Tonight on GeekNights, we review the anime TV series Cells at Work! (Hataraku Saibō) (はたらく細胞). We previously reviewed it before we saw it. We're back from the Harlem Valley Rail Ride, the Eisner Awards had a good year, NYCC and Anime Expo are teaming up for something we're definitely avoiding, and Worldcon's treatment of its guests has been a garbage fire.
Things of the Day
Episode Links
Lol, that Outro… Do you have a link to it? Oasis.
Actually, @SkeleRym, would you start including links to the stingers in the show notes? This isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to download/watch whatever it was.
Cells at Work is so delightful, I’d give it an A+ for that sort of fun and silly episodic anime. And even if its not 100% accurate I’m learning some things from it,like I’d never heard of naive T-Cells before.
I need that Outro link, can’t find it, Google skills failing me 
I never remember what I put at the end of these. Was it this?
Yes, that was it.
Oh man, Pages of Pain!
I own it. I’ve read it twice.
Each time about three quarters of the way through, I just lose interest, lose track of what the fuck is going on.
In short, perfect book club book.
I hope he does a video for every episode, I’ve been curious of how accurate the show us and so far pretty accurate it seems. Also I want to see his reaction to the Platlets.
As an EMT I endorse Cells At Work. It’s delightful and it is very informative.
Such a good anime in today’s Covid-19 world. It is no substitute for medical school / nursing training, but to get a more pragmatic understanding of the discussion of T cells (memory, helper, naive), macrophages, B cells, etc… in regards to the evolving medical understanding of the mechanisms of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. I watched the series earlier this year, just as Covid-19 was becoming known and I’m starting to feel like I should watch it again to brush up on things.
I really want to like this show, but I just can’t get into it. I’ve seen about 8 out of the 12 episodes and I have to force myself to watch it.
I admit that this is a well made show. The animation is great, the topic is intriguing, but I just can’t enjoy it. There’s no story, no character growth. This show is literally an excuse to explain a different part of the body every episode. That’s it. It’s like a monster-of-the-week show except they have info dumps every 2 minutes. I can’t even enjoy the animation because I’m being drowned by explanations.
Maybe the show finally develops some kind of plot or develops its characters in the last four episodes? If it does, it’s not worth wading through 8 episodes of animated medical encyclopedia articles to get to.
Fair points. I also struggled with the story & character aspects of the show. I was just focusing on the understanding that I developed via the anthropomorphication of the elements of the immune system. Now when I hear about a T cell or something I at least have some context rather than just vaguely remembering learning about that term in biology class once upon a time.