“Influenza”


「インフルエンザ」 (Infuruenza)

Three episodes in and I’m already starting to ask what Hataraku Saibou can’t do to pleasantly surprise me. From blood cell interactions to kawaii platelets, every week is a new and different form of creativity that consistently entertains. Thankfully, this week proved to be no exception in continuing this glorious trend. To surmise, an epic crossover takes place in order to fight off the zombie hoards. We have Decim the White Blood Cell, a Ghost Buster as the B Cell, a yandere meido as the Macrophage, a green Pokemon Trainer as the Dendrite Cell, Dio Brando the Killer T Cell, and last but not least, Koichi the Naive T Cell. Naive started off as your typical wimpy kid, with about as much use as a Magikarp. Worse actually, since he even runs away from battle! But with emotional support from the Dendrite Cell, Naive is able to unlock his true potential by finding the power within, evolving into an Effector T Cell. Well-timed too, considering that there was that whole zombie invasion going on in the form of a Type B virus. At first, the Killer T cells were punching out the zombies left, right and centre. But gradually, they start to get overwhelmed when the virus continues to replicate. And that’s when our saviour makes his timely appearance – reborn Effector T Cell! ORAORAORAORAORAORA! He kills them all with a flurry of manly punches and soon enough, the viral scum are wiped out. Or are they? Just as the celebrations for being virus-free begin, a new threat appears over the horizon and destroys Effector T in an instant. Unfortunately, this is the Type A virus, the kind that is responsible for global epidemics. And you know what? I’m really glad that my body isn’t the one that has to deal with such a nasty problem!

When you realise that these are actually the average threats that our bodies come up against and repel on a day to day basis, you begin to have this newfound respect for the cells that are working tirelessly to ensure that everything is running smoothly. At least that’s been my experience with Hataraku Saibou, making me appreciate the stuff our body does for us, while learning new things along the way. For me, Hataraku Saibou is an extremely fun series that just so happens to educate you along the way. There’s a little bit of quirkiness for everybody, and we get many different cells that don’t particularly dominate our screen-time. Not only does this mean the series can diversify content, it also makes the series accessible to picky fans, because if you have a turn-off like lolis or well-endowed women, their limited screentime allows you to focus on the stuff that matters to you. Also, as the problems continue to escalate with this particular host body, I’m only expecting things to get even wackier if not more exciting.

Sadly, I’m not quite sure if I’ll be picking this up, seeing how I’m absolutely encumbered by full-time summer work, not to mention I have Boruto catch-up I need to get around to. But if I can find the time, I will definitely get around to covering Hataraku Saibou for the summer season! Don’t get your hopes up but definitely stay tuned for potentially more bodily goodness!

Preview

21 Comments

  1. Honestly, I don’t know what to say about this series other than
    FANTASTIC imagination! I feel (like yourself) that this is a
    sequel of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. There are other Animes I’m
    following this season, but this surprises me in that I’m really
    looking forward to it as much as one of the other series. It
    has no overarching plot; not a comedy, it’s just great fun!

    mac65
    1. Viruses are not affected by antibiotics, those are only effective against bacteria.
      Those aren’t antibiotics either, but antibodies, which are effective only againts one single germ (may it be a virus or a bacteria) and no other, thats why Influenza B was affected, but no effect was on Influenza B (or even Pneumococcus, which we saw in the previous episode).

      So, no, that’s not a simbol antibiotic resistance, as antibiotics are not a part of our immune system and are completely ineffective against viruses.

      Dio
      1. Much later on, the body faces a mutated type A influenza virus that’s immune to pretty much anything the immunization cells have and the dendritic cell have to take more dramatic action.

        BigFire
  2. As a follow up to this episode…

    https://youtu.be/zQGOcOUBi6s
    https://youtu.be/GIJK3dwCWCw

    All still having great animations and visuals to the inner workings.

    https://randomc.net/image/Hataraku%20Saibou/Hataraku%20Saibou%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2022.jpg
    “You thought it was Naive T Cell… But it was I, EFFECTOR T CELL!!!” Man I would have burst into a hysterical laughter if he had said that.

    https://randomc.net/image/Hataraku%20Saibou/Hataraku%20Saibou%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2005.jpg
    There’s so many things going on here. I thought she’ll go Gilgemesh on us and that hatchet reminds me of one character I’ve seen using it. I also thought she’d summon HMS Repulse seeing that Repulse’s mental model is a maid as well

    Henrietta Brix
  3. Red Blood Cell’s role is diminished in favor of Naive T-Cell, a T-Cell that hasn’t matured and faced a virus or bacteria yet. This ep was hilarious during the climax as well as very touching, even though he can get annoying fast.

    None of these characters have actual names, which makes it very confusing to describe to people who we’re talking about. I imagine these exact same characters in these exact same scenerios occur in all the other parts of the body, over and over again.

    starss
  4. FYI, if you wind up dropping this series, can you find another bloggers to cover the rest of it? I really love this blog writing about this anime!

    The director must’ve been a natural choice, considering the T-cell evolving reminds me very much of a Jojo character.

    starss
  5. Man, I love this series so far. As a bioprocess engineer, I’m having a blast seeing what I work on in animated form. I was expecting to see the Y shape antibody proteins, but was surprised to see it depicted as a liquid spray. Also, I was also expecting the macrophages to engulf things, but I’ll settle with the large hatchets/blunt weapons.

    This show reminds me of the many educational mangas I purchased a few years ago. These are the “Manga Guide to” series (https://nostarch.com/catalog/manga). These books are actually good reads to get a quick overview of a particular scientific topic. Granted, each book and topic doesn’t dive as deep research papers or textbooks, but it sure is much more entertaining. As a science nerd and anime otaku, these mangas and this anime perfectly embody the two things I love most.

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