#it only strikes me as odd because it wasn't a thing in the original cells at work

[tribow]

So I watched Cells At Work! Code Black

Wow, that was pretty good! The quality hasn't dropped at all from the original Cells at Work series. The writing and story concept is just as good before, but as the "Code Black" title implies, this story takes place in a body that is doing a terrible job taking care of itself.

If there's a show out there that convinced me to really take care of my body it's this one. The message can get pretty hand-fisted at times, but it's not like the original Cells At Work tried to be subtle. Although, I wonder how it feels to watch this show as a smoker or a chronic drunk. I don't do any of that, the only thing I could relate to is the lack of sleep and the stress....and well......anyone can relate to stress.

I really appreciate how much emphasis is put on stress. I knew that it affected your body, but Code Black really hammers home just how much damage stress can do if you're stressed out all the time. It's important to create the space needed to destress wherever you can. I can't imagine the same sentiment being felt for smoking. I doubt a smoker really wants to hear about the damage they're doing to their body. They probably already know that, but the problem isn't as easy as "Just stop smoking."

That aside, I do think I was a bit overhyped going in. I had the impression Code Black was going to be a super dark story. While the story is dark and depressing, don't expect it to be a seinen. The target audience for Cells At Work is still younger audiences. Code Black in particular is definitely directed at teenage boys.

Now, there's a lot to appreciate in the narrative, but I won't elaborate much more on it. Go experience it for yourself. If you haven't watched Cells At Work I wouldn't start with Code Black since the whole point of Black is to subvert the mostly positive tone of the original series. The rest of this post is me mostly rambling about the production sooooo.

David Production didn't animate Code Black! Whaaaat? I really wanted to see their style on a darker story since I've only seen their Jojo works so far. Well who took over for this one?

Liden Films??

This is one of those studios I should really know more about, but for some reason their works have escaped me for the longest time. Legit the only thing I know about Liden Films is the absolute fumble that was Berserk season 2. That's probably not how they want to be remembered.

The animation quality isn't better or worse than David Production, but I love how they adjusted the style to match the tone of Code Black. Obviously the environment looks a lot more dreary, but the tone shift is present even in how the cells are drawn. Darker shadows, thinner outlines, and every color is a darker shade. Nothing pops like it did in the original Cells At Work. It really emphasizes the tone in a simultaneously subtle and obvious way. Nice.

There is one thing that Liden Films does worse than David Production. Ironically, it's the CG. There's a lot of crowd shots in Cells at Work because y'know...cells...there's a lot of those in a human body. Where David blended a lot of the CG pretty well, Liden's CG sticks out more. This isn't to say the CG is utilized poorly. I actually like Liden's approach with it, but in comparison it's noticeably weaker.

Similar to David Production's, Liden Films doesn't do any crazy animation work either. There's a lot of shortcuts made to ease animation production, but Liden takes less shortcuts than David does. Is it better or worse? I dunno, but it's just something I noticed.

By the way, I also watched this dubbed. The performances are pretty great here. They nailed a lot of scenes here. Unfortunately, this time there's no english version of the opening. For shame! Good news is, dubbed or subbed you'll get a good experience either way.

At the end of Code Black there was a tease about another season (or maybe it gets continued in the manga). I wonder what would they do with the main character since at this point he has pretty much had his arc. Maybe the focus will shift to a different character. Will another anime studio pick up the Cells At Work mantle? Who knows, but I'm actually excited to see it. Rare. Rare feeling for me.