The pinnacle of gag manga as well as one of Akatsuka Fujio’s most renowned works, “Tensai Bakabon” returns after 18 years since its last anime with Director Hosokawa Toru’s new original story! Bakabon and his family, who made the phrase “This is how it should be” famous, are back along with the eccentric cast of Mr. Policeman, Rerere no Ojisan and Eel-Dog letting loose in a much more modern setting! The new frontier of “Bakabon” that’ll take place in a late-night slot is about to begin, 10 years after Akatsuka Fujio’s death. – Crunchyroll
Episode 1 Summary: It’s been eighteen years since the previous animated incarnation of Akatsuka Fujio’s (Osomatsu-kun) manga Tensai Bakabon, and the characters are back and ready to take on the modern era. Papa, however, has the idea in his head that his family and their anime’s setting hasn’t changed nearly enough in the interim, so he starts making arbitrary alterations left and right. He hires a new voice actor to perform his role, and then hires a famous surgeon to give him a dramatic new look. He also has Bakabon, his son and the show’s namesake, cloned into sextuplets to capitalize on the fame of that other classic remake. Papa’s tunnel-vision towards dramatic change continues to escalate until the family’s youngest child, Hajime, is about to be falsely arrested for dealing drugs. It’s Mama’s anger that brings the family back down to Earth. Sometimes change for the sake of itself isn’t really such a great idea, but with an familiar-but-updated look and feel, the family can start their new show on the right foot.
In the year 1274, the invading Mongols have their sights set on Japan. The exiled samurai Jinzaburō Kuchii is in Kamakura when he finds himself face to face with the invasion. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Jinzaburo Kuchii is a former general, and one of many criminals facing exile for his crimes. On a storm-tossed boat, he and his fellow prisoners are at the mercy of the seas until a gang revolt sees several dead and Kuchii and the more reasonable members now in charge. They make their way to Tsushima, an island located between Japan and Goryeo (the modern-day Korean Peninsula) where they’re greeted warmly by Princess Teruhi who invites them all to dinner. It’s there that the reason for their exile (rather than alternate punishment) becomes clear; there are rumblings of Mongol ships 900 strong waiting to set off from Goryeo, and Tsushima is directly in their path. The criminals are meant to be the first line of defense to help repel the Mongol invasion. Kuchii vows not to get involved, but is drawn into the conflict when Princess Teruhi is nearly kidnapped by an advance force.
In London is “Café Forbidden,” a mysterious café that only opens at night. Bayrou is a girl who is in London to study abroad. She meets the handsome men who work this place where the guardians of the boundary between the human and shadow world gather. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Ton Baileu and her friend Shinyao are excited to be moving to London. They’re there to study abroad, something neither of them would likely have attempted if not for the support of the other. After arriving at the airport, it’s just a train ride into the city and they can move into their new apartment. Ton is extra excited because her great-grandmother once made London her home and she feels a special connection to the misunderstood matriarch. Unfortunately the ladies aren’t in the city very long before their luggage is nabbed by a thief that’s only visible to Ton. Calling upon a magic spell gleaned from her great-grandmother’s writings, she’s lead to a mysterious cafe staffed by Vlad, Toryu, and Luke, all of them young(?), attractive men. They react to Ton as if they already know her; as it turns out that they were all familiar with her great-grandmother through some unexplained means. They’re also involved in the supernatural and occult, and determine that it was a goblin who stole Ton’s baggage. They make their way to Hyde Park where they suspect that the goblin’s stash is hidden among the trees, but they’re in for a surprise when Spriggan, lord of the forest, attacks. Not only do all the attractive young men appear to have special abilities (including lycanthropy, in one case), but Ton herself reaches within herself and demonstrates her mettle. As day breaks, Ton awakens on a bench in the park surrounded by her luggage. Could the experience, and the young men, have been just a strange dream?
