Cells at Work! works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnvgQCavmkM&t=910s - 17:24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u2Uh4SWGd8 - 13:13

     When I was diagnosed with cancer in high school, it happened to be at the time I had my biology

class.  I was learning about the body by experiencing it in a classroom setting and at the same time, I

was learning more about what was happening with my body by experiencing it on an individual

level.  Experiencing biology in a classroom setting and experiencing biology, or rather the effects of

it, in your own body are two different things.  For one, experiencing biology in a classroom setting is

usually only for a certain amount of time depending on what you do with biology (for example, a

doctor would devote more time to studying biology as a subject than say a history teacher), but

experiencing biology in our own body always happens, whether you are aware of it or not.  These

two different ways of experiencing biology are seen in the anime Cells at Work, which is represented

by the two videos in this reflection.

     In the first video of this reflection, we get more of an experience of biology in a classroom

setting, specifically learning how examples of actual biology can be seen in the anime Cells at Work

in the eyes of a doctor.  Granted these are just examples, and the examples are not exactly how

biology works (although they do explain why certain things happen, like why the main Red Blood

Cell gets lost a lot, like Zoro from One Piece, and why the main White Blood Cell always shows up

to save the main Red Blood Cell), but if a doctor can attest to how an anime does a good job

explaining something a doctor would know more about, then that's good enough for me.  It's also

proof that anyone can be an anime fan and that it takes all kinds of people to explain things to those

who don't understand something as well as they do.  This is why I think anime should be seen like

this.  In its own ways, every anime has something to offer in terms of educational value.  The

difference is that in certain anime, like Cells at Work, this educational value is much more obvious

than in others, especially ones that focus on fighting, which Cells at Work actually has a lot of.  To

me, that serves as additional proof that any anime can be educational, even anime that has a lot of

fighting in it.  The second video of this reflection can also be seen as additional proof of the

educational value of the anime Cells at Work.

     In the second video of this reflection, we get more of an experience of biology in our own body,

as well as how that works and how that relates to our own lives.  This video is done by an anime fan,

and focuses more on what else we can learn about the anime Cells at Work besides the biology of it,

which is something we can turn to doctors to in terms of explaining it (another example of one is

mentioned in this video - the doctor in the first video also reviews episodes of this anime).  In the

world of Cells at Work, everyone has a specific function/role in order to keep the body healthy.  In

order to keep the body, which in this case would be their world, healthy, everyone has to work

together since every character has a specific function/role in order to do that.

     However, there is one character that I would like to focus on and explain where they fit in with

this.  This character is Cancer (rather self - explanatory: some characters need more specific names;

other examples are Red Blood Cell and White Blood Cell since there are several of them, not just

these main ones - the main White Blood Cell is a neutrophil, so I guess he could be called Phil; he

also looks like the character Sai from Naruto Shippuden).  Anyway, unlike the other characters,

Cancer doesn't have a purpose, at least not a given one/one he wanted like the other characters in this

anime.  However, Cancer is part of this world and is seen as a threat for this reason.  Perhaps the

purpose of Cancer is to remind the other characters of what they need to do, which is work together

for the purpose of stopping him in order to protect their world/the body.  Reflecting on cancer is

something I tend to do in my life now as a cancer survivor, but seeing cancer depicted as an anime

character (and one like the average cancer patient and survivor in terms of justifiable behavior -

another interesting character idea would be one called Chemotherapy) adds an interesting dimension

to this reflecting.

     Perhaps all of this is a metaphor (yes another one) for how we should be living.  How the world

of Cells at Work works is not like how our world works, but it gives us an idea of what we should be

doing, which is also seen in the second video.  Anyway, the anime Cells at Work works, and this is

seen not only in the anime itself, but also in the two videos in this reflection.  The second season, as 

well as Code Black, continues this theme, even though Code Black tells it differently.

     

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