For people of a certain age, the idea of a cartoon following anthropomorphized cells inside a body probably brings to mind the Kids’ WB Saturday morning cartoon block and Ozzy and Drix. But compared to that show, which really built a full working city around the in-body characters, this one focuses far less on showing “life,” and more on the regular “job” of the main red blood cell–so every episode, she’s primarily running around trying to deliver nutrients or oxygen, often pushing a trolley around like a hardware store employee.

Every episode focuses on a different threat to the body: a scrape, influenza, food poisoning, etc. To show these things, our main red blood cell just happens to have horrible luck, being nearby when something crops up. Luckily, a helpful white blood bell is coincidentally often nearby, so they form a friendship.

How the cells are designed is really, really fun to me. Once a cell is introduced, you can pretty quickly identify other types of that cell. They’re not identical, but they’ll have similar designs: All neutrophils (basic white blood cells) have white skin, hair, and wear the same white hats and jumpsuits. All red blood cells wear the same red-blue-black outfit. All platelets are adorable kindergartners.

Characters have their own personalities and idiosyncrasies (our main red blood cell has a horrible sense of direction, for example, which explains how she ends up near So Much Happening), and the only “bad guys” are the things that aren’t supposed to be in the body, viruses and such. So even though it’s filled with action and violence, it wasn’t a stressful or really suspenseful watch (what I do not want to be in the Plague-Filled Years of Our Lord is Stressed And Tense).

Speaking of violence: There’s a good amount of various protector cells slaughtering viruses and other baddies, and while it’s bloody, I didn’t find it gross. I don’t like much blood and gore, but I could tolerate it fine–if the gif below is OK with you, you should be fine.

~~(Also, if I think about it for more than 2 seconds: does the appearance of blood from viruses, bacteria and infected cells imply that every organism has its own inner city? Yes yes I know don’t think about it that deeply.)~~

The focus here is the work, so we never really learn if the cells have off-work lives or what. When Red Blood Cell does deliveries, sometimes she’s delivering to generic cells that live in apartments (seen in the backgrounds of some gifs in this post), and sometimes they’ll take a break for tea or a snack, but that’s about the extent of it. And you know what, that’s OK.

Verdict

English dub? Yes! And even the theme song got dubbed (it’s nicely done), so I enjoyed singing along. And all the voices are very good–none stood out to be as fake or forced.

Visuals: Very fun! Character designs are recognizable, and despite the literally-bloody and potentially-gross subject matter, there’s very little in the way of actual gore.

Worth watching? Yes! I really, really enjoyed it. The characters are fun to watch and seeing how parts of the circulatory system are portrayed was just plain fun. Plus, now I know (at least vaguely) what different cell types do! (Also, whose decision was it to make Natural Killer cells that hot? I would like to shake their hand.)

That said, there’s a pandemic going on right now. I found the show relaxing to watch (work, little cells, to keep me healthy!) and it kinda reminded me to try and make sure I’m taking care of myself to keep all the little things functioning. But if thinking about the immune system and/or illness upsets you, especially now, maybe hold off, at least until the world is slightly less on fire.