Hataraku Saibou / Cells at Work!

About

Hataraku Saibou, known in English as Cells at Work!, is a Shonen manga series later adapted into an anime featuring anthropomorphized cells of the human body. The plot follows an anthropomorphized red blood cell in the human body, represented as a city. With the help of other cells, the characters fight bacteria and pathogens attempting to invade the body. After the anime aired, the Platelet characters, depicted as children, became the subject of memes and photoshops in the anime community.

History

Hataraku Saibou's first manga run was written by Akane Shimizu and published by Kodansha. It began its run on March 5th, 2015 and was published in Monthy Shonen Sirius.^[1] A Seinen spinoff called Cells at Work! BLACK published in Morning began its run on June 7th, 2018.

Anime Adaptation

In January of 2018, an anime adaptation of the manga was announced. The series is directed by Kenichi Suzuki and produced by Yuma Takahashi (trailer shown below).

The series premiered on July 7th, 2018, and as of July 16th, 2018, has run two episodes. There are 13 episodes announced.

Reception

The manga was praised by critics at Anime News Network^[2] and Manga Bookshelf,^[3] who stated that despite featuring some inaccuracies in presentation with how the human body worked, it was ultimately educational and entertaining. The manga has sold over 1.5 million print copies.

Online Presence

The series has a growing online presence. An American fan page for the show on Facebook has over 2,300 likes.^[4]

Platelets

After the anime aired, the anime community developed a fandom around the Platelet characters, child-like helpers in the human body.

This led to myriad posts on /r/animemes about protecting the characters from Lolicon lewds. For example, a post by LoliLewder3000 gained over 1,100 points (shown below, left). A post by user TheGloriousName gained over 4,200 points (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References