In the MMORPG Cross Reverie, Takuma Sakamoto is so powerful that he is lauded as the “Demon Lord” by other players. One day, he is summoned to a world outside his own, but with the same appearance he had in the game. There, he meets two girls who both proclaim themselves to be his Summoner. They perform an Enslavement Ritual to turn him into their Summon, but that’s when Takuma’s passive ability Magic Reflection activates. Instead, it is the girls who become enslaved. Though Takuma may be the strongest Sorcerer there is, he has no idea how to talk with other people. It is here he makes his choice: to act based on his persona from the game. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: If the MMORPG “Cross Reverie” has an unofficial boss character, it would have to be Takuma. He plays the game at such a high level that he’s known as the “Demon Lord.” As an antisocial shut-in, Takuma doesn’t have the time or the patience for cute young couples who come to challenge him, and he gleefully blows them up. As he’s relishing his latest win, he suddenly finds himself drawn out of his body and awakens in the presence of an elf, Shera, and a girl with cat ears, Rem, both of whom are arguing over which of them were responsible for summoning him and, thus, who will control him. The joke’s on them, however; Takuma’s special in-game item reflects magic, and the girls have actually enslaved themselves to him. This is inconvenient for all, but they have no idea how to reverse the spell and thus are stuck with the arrangement. The three travel to town and have a sit-down with the head mage; it’s in her best interest to break the enslavement spell to have a better chance at protecting Rem. As it turns out, Rem is hiding a powerful secret which could deal a huge blow to all of humanity. Takuma, as his character “Demon Lord Diablo,” vows not to leave Rem’s side and to help her release herself from her predicament.
Most girls waking up without any memory and meeting a serial killer would panic, but not Ray. In fact, far from being her biggest problem, killer Zack might just prove a convenient resource when it comes to finding a way out of the building in which they’re both trapped. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Rachel Gardner wakes up in an unfamiliar hospital room. She vaguely recalls meeting with a psychiatrist to help her talk through her trauma of witnessing a murder, but beyond that she has no idea where she is or why. Things about her surroundings feel unreal and there are strange cryptic words written on the walls. All Rachel wants is to leave the hospital and return to her parents, but it quickly becomes obvious that she’s in some way trapped in this scenario against her will. She takes an elevator to what appears to be a city street, and is quickly face-to-face with a terrifying man with a scythe. It’s all she can do to hide from him and keep quiet until he loses her trail. The problem is that he’s great at sniffing out victims, and comes for her just as she’s escaping back into the elevator. Rachel takes it to the next floor up and there she encounters Danny, the psychiatrist she was seeing prior to this ordeal. He makes a show of looking out for their shared interest, but quickly reveals that he has designs on Rachel’s eyes. He has a false eye, you see, and wants a replacement, and hers remind him of his dead mother’s eyes. Though she makes multiple escape attempts, Danny outsmarts her and she loses her will to keep fighting. Rachel is saved by an unlikely source – the scythe-wielding killer from the previous floor stabs Danny to death and is about to finish Rachel off, when an announcement comes over a loudspeaker. Mr. scythe broke the rules by killing another denizen of the building, and now he and Rachel have the same goal – to escape without losing their lives in the process.
Haruka is a girl who has a complex about how she is very tall, and Kanata is about to give up beach volleyball because she is too short. With Haruka’s height and Kanata’s experience, the two girls form a pair to play beach volleyball in Okinawa. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Because her mother is leaving the country on business, Haruka gets to spend her Summer vacation in beautiful, sunny Okinawa with her grandmother and cousin. She’s absolutely looking forward to it, down to wearing her swimsuit underneath her clothes so she can get into the water as soon as humanly possible when she arrives. At the airport, it takes a while for Haruka to recognize her cousin, Kanata; after puberty hit, Haruka gained a lot of height and Kanata really didn’t. They both feel that the grass is greener in that regard. After taking a dip in the ocean near grandma’s house, Haruka meets a couple of girls her age playing volleyball on the beach. When Kanata arrives to join her it becomes clear that there’s some history between them. A fun pickup volleyball match becomes intense when the relationship between Kanata and Narumi (one of the other girls) starts to reflect some past strain. When Haruka and Kanata suffer an unsurprising loss, Haruka begs for a rematch. Narumi decides to grant one on one condition – Haruka should spend the next week practicing and learning the rules of the game.
