Trivia / Cells at Work!

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: The platelet leader refers to both AE3803 and White Blood Cell as 'oneechan' and 'oniisan', respectively. While it literally means 'big sister' and 'big brother', these words are often used in real life to refer to slightly older people who you know but aren't related to you. However, Dr. Hope explained on his review of the episode that this is entirely correct, as platelets, white blood cells and red blood cells are all created in the bone marrow, and they all stem from the same cells, that act as base cells that can grow into anything.
• Acting for Two: in the English dub:
  • Erica Mendez voices both Regulatory Cell and Myelocyte U-1146.
  • D.C. Douglas voices both Basophil and Secretion Gland Captain.
  • Armen Taylor voices both Cellar Allergen and Vibrio Parahaemolyticus.
  • Laura Stahl voices both Naive T Cell and young Cancer Cell.
• All-Star Cast:
  • The two leads feature well-known veterans Kana Hanazawa and Tomoaki Maeno. Meanwhile, the supporting cast features Daisuke Ono, Kikuko Inoue, Takahiro Sakurai, Saori Hayami, M.A.O., Nobuhiko Okamoto, Yūichi Nakamura, Ayako Kawasumi, Aya Endo, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Mamiko Noto, Mai Nakahara, Tomokazu Sugita, Satoshi Hino, Akira Ishida, Rikiya Koyama, Kosuke Toriumi, Toa Yukinari and Yui Ishikawa.
    • Even the newer and younger voice actors, Maria Naganawa and Shoya Chiba, are relatively popular and up-and-coming with modern audiences.
  • The English Dub dials it up to eleven with a mix of well-known and newer voice actors like Cherami Leigh, Billy Kametz, Robbie Daymond, Laura Post, Xanthe Huynh, Griffin Burns, Morgan Berry, Ray Chase, Erica Mendez, Erik Kimerer, D.C. Douglas, Kira Buckland, Jeannie Tirado, Lucien Dodge, Sean Chiplock, Christian La Monte, Armen Taylor, David Vincent, Maureen Price, Xander Mobus, Bryce Papenbrook, Ben Diskin, Cristina Vee, Landon McDonald, Bill Rodgers, Joe Zieja, Laura Stahl, Khoi Dao, and Karen Strassman.
• The Cast Showoff: For both the original and dub, the openings are sung by the voice actors/actresses themselves; while this is fairly common in Japan, it's fairly rare in Western anime dubs, so the English cast's singing skills are given quite a bit of emphasis here.
• Completely Different Title: Called Les Brigades immunitaires (The Immune Brigades) in French.
• Crossdressing Voices:
  • U-1146, Killer T Cell Squad Leader and Helper T Cell are voiced by voice actresses when they were a myelocyte (in case of the former) and thymocytes (in the case of the latter two).
  • Naive T Cell is voiced by a female before activating into an Effector T Cell.
• Directed by Cast Member: U-2048's Voice Actor, Christian La Monte, is the voice director of the English dub.
• Incidental Multilingual Wordplay: In the cedar allergy episode, Mast Cell and B Cell argue whose fault the disaster is. In Japanese, Mast Cell asks if the B in B Cell stands for "baka" ("idiot"), which becomes "bonehead" in English.
• The Merch: Giant Microbes has made tie-in plushies of their famous larger-than-life cells, complete with little hats and such.
• Newbie Boom: The very idea of a manga/anime series about biology gaining the attention of anime and manga fans who have life sciences or medicine backgrounds speaks volumes on how well this series is working.
• No Export for You: Out of the current spinoffs, neither Cells at Work! Muscles, Cats, Medicine or Illegal have plans to be translated in English.
• Out of Order: Understatement. While Episode 1 of the anime starts off by adapting Chapter 1 of the manga, Episode 2 was made from Chapter 4, followed by Episode 3 being adapted from Chapter 3. Episode 4 was made from Chapter 5, while Episode 5 goes back and covers Chapter 2. That's followed by Episode 6 pulling double-duty by covering Chapters 7 and 8 in one go. Following that, Episode 7 does chapter 9. Then, Episode 8 does Chapter 10, and that's followed by Episode 9 doing Chapter 12, and Episode 10 handling Chapter 15. Episode 11 goes all the way back to Chapter 6. The series caps off with Episodes 12 and 13, which adapt Chapters 17 and 18, respectively, and then ends its run with the OVA made from Chapter 11.
• Sleeper Hit: Who'd have thought a largely episodic Edutainment series about the inner workings of the human body could garner such a huge fanbase and spawn its own franchise?
• Technical Advisor: Japanese physician Tomoyuki Harada served as the medical supervisor for the series, in order to portray the anthropomorphic versions of cells, bacteria, and diseases correctly, as well as supply the correct information retaining to each respective entity. Additionally, he also served as the medical supervisor for the spin-off series, Cells at Work! CODE BLACK.
• What Could Have Been: A pilot chapter was released with the official guide book and there are many key differences from the finalized manga. For example:
  • AE 3803's prototype design could be mistaken for a feminine guy with her unkempt hair, messy uniform and lack of her iconic cap.◊
  • For U-1146's prototype design, both his eyes are visible, wears a messier uniform◊ and has a mellower personality. His prototype name is UC-16609-1116 or U-1116 for short.
  • Killer-T sports a similar uniform to the Neutrophils, unbuttoned with the words "Kill" on his shirt.
  • Nephron Cell^note cells that produce urine appears as someone who governs the Renal Corpuscle.
  • Cancer Cell appears as the antagonist. Unlike the final manga, he doesn't have any sense of self and acts in a zombie-like matter.
  • Most notably, U-1116's lifespan is only 20 days and will reincarnate when he dies or reaches his lifespan^note  He did reincarnate as U-1117 in the same chapter, and it's implied he still remembers her while Red Blood Cells live up to 120 days. It's kinda understandable why the last detail was left out in the final version, as the story would be more complicated or would be a short series otherwise.

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