Cells at Work! – Ep. 7

FINALLY, A NEW PLATELET SCENE! Oh and I guess this fight with Cancer is cool too.

You know, I keep forgetting that Cells at Work! is marketed and classified as a shounen anime. Or rather, I’ve seen it called such on websites such as Wikipedia, MAL, and LiveChart. There is action and some of the villain designs give me slight DBZ vibes but I suppose I take it for granted given Cells‘ emphasis on comedy and occasional use of moe. Demographically speaking, I’d also argue that anyone could easily get into this anime. All things considered, this anime feels more like an outlier than part of the shounen mainstream.

I mean that in general though as I must say, this episode is the most shounen Cells has ever gotten. You got yourselves a big epic fight involving many of our heroes, a super-powered bad guy that can transform, the power of friendship saving the day, and even some speeches about what the characters believe to be the right thing. Come on, there’s even a powering up moment with NK. The only way this could get any more shounen is if we had a tournament arc which, wow, what would that even look like in this world?

It just occurred to me that in Cells, the immune cells we’ve been following don’t really have the fanciest combative abilities. If you think about it, all the foes they’ve been fighting have been giant monsters or super-powered humanoids. Meanwhile, the good guys who fight at the front-lines generally just have sharp objects to swing around with. This feels a little lopsided, doesn’t it? It especially feels that way with this particular monster of the week. I really can’t think of a more foreboding threat than cancer and this Kaneki-looking, Akira Ishidia voiced character really didn’t disappoint. The odds sure were stacked against our heroes. Not only does this villain have an army of other Cancer cells at his disposal, he can manipulate his body to grotesque proportions. Odds were definitely stacked against White, Killer T, and NK.

Part of me would liked to see this conflict stretched out as an arc (if only because I’m morbidly curious what chemotherapy would look like in this anime) but I’m quite pleased with how things get resolved. It sure was nice to see Red suspect that something was up and ultimately help rally an army to counter Cancer. Whereas all the other Red Blood Cells didn’t question the job they were given, Red never truly let go of her suspicions and that ultimately is fortunate when she brings it up to Macrophage.

Also enjoyable is seeing all the fighters in one place together. I am admittedly stunned that Eosinophil was able to kill a cancer cell but I’ll let slide since her accomplishing something is always great. Meanwhile, I still love that Cells continues to refrain from showing how Basophil fights. His dramatic close-ups still crack me up.

It was a little surprising to see Cells elicit sympathy out of Cancer. I mean, this is a group of diseases that scientists are still trying to find a cure for and has claimed a lot of lives. Feeling bad for this character is not the first thing that would come to mind. Not that Cells does it in poor taste though. I think there is some truth to be found with Cancer’s frustration that his existence has been denied ever since he was born. It’s not like he wanted to be a monster in the first place. He just wanted to be a part of this world. I’m stunned to see that kind of direction here but I don’t mind it if this anime wants to add some degree of grayness to its plot.

As much as I enjoyed this episode, I must admit that my favorite scene was still the one that had Platelets in it. I’m 100% playing favorites here but come on, there needed to be another Platelet scene.

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