The Science behind “Cells at Work!”

Cells at Work! is a manga series written and illustrated by Akane Shimizu. The series, set in the human body, describes the daily lives of cells (as represented by anthropomorphised characters) and what they do in health and disease. In particular, the series focuses on the adventures of Red Blood Cell (AE3803) who frequently meets Neutrophil (U-1146) in the manga chapters. Spanning five volumes, the series has received numerous spinoffs focusing on different cells and even an unhealthy human body (called Cells at Work! Code Black). An anime series on Cells at Work! is produced by David Production with the first season running from July to September 2018. A second season is currently in production which will be released in January 2021.

As a science and PhD graduate, ever since watching the first anime season, I knew that I wanted to write a blog series where I explain the science behind the episodes to other people. There are various YouTube videos where doctors and medical students provide a clinical perspective to the episodes they are watching. My blog series will be different: I will be providing a scientific perspective behind the episodes, explaining how things work in a functioning human body. In each blog post, I will summarise the episode before taking some parts of the episode and explaining the science behind what is happening. In particular, I highlight some things relevant to the topic that the episode either overlooks or oversimplifies. This knowledge is based on what I have learnt in my years as a science and PhD student as well as reading review articles on specific topics (from PubMed). Each episode is linked to a separate blog post which you can find below.

This blog series is written to be enjoyed by everyone regardless of whether they have previously read and/or watched the series. To fans of the manga and/or anime, I hope that my blog posts will provide a fuller picture of how your body works and answer some questions that you may have on each episode. To everyone else, I hope that you learn a lot on how the body works and persuade you to adopt a healthy lifestyle. In addition, I hope that the series interests you to start watching and/or reading Cells at Work! The anime series is available in both sub and English dub on Crunchyroll!

Season 1 (Cells at Work!)

Season 2 (Cells at Work!!)