked City”: “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.” There are approximately 37.2 trillion cells in the human body, and these are stories of certain individual cells.
The various adventures all involve rookie Red Cell/Erythrocyte AE3803 (voice by Cherami Leigh), as she learns her job of delivering oxygen to cells throughout body. She’s eager, cheerful–and perpetually lost. Red Cell follows the pattern of numerous naïve, slightly maladroit anime heroines, including Ai in Planetes and Noa Izumi in the Patlabor series. Fortunately, her mentor, Senpai Red Blood Cell AA5100 (Kira Buckland), never runs out of patience.
As she wanders around the body, Red Cell keeps encountering hard-working White Cell/Neutrophil U-1146 (Billy Kametz), who’s assigned to fight invading germs that threaten the host body. He tackles pneumococcus bacteria and other microbes hand-to-hand using his two knives; sometimes he gets assistance from other white cells, T cells, etc.
The characters are drawn not as biological illustrations, but as standard anime guys and gals. With her red hair, red jacket and soft red hat, Red Cell could spend an afternoon sharing an after-school parfait with any number of anime heroines. White Cell, who has a shock of hair hanging out from under his baseball cap, is a standard-issues anime high school nice guy. Appropriately, the killer T cells are buffer, flashing their biceps in their jumpsuits. Macrophage is lovely, clad in an all-white, vaguely Victorian frock, a style usually reserved for wealthy anime girls.
During the adventures, the filmmakers manage to get in some sound basic biology lessons. Platelets, depicted as a crowd of little girls who might be a troop of Girl Scouts or Camp Fire Girls, weave nets that seal off an abrasion in Episode #2: “Scrape Wound”–an interesting and effective way to illustrate the real actions of platelets. Episode #3: “Influenza” shows how invading pathogens mutate in an effort to evade body’s defenses.
While anyone who gets hay fever will appreciate Episode#5: “Cedar Pollen Allergy,” it has a special resonance for Japanese audiences. After WWII, various agencies in Japan began planting more than 45,000 square kilometers of cryptomeria trees (usually translated as “cedar,” although they actually belong to a different family). The wood was intended for construction. The mature trees produce so much pollen, millions of people suffer from allergy symptoms. The media tracks the pollen bloom and reports it, much as they as they do the blossoming of the cherry trees.
Cells at Work! may not rank as a terribly weighty series, nor will it replace a standard anatomy and physiology text. But director Kenichi Suzuki keeps the stories moving, and the program ran for a second season, followed by a broadcast special. Akane Shimizu’s original manga (2015) has also been adapted to a light novel, a play and a mobile game.
Cels at Work!
Aniplex: $139.98 3 Blu-rays, plus art booklet
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