“Thymocytes”


「胸腺細胞」 (Kyousen Saibou)

Woot, OP change! Call me a heathen, but I prefer Macrophage’s husky voice to Red Blood Cell’s middle school voice when it comes to singing the OP. Kikoue Inou > Hanazawa Kana, you can fight me all you want. Putting aside my contentious viewpoint, we took a trip down memory lane courtesy of Dendritic cell, who nefariously shed some light onto the history between Killer T and Helper T. I wouldn’t be surprised if many people thought this was simply going to be a case of jock and nerd disliking one another. Fortunately, we got a lot more than we could have hoped to bargain for.

T-Cell Academy Days

Who knew there would be a history of love-hate bromance between Killer T and Helper T? And I have to say it made for a fascinating watch! We already saw that Killer T used to be a complete wimp. But to see him getting utterly bullied by Helper T… who could have guessed they used to have such a one-sided dynamic? Despite frequently butting heads, and expressing disdain for one another, these two cells clearly trust and care for each other. Silly bickering, punch of common sense, and most importantly saving ass. That right there is true friendship. Regulatory T can deny it all she wants, but she must have been extremely jealous of their bromance. Or perhaps she found their antics entertaining.

Uncomfortable Associations

One thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the nature of the T cell training. I understand that this is all taking place on a cellular level, meaning it is entirely anthropomorphic. However, I couldn’t help but make human associations, and the University of Maryland coaching incident came to mind. For those unaware, a player died after being pushed past his limits by the coaching staff, and here’s an article for those who want to read more. The T cell training reminded me of it, and while these cells are humans, the fact it’s do or die on such a massive scale is actually really chilling. This is not a criticism of an otherwise fantastic episode. Rather that this recent article made an impression on me, which inhibited my ability to fully enjoy the episode. It reminded me that our bodies are an authoritarian regime, that has no qualms ruthlessly eliminating anything it sees as an obstacle. Can’t be helped, and I would be interested to see if the Hataraku Saibou Black spin-off sheds light on the darkness inherent within bodily operations. I haven’t given it a go yet, but it could make for a more balanced representation that I can imagine to be a more compelling story.

Concluding Thoughts

Anyway, that’s everything I wanted to say for now. Looks like a certain bacterium is back for Round 2, but I don’t know what to expect this time around. Potential immunities…? Hopefully it’ll be more than that, especially because Hataraku Saibou has rarely failed to exceed my expectations. As always, thanks for taking the time to read my post and see you next week!

Preview

8 Comments

  1. As a person who went through the cadet training and then the extremely tough Army Infantry Officer Basic Course in real life, I like concern for safety. The US Military has found that it does not have to kill people in training to get fantastic troops. Training Deaths were quite a bit higher in earlier periods of US history and some nations like to have some deaths in training. Still, US military training cuts it close so there still some deaths but most often that gets whoever in charge relieved. (fired) But training must have some risk if you want very tough troops who can take a combat environment were lack of being ready kills.
    But as far as my body is concerned I got no problem with only the very best surviving training. What was shown was actually nicer than reality in that most failures suicide or are forced to kill themselves and some are killed and then eaten by the “nice ladies” holding up the outlines.

    RedRocket

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