Cells at Work: Platelets! is a spinoff series of the Shōnen Edutainment manga Cells at Work! which centers on the Platelets, characters who were popular enough that, despite their very minor role in the main series, they were given an entire spinoff all to themselves. The manga focuses on a squad of Platelets going about their daily business, be it doing maintenance on various structures within the body, training new platelets, learning about different social functions, and other low-stakes, low-impact adventures. There's no real danger or high-stakes adventuring here; Platelets is less of an action manga than an iyashikei Slice of Life comedy featuring some cute characters.
Cells at Work: Platelets! (Hataraku Kesshoban-chan) is written by Yuuko Kakihara, who was on the Cells at Work! anime's writing team, and illustrated by Yasu of Toradora! fame. It runs in Monthly Shounen Sirius. An English release was secured by Kodansha Comics, with its run starting in July 2020.
Other Spin-Offs of Cells at Work! include Cells NOT at Work!, Cells at Work! CODE BLACK, Cells at Work and Friends!, Cells at Work: Bacteria!, Cells at Work: Baby!, Cells at Work! Lady and Cells At Work! White Brigade.
Cells At Work: Platelets! features the following tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: The entire spinoff is completely dedicated to the platelets' daily adventures when the fate of their world isn't hanging in the balance.
- Anthropomorphized Anatomy: True to the franchise's primary conceit, every human character represents a cell in the human body.
- Captain Ersatz: While it's never directly stated whether or not they're intended to be the same Platelets from the original series, Leader and Backwards Hat are visually and functionally identical to CaW's two most prominent platelets.
- Cast of Personifications: Apart from all of the fully-human body cell characters, harmful microorganisms are portrayed as monsters, most being humanoid and almost all being sapient. Benign or helpful microorganisms, however, are portrayed as cute blobs or vaguely animal-like creatures.
- Cheerful Child: All of the platelets default to this personality to some extent, though some less than others — Backwards Hat, Gazer, and Vice Leader are the more downplayed examples.
- Children Are Innocent: Appears to varying degrees throughout the series, but especially prominent when Splash Curl climbs into a sewer and encounters a dangerous bacterium. Splash Curl is too naive to realize what kind of danger she's in, much to the bemusement and confusion of the bacterium.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": None of the individual platelets have proper names; they are addressed only by their position or a distinguishing trait. Thus, the characters have names like Leader, Vice Leader, Gazer, Glancer, and Backwards Hat.
- Edutainment: Present but heavily downplayed. Platelets has very little information regarding health or biology compared to its parent or sibling series, preferring to focus on cute-kid antics.
- Faux Action Girl: Downplayed with Splash Curl, who is enthusiastic and willing to spring into action, but she is very quick to buckle when faced with difficulty.
- Fun Size: Justified. The main reason the Platelets are portrayed as children compared to other cells is because actual platelets are physically far smaller than any other kind of blood cell.
- Gender Flip: Backwards Hat is male in the original manga, but in this series she's female.
- Honest Axe: In the "Letter Delivery" chapter, Glancer and Gazer are sent on their own to deliver a letter as a test. Once they realise that they lost the map guiding them, they blow on an emergency whistle, causing the other Platelets secretly following them to come out in Paper Thin Disguises, offering them the choice between a gold map and a silver map. Glancer and Gazer are honest enough to say they had an ordinary map but on the other hand are quick to claim a map that comes with some bonus candy as well.
- Lighter and Softer: Platelets is much lighter than any other series in the franchise, even moreso than Cells at Work and Friends!, with the whole series being dedicated to the platelets' work behind the scenes, which consists mostly of maintenance and training new platelets. While serious events do happen, they either aren't played particularly seriously, or are relegated to Battle Discretion Shots and/or offscreen Noodle Incidents.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Appears more than once throughout the series; Glancer and Gazer fall for them a little too easily. What's more, the other cells play along with the platelets' masquerades, which suggests that these events are recurring, if not common.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite her apparent youth, Leader is a level-headed and effective mentor to the younger platelets.
- Seiza Squirm: In the "You've Been Invited" chapter, the Platelets are invited to a tea party and go to other cells for instructions on proper etiquette. Dendritic Cell teaches them about how to behave during a traditional tea ceremony leading to their legs falling asleep from sitting in seiza.
- Stealth Escort Mission: Whenever trainees Gazer and Glancer have to run any kind of errand, the other Platelets end up keeping watch over them the entire time...though it's less about protecting them than ensuring that they don't get lost or screw up.
- Token Mini-Moe: Inverted. This was the platelets' role in the parent series, but here they're the main focus of the story.
