Warner Bros. Japan Gets The Blood Pumping With First Teaser For Live-Action ‘Cells At Work!’ Film
For their next live-action manga adaptation, Warner Bros. Japan is going under the microscope and to bring Cells at Work! to the silver screen.
Created by mangaka Akane Shimizu, the original Cells at Work! story takes viewers into an anthropomorphized version of the human body and follows the adventures of AE3803 (Tsubame Sanjo in Rurouni Kenshin Part I: Origins), a determined but clumsy red blood cell with a bad sense of direction and a duty to deliver oxygen to different parts of her world.
The educational series also follows one of the Neutrophil Division’s most skilled fighters, White Blood Cell U-1146 (Takeru Satoh – Kenshin Himura in the Rurouni Kenshin live-action films) as he both fights off the various bacterial, viruses and pathogens that threaten the body and provides his assistance to any other cell who needs it.
A massively popular series, Cells at Work! has branched out into multiple spin-offs, each of which explore a different aspect of the series’ internal hierarchy (pun definitely intended).
Yuko Kakihara’s and Yasu Original’s Platelets at Work depicts the adorable misadventures of the tiniest zmembers of the Cells at Work! family, the Platelets, as they work together to close various different wounds across the body.
Meanwhile, Tetsuji Kanie’s Cells at Work! WHITE centers on White Blood Cell U-1146 as he trains a newly recruited immature Band Cell to become a full fledged member of the Neutrophil Division.
Instead of a specific group of cells, Cells at Work! Medicine by Ryo Kuji focuses on the entire body and explores how the various cells interact with human medicine, including aspirin, penicillin, and the chicken pox vaccine.
In further deviating from the rest of the franchise, rather than centering on the cells’ work duties, Kanna Kurono and Mio Izumi’s Cells at Work! Friend instead follows the tale of a singular Killer T cell as he attempts to overcome his severe social anxiety and make friends with his peers.
However, despite the trend thus far, not every installment of the Cells at Work! franchises takes place within the same body as the main series.
For example, Haruyuki Yoshida’s Cells at Work! Bacteria and sequel Cells at Work! Neo Bacteria depicts the wars waged between good and bad bacteria inside the intestines of a high school girl..
Similarly, Akari Otokawa and Shigemitsu’s Cells at Work! Lady follows a Macrophage, Killer T, Helper T and White Blood Cell as they navigate the pregnancy of their adult female host.
On the other end of the spectrum, Yasuhiro Fukuda’s Cells at Work! Baby depicts the cells as found within a 40-week old human fetus and the various ways in which they help the baby develop.
Set in Bone Marrow, Moe Sugimoto’s spin-off Cells NOT at Work! tells the story of a Macrophage attempting to persuade a stubborn group of overgrown Erythroblasts to leave home and start working as red blood cells.
One of the more comedic entries in the franchise, Yu Maeda’s macho-heavy Cells at Work! Muscles follows the workers within an aspiring muscle-builder as they attempt to keep his body in working condition.
And then there’s Cells at Work! Neko by Choco Aozora and Kairemeku, a furry take on the entire ‘anthropomorphic cells’ concept which follows the adventures of the cells found within not a human, but a house cat.
Given it’s subject matter, it should come as no surprise that the Cells at Work! franchise is not afraid to cover darker topics.
After all, Shigemitsu Harada and Issei Hatsuyoshi’s Cells at Work: Code Black follows the travels of a Red Blood Cell and a White Blood Cell after they are transfused into an unhealthy human host with the sole mission of fighting back multiple threats including diabetes, depression, and even cancer.
Similarly, Kae Hashimoto gives the franchise a Yakuza twist in Cells at Work! Illegal, therein portraying the various cells as being in a gang war against such opponents as COVID-19 or the side-effects of illegal drugs.
That all said, it should come as no surprise that the franchise is finally receiving a live-action film.
Per Japanese publication Comic Natalie (translated via Deep L), Warner Bros. Japan unveiled the film’s first teaser during their June 11th production presentation.
Cells at Work! is helmed by Fly Me to Saitama film franchise director Hideki Takeuchi with the writer for the live-action Kaguya-sama – Love is War franchise, Tokunaga Yuichi, penning the script.
And surprisingly, assigned to coordinating the cells action packed microscopic encounters against their bacterial enemies is none other than the well-renowned action coordinator on the live-action Rurouni Kenshin film series, Takahito Ouchi.
At current, Cells at Work! is scheduled to get the blood flowing in Japanese theaters this December.
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