English Dub Review: Cells at Work: Code Black “Front Line, Gonococci, and Conflict”

Overview(Possible Spoilers):

Gonococci have invaded from the recent sexual intercourse, oxygen still needs to be delivered. The white blood cells are having a hard time fighting back the bacteria and some red blood cells think they aren’t doing their job right. It looks like a hopeless and unwinnable fight until anti-biotics come to the rescue.

Our Take:

This time we get the fallout of the sexual intercourse from last time. This might be the best way to promote safe sex I have ever seen. Seeing gonococci go around killing cells saying “I’m lonely” the whole time was very creepy. Just knowing that “battles” with germs and bacteria happen inside the body every day is mind-boggling to me. This show definitely has me happy I decided to start working out and eating better.

The animation for this show is very good, you wouldn’t really know this is the side project from anything other than the title. There haven’t been many fight scenes but what there has, has been animated very well. I definitely feel this is a darker comedy. Some of the things I find myself laughing at I know I probably shouldn’t but what can you do? A lot of the “funny” things are these cells suffering in this poorly taken care of body, I don’t know if I should laugh at that.

Of course, the gonococci have tentacles and in this series all the white blood cells are women. If you are at all familiar with anime I probably don’t need to tell you what happens but it is one of the few times I found myself rolling my eyes. I don’t know tentacle stuff just annoys me but hey it’s gotta appeal to someone or it wouldn’t be used so much right? Just bugged me personally but hey maybe gonococci actually have tentacles (just googled it, and they do in fact have tentacles).

Red Blood Cell got a bit of a hero moment this week. With the invasion of the gonococci, most of the red blood cells did not want to deliver oxygen to the lower half of the body. Red Blood Cell volunteers because it’s his job, he ropes in a friend who doesn’t want to go but the body needs oxygen. The show must go on as they say. Red Blood Cell comes across White Blood Cell being tangled up with the gonococci and is taunted by the bacteria.

He isn’t afraid and doesn’t think the pus surrounding them is disgusting. To him, it is proof that they fight while putting their life on the line. As I have said before I love how they relate things in the body in this show. I always thought of pus as gross but thinking of it as proof that my white blood cells are fighting for me is interesting at least. Everything looks hopeless until some anti-biotics show up and save the day! This show is steadily improving and I think it will get better.