Imagine if WBC from the original series gets transplanted into the body from Code Black because the guy needed a blood transfusion for his low iron and WBC count.
a review by a selective sharing U-1146 yume who's also a pathology nerd .
Episode 1 : Pneumococcus
This is my 3rd time rewatching this but i'm still super excited hehe ..
the episode starts with AE3803 ( a very ditzy red blood cell , i'm pretty sure she's actually a sickle cell due to her ahoge being shaped just like one ) getting attacked by a bunch of pneumococcus bacteria , when U-1146 comes to rescue her . ( he's a white blood cell from the neutrophil division , and he looks so bad ass (,,> ᴗ <,,) guhh i love him )
After they part their ways , AE3803 , who has a HORRIBLE sense of direction , wanders around on her way to deliver oxygen , but ends up lost and . . . face to face with a pneumococcus ( again , my poor girl ) . She ends up smashing the door in its face and getting yelled at for pretending it didn't happen . . . BUT U-1146 finds them and attempts to fight them off , but the bacteria pins him and 3803 down after tossing a capsule ( his bacteria shell ) , he continues following it all the way to the lungs even though he's still in the capsule , dragging 3803 along hehe , which ends up being kinda helpful since that was where she was supposed to go anyway .
U-1146 explains that the germ is a pneumococcus bacterium , a bacteria that can cause pneumonia, but it can also cause a condition called pneumococcal bacteremia . Simply put , it'd be bad for the body if they just let him escape .
His receptors go off , but the bacteria is nowhere to be seen ( oh boy , i wonder where it could be ! ) , they keep making their way to the lungs anyways , coming across the cutest little things , a road block of platelets , who are struggling to fix a mistake with delivery , the two blood cells help them out , then continue on their way .
Mysteriously , when they part ways , U-1146's receptors stop going off , and after getting some help from her senior , AE3803 finally makes it to the lungs !
When she arrives , the pneumococcus they were looking for bursts out of her oxygen box , and attacks her ( why does she have horrible luck ? ) . Fortunately white blood cells are transmigrating cells , meaning he can move through blood vessels to reach the bacteria .
He gets captured in the bacteria's capsule again , but he has a plan this time !
1146 and 3803 retreat to the bronchial tubes , the bacteria following them , where he gets captured by a capsule launched by 1146 , which he has no way to break ! While the bacteria is getting dealt with , the blood cells go out to get some tea together , when they see a rocket launch , a sneeze , which is one of the ways the body gets rid of bacteria .
The episode ends with the two telling each other they might never see each other again , since there's so many other cells in the body .
This episode is one of my favorites simply because of how nostalgic it is , i remember watching it for the first time and immediately falling in love with U-1146 , he's so brave (⸝⸝๑ ̫ ๑⸝⸝⸝) .
It's a great adaptation from the manga and so accurate to how the human body actually works , even down to the pneumococcus being blue , which is because they're gram-positive bacteria that get stained blue in labs !
Overall it's an amazing introduction to an anime and really gets you invested in the world and biology in general , you can tell the mangaka and team were super passionate when writing it .
