If anyone following a manga or anime (available on Netflix) Cells at Work , this one is the “darker” version of it. This series was created by Shigemitsu Harada. Issei Hatsuyoshiya, and Akane Shimizu; and the English translation was owned by Kodansha Comics (2019). I borrowed the first volume from Evanston Public Library, and hopefully the next two volumes are available for review.

The whole idea of this series is about cells in human body, and Code Black refers to the adult body that is no longer healthy. Trillions of cells trying to make human body keep running, but stress hormones keeps yelling to red blood cells to work faster. Smoking, alcoholism, cholesterol, genital disease, everyday is a code black; and a newbie red blood cell struggles a lot to bring the oxygen throughout the body.

I like this type of story. Osmosis Jones is my first encounter with the animation of cells and human body. But this manga is something else. Unlike Osmosis Jones that still exposes the human face and his unhealthy habit, this manga clearly focuses on the interactions between cells and their jobs. In the earlier series of I was strucked by a scene where the immune cells (white blood, T cells) attacked cancer cells. The story tells that the cancer cell is a deformed cell since it was born; it was “killed” before mature but if it survived, it tried to grow under the reason of “survival.” This is actually deep, and Code Black pushes the theme around human body and system survival with the anthropomic cells who are frustrated working in an “exploitative, hostile working environment” to keeping human body alive. The adorable, relatively peaceful life of the healthy human body looks like a dream when you read this manga. Everday is a “war” with foreign substances, germs, and virus on a more difficult level. Immune cells get weaker with overload works, and red blood cells are vulnerable.

Although the idea is brilliant, you will not find a strong, coherent plot in this manga. I think because the mangakas want it to be more descriptive and keeping it real to the facts. That’s why this manga provides real scientific explanations in every pages. There are a lot of boxes explaining each cell and its function, including the germs, bacteries, virus, disease, and dysfunction. It’s a very entertaining and educational manga really. And if you have enough time, lol, you may want to check youtube videos of a doctor reacts to the anime.

PS: You can read the first volume for free here. Remember to read this manga as an entertainment, because it might be accused for biological determinism due some unlikely dialogues (e.g., how a red blood cell reacts angrily about living sperms who are not reaching the egg). (You know what I mean). No matter how much they use the scientific facts, it’s still a work of fiction.