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Cells at Work - First Thoughts

Cells at Work - First Thoughts

Posted on 08 Jul 2018

I've seen the manga for this show floating around on book shelves but never felt compelled to pick it up. This is because the idea has been done before in an 80's cartoon show called Once Upon a Time...Life, produced in France but shown in almost every country across the world. A mainstay of kids TV slots from 1987, just like Cells at Work, it shows the human body as a working environment populated by various elements of the human body as characters in their own right. Both are educational, as the stories are all based around bodily functions, explaining as they go what is happening and why they need to perform their tasks.

So this idea isn't new.

However in this incarnation, it is very stylish. The show looks fantastic, with the red blood cells dressed in cute red uniforms and acting as couriers for nutrients around the body. In this story, some germs attack (Pneumococci) and White Blood Cells are called in to combat them. The action element is therefore taken care of, and the obviously the white cells wear white uniforms and look badass. The fights are pretty good, with the germs looking suitably dangerous and the white blood cells fighting hand-to-hand with knives. 

In this episode, one of the germs escapes and the rest of the episode is spent trying to find it - the red blood cell is along for the ride because she keeps getting lost and somehow involved in the action (for which there's a good reason but I don't want to spoil it). 

For a single episode, it works perfectly well as a standalone, even finishing with the White Cell saying he probably won't see the Red Cell again due to the sheer number of each in the human body, so I'm actually quite intrigued to see exactly how the series will continue the idea going forward. 

There were some lovely touches to the world created here - the platelets are super-cute kids carrying out building duty, the T-Cells are like marines and the way a sneeze is presented is very cool. Overall its a triumph of imagination.

I'd recommend checking this out, it may lack the European charm of Once Upon a Time, but it is a great update on an educational idea that looks good and held my interest. Fingers crossed episode two maintains the pace and expands on the creativity on show in episode one.

The trailer below should give you an idea of what to expect:

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