High school student Chio Miyamo has adventures commuting to school every day. Chio runs in to problems both big and small, such as construction, a biker gang, a sudden urge to use the bathroom, and more. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Chio Miyamo is a pretty typical girl, with an atypically-obsessive video game habit. Because she was up until all hours playing a video game the night before, she managed to sleep through her alarms and leave her house with barely enough time to get to school. To make matters worse, she encounters some unexpected construction which makes her normal route impossible. It’s then that she decides to take some inspiration directly from her video games and get creative, taking to the rooftops to bypass closed roads (and prying eyes). On a different day Chio happens to meet up with Hosokawa, one of the popular girls from her class. Though she tries to make an escape a couple of times, as it turns out Hosokawa is actually pretty nice and Chio might actually want to be her friend.
Souya Kuroi has dreams of people with superpowers fighting a massive dragon in the sky, but his real life is almost as weird. He’s had amnesia for about two weeks and been taken in by a maid and an anthropomorphic cat. When a UFO in the shape of a stuffed bear approaches Sorimasaka City and other metros around the world, he’s startled to see seven rainbow-sparkling heroes zoom out to confront it – just like in his dream. Even weirder, the maid wants him to leave his shelter to confront these heroes and take the source of their power. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Souya Kuroi is living with amnesia, but seems relatively unaffected by it. Though his family might be dead (maybe?) and he doesn’t really know who he is, he doesn’t have enough of a memory to realize that he should be upset. He was taken in by a maid (“Ginko”) and a giant cat (“Sensei”) after his accident, so he’s got a place to stay and food to eat (though he’d prefer if there were more meat). School is fine, too, though he still has some trouble remembering his class rep’s name, and she seems to be pretty invested in his life so that creates lots of opportunity for embarrassment on his part. One day while Souya is just sitting around in math class, there’s an announcement about a UFO approaching the mainland; it turns out that it’s one of many horrifying bear-shaped aircraft that have appeared all over the planet. The world watches as a troupe of seven “superheroes” arrive out of nowhere to dispatch the “enemy” but Souya is given specific instructions from Ginko to leave the school building and, eventually, fight against those heroes. When he finally confronts one of the seven individuals, he joins with Sensei to become a powerful and strange fighting unit that’s bigger and stronger than either of them. When he obtains a pendant from the defeated “hero,” Souya’s memories begin to come back to him and they suggest some horrifying things.
Hanako Yamadaki encounters the obscure, low-selling 11-member “C-list” idol unit Ongaku Shōjo. Their producer Ikehashi thinks the unit needs a new member. Together, Ongaku Shōjo and Hanako strive for the top of the music world. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Hanako travels to Japan with her family, visions of idols on the brain. She arrives in japan just in time to accidentally wander into a contest to find a new member for a languishing idol group, Ongaku Shoujo. Hanako’s idea of what an idol is differs somewhat from the group of singing and dancing girls she’s just met, but once they put on a performance Hanako quickly falls in love. Hanako seems to have the skills needed to be a great idol, which she proves by copying a complicated dance routine having only seen it once. She’s also very kind and enthusiastic, complimenting the others on their performance skills. The girls and their producer beg her to enter their contest, which she finally does. But for all her good looks and great dance moves, Hanako is missing one very important piece of the idol puzzle – she can’t sing!
The world is a dangerous place for a red blood cell just trying to get her deliveries finished. Fortunately, she’s not alone… she’s got a whole human body’s worth of cells ready to help out. The mysterious white blood cell, the buff and brash killer T cell, the nerdy neuron, even the cute little platelets — everyone’s got to come together if they want to keep you healthy. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: It’s Red Blood Cell’s first day on the job, and like most of her brethren she’s tasked with delivering oxygen and nutrients to the rest of the body. All she has to do is find her way to the lungs and she can finally drop off her cargo. Unfortunately the human body is confusing and full of roads, tunnels, and rooms. It’s also subject to the invasion of hostile bacteria, which Red Cell discovers as she’s trying to make her way through a crowd; a gang of ne’er-do-well pneumococcal bacteria try to make things miserable for everyone by bursting through the ground and threatening the crowd with obliteration. Enter White Blood Cell: he and his group of foot soldiers defend the body against such interlopers, and most of the bacteria are dispatched quickly as expected. But one escapes, and it’s up to White Cell and Red Cell to catch it before it becomes something terrible, like pneumonia or, even worse, meningitis. They manage to track the scourge to the bronchial zone. Just as things look dire for the cells, the body’s automatic defenses bubble the bacterium up and eject it with a rocket-powered sneeze. Having done their duty, Red Cell and White Cell lament the fact that they may never see one-another again. But as part of the same body, there’s always the possibility they could meet again.
