Summer 2018 Anime Review : Hataraku Saibou (Cells at Work!)
There is one concept of entertainment that is easily said than done yet it is a very important concept that could bring education or learning process into a better and funner side. That concept is edutaiment. Edutaiment is a concept that merge both education and entertainment in one same media at a purpose to make learning process better and easier to be understood. Hataraku Saibou or Cells at Work! is certainly an anime that successfully bring the concept of edutaiment while keeping the two elements those are education and entertainment on point and with a high standard of accuracy. This made Hataraku Saibou is more special than other show in this Summer 2018 season.
Yes, the accuracy. One thing I really wanted to praise from Hataraku Saibou is its accuracy on bringing information about cells and how they are working in our body while having those cells anthropomorphized into human men or women. There are so many doctors in YouTube proofed this right by having an explanation side by side while watching the anime. Being a stubborn person I am, I tried to proof myself the accuracy of this anime by asking help from a friend of mine who is currently studying around medical sciences since I am more like an engineering student myself and I am no expert in medical science or biology.
To keep the eligibility of the answers, I asked her one question first and let her know the connection of my question to the anime right after she finished her answer for that one question. First, I asked her to choose between three cases I took from the anime and she chose the case that took place in last two episodes that is Hemorrhagic Shock. Then I asked her to describe generally about this and she answered,
"In simple, if there's a wound in body and it is big enough that could cause bleeding, you could bleed in a huge amount of blood. That sudden blood loss would make your body got into a phase called Hemorrhagic Shock. Hemorrhagic Shock came from two different words those are Hemorrhagic for bleeding and Shock for its sudden nature. A huge amount of blood loss in a short time could make your body unstable and this short time instability could lead your body into shock and have many symptoms like fainting."
I was a bit shocked by the answer to be honest. When I asked the question, I did not expect every major point that Hataraku Saibou explained would be accurate to my friend's explanation. Hataraku Saibou described that Hemorrhagic Shock happened when the body loses massive amount of blood due to external injuries or internal bleeding and the instability in your body could leads into shock and resulting in fainting. In the anime, this instability is shown by high blood pressure and ended with no red blood cell left to transport the oxygen to whole body. After that, I asked her about how to treat this Hemorrhagic Shock and she answered,
Yes! Even the solution for this case alone is so much on point. In Hataraku Saibou, we got to see that the body got blood transfusion hinted by how the new red blood cells look different from the original red blood cell from the body and how the new red blood cell who have very distracting eyebrows told us about their journey before their arrival. With that, I conclude that Hataraku Saibou has a huge accuracy to the real fact and that is a huge kudos to the writer of this anime or even the creator of the source material as they had done their homework to keep this edutaiment anime in a high standard of accuracy.
About the story and character, I really love how the story flows and how the characters grow. Our main character, Red Blood Cell, seemed could not stop herself from getting lost which worries Senpai Red Blood Cell and of course White Blood Cell. I love the determination of Red Blood Cell who despite her flaws, she still wanted to move forward and do her job. It really motivates me to do a better work on my real life. My favorite plot of this anime is of course the part involving Cancer cell. I love it since they successfully made me sympathize with the major villain, Cancer cell, without making him too likable. In my opinion, a good story is where you could sympathize with the villain while still wanting to root for the good guys and that is a huge kudos for the writer.
Next, we are going to the animation department. I really love the character design and art style of this anime and I really love the animation of this anime. The animation of this anime worked by the famous studio who works on JoJo's Bizzare Adventure series, David Production. And I admit they really love to brag about working JoJo since even when the drawing style of this anime is different from JoJo, they still managed to slip JoJo references to their art and animation style especially the part where the muscle bounded Effector T-Cell came out. It feels like this studio was already predicted the next thing everyone will said after this scene is "Holy sh*t, is that a motherf**king JoJo reference?" and it seemed everyone fall for do the JoJo reference. Aside from JoJo reference, the action sequences are very well animated and this anime has the most beautiful animation for the season next after Hanebado!, so this is a huge kudos for the studio.
By the way, have you check out that ending for Hataraku Saibou by ClariS? I don't know why but I felt the song is very fit from exhausting day of working and it is perfect to end an anime about cells at work. Yeah, roll credits.
Overall, this anime is a pinnacle of edutaiment concept in anime industry and I think this praise is not coming from me only. There are so many doctors or biologists or experts who praise this anime for its accuracy yet fun representation. With equally great story line, characterization, art style, and animation, this anime surely stood up above any anime in this season as this anime become a breakthrough for the community. Now, I really wish they continue this anime into a second season. Or maybe, they adapted the darker version of the manga that is Hataraku Saibou Black. Both options are still open and I will be waiting for one of them to come.
And please, guys. Stop lewding our little platelets. I mean it.
(This review was previously written in MAL : https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=291017)
Huge thanks to my dear friend, Dara (Yes, for you who already read my blog since my middle school days should have known about her as I mentioned her name a lot back then), who helped me with answering my questions about the case in Hataraku Saibou. I decided to not disclose your identity in MyAnimeList version of this review as I, too, did not disclose my real name there for my own privacy reasons.
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