Okay, I'm breaking my "rule" here of having watched at least three episodes of a show before I shout about it. That's because this is amazing.
The cells of the title are those which make up someone's body (we've not yet found out who), focusing most closely on the main pair, a red and white blood cell. The red blood cell is an enthusiastic woman with a tendency to get very lost (probably because she's only just come into existence), and the white blood cell is a very tsundere man. There is an obvious romantic tension, especially when she leers at his enormous receptor.
It's almost an educational show, with the plots of the week being biological events that might happen to anybody. Episode one has an infection, which results in an invasion of various bacteria that need hunting down by the white blood cells and killer T-cells. Episode two has the monstrous disaster of a slight graze. Not terrible to us, but horrific to the micron scale organisms that find themselves being thrown out into the vacuum of the outside world. (Another thing we've not seen. I'm amused by the idea it's a character from a show.)
What's impressive is how accurate the show is (excluding the anthropomorphism). While admittedly I'm relying on an A-level that happened quite some time ago, it seems pretty spot on. What's even better is how funny they managed to make this. Venous systems that stop the blood cells from running where they want to, a dendritic gas exchange system that's represented by a massive tree, and boxes of oxygen being carried everywhere by the blood cells provide a really neat environment.
The blood cells are cleverly repetitive, but the various cell types have distinct designs to each other. The viruses and germs are supervillain-like, and there are hints of some more specialised superhero-style cells that are going to turn up. It's sneakily a fighting show as well as educational, with the serious white blood cell knife-fighting the spiky viruses (who are sometimes ninjas). I suspect everyone's favourite is going to be the platelets though. Their (real-life) tiny nature compared to red/white blood cells is represented by them being small children, who are always adorable even when they get involved with hideous wounds.
There's a lot of positives to this. It's got hints of a fun little romance, daft illnesses that turn up and try to cause havoc (particularly weird when they claim to have done research and prepared the best way to invade the body), and a lot of unexpected science jokes. I found myself breaking out into laughter pretty damned often at the effect some minor feature of biology has on the plot and world built by the show. Admittedly, some knowledge of human anatomy is required to appreciate some of the jokes, which is partly restricting, but hey, if you don't laugh at them, you'll probably learn something instead.
It's going to have to go very wrong for me to stop watching this, but based on what I've seen thus far I'm pretty sure it's going to end up on my next best of the season list.
Tagged: Anime Action Workplace/Employment Fighting Romance Crunchyroll Subbed