Impressions: As I always say, there’s an anime about everything. Cells at Work! occupies a very strange space where its only neighbors are shows like Moyashimon and, well… I honestly can’t think of anything else comparable at the moment. It’s an odd balance of educational entertainment and science humor, bundled up in a form that revels in taking a bland (or at least relatively serious or dry) subject and finding an exciting and funny way to present it. Honestly, the human body is a miraculous thing, full of so many different interconnected systems that hold our guts together, transport our various juices around, and keep our brains from becoming mush. It really should be celebrated in a way that respects how smart, weird, and kick-ass it can be.
I’m very much in awe of how creative this interpretation of our body systems is. Rather than portraying the various organs, ducts, and connective tissues literally, this series draws from the basic information presented within biological science and interprets its pieces as different facets and zones of a giant city. The capillaries are represented by the endless cramped hallways and similar-looking doorways in what appears to be an old bureaucratic government building. The are a power station, humming as air flows through giant fans and ventilation shafts. The bronchial tubes are a Rube-Goldberg style marble run, transporting foreign material out of the body in a playful and dramatic way. Each place has its own personality, and this episode runs through several of them in very quick succession – I hope that future episodes might slow down a bit and give us a taste of these different interconnected parts.
The show’s real claim to fame is its personification of the various cells that exist within human bodies. While some of these are relatively predictable, they’re still entertaining when used to express the ways in which blood, lymphatic, and immune cells behave in the real world. The red blood cells are functional, dutiful workers making deliveries throughout the bloodstream. The white blood cells are focused killers, waiting for the next notification that danger is nearby. The killer T cells are like a special forces combat unit ready to fall into formation and take out hard-to-handle invaders. The platelets are cute little builders, sealing up holes and cuts so the pathways stay intact. Each cell has its job and all the jobs coordinate to create a fine-tuned system.
This message brought to you by helper T cells.
I like how the premise implies that the bodily systems and the different cells don’t just exist harmoniously by some lucky accident; the title Cells at Work suggests a purposeful, task-oriented movement towards a shared goal that can only be reached when everyone is doing their part. It doesn’t surprise me that this microcosm feels more than a little bit like a mirror of society, specifically an idealized Japanese society, where functionality within a group and loyalty to one’s job are important common goals. That said, the uniqueness of each group is integral to the survival of the system, too; without people willing to perform a certain job, the entire body would collapse. It’s almost like diversity is a requirement for success, or each job is equally valuable… what a crazy notion! You can probably tell that I’m a little bit exhausted with the way the world has been lately; there’s lots of rhetoric out there that aims to devalue different people and the different jobs that they do. It’s just nice to watch something that in some ways states the opposite and also manages to be entertaining.
I want to make note of the fact that for how cute and funny it is, this episode has some violence that crops up suddenly. I’m not going to try to speculate much about the process by which cells, bacteria, and such will bleed when stabbed; I think to search for reason in a situation where blood cells can talk and interact with one-another is a doomed quest. But should you be sensitive to violence and bleeding, well, when faced with invading bacteria, white blood cells get the job done, and violently (I mean, even the “real life” version is pretty hard core) and that’s how the show has chosen to represent that.
I really like weird anime, and it looks like this series is going to scratch that itch for me. It’s got a lot of things to like, including cute characters, overblown theatrics, a creative re-imagining of reality along with some good-quality visuals, backgrounds, and animation. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about how your body works, but were bored by biology class, this might be the ticket to enjoying your learning experience.
Pros: The premise is entertaining. I like how the different characters and groups work together. It makes your guts and tubes seem interesting.
Cons: There are some sudden moments of very bloody violence that might catch some people off guard.
Streaming: Crunchyroll
