I am glad this episode took a different direction than the first two, it certainly gives me hope for the future of this series and what it could do. By this I mean, it not feeling so much of a “Monster of the Week” anime but focus on characters outsides of the main two that we have seen in previous episodes. This episode White and Red were not really there, but instead a new Cell took the spotlight, more on that in a bit.
The Plot:
So, a new cell, Naïve, is a little jumpy to say the least. He may be a T Cell, you know the heavy-duty military guys from previous episodes, but, well, he is nothing like them. He also happens to be attacked by a bunch of zombie like cells, who are infected by Influenza, thus the title of the episode.
Anyway, White saves him, but more show up. Macrophage, another cell shows up to join the fight. She goes on a killing spree despite her soft-spoken nature. Her job is to kill germs and then tell what type of germ or virus it is, which can then be used to combat it.
Naïve seems a bit nervous, and well, when the rest of the T Cells show up, it is kind of obvious. They pick on him and whatnot because he cannot fight.
More fighting happens, and well, Naïve runs away, only to meet another Cell, and get some background information on his senpais, who at one point were just like him, weak and unable to fight. Thus, he is inspired to do better and evolves, or, well activates into an Effector T Cell to help the fight.
It takes a week to end the fight against the zombies. The episode ends when a different strand of the virus shows up causing the fight to continue.
Overall Thoughts:
I am kind of glad Red did not have a huge part this episode, she was in two short scenes and that was it. White might have been seen all episode, but he had more of a background role. I really like how this episode took the focus off of them. I can see more episodes being like this in the future, and personally I would welcome them.
However, I think the biggest downside to this episode is the fact it introduced a lot of different types of Cells, and seemed more info dumping than actual well, anything. But at the same time, it did not take away the focus to Naïve. Without the explanation of the other types of cells, well, his character development would not have happened. On one side, it was a lot to inform on, on the other it had to be done.
This episode also did not put too much focus on the fighting like the last two, and again, that worked out well with what this episode wanted to accomplish. It still maintained its fun and action pack feeling without getting rid of it fully.
So, yeah, good episode.
Overall Enjoyment: 95/100
Overall Score: B
Crunchyroll is streaming this series, and I honestly am uncertain if Funimation is doing a dub.
As always feel free to comment your thoughts on the series.
As always I hope you enjoyed.
Anime Corps has plenty of other things from reviews, editorials, and more to check out, all from other writers.
I am mostly the editor here, but only my personal blog, The Reviewer’s Corner, I have more weekly reviews and a list series. That is here.
Until next time.
– Joe
July 27, 2018 at 9:54 am
Eh, I don’t exactly think the show wasn’t character focused before. I personally was a bit disappointed with this episode. I liked it, but it just was missing something the other two weren’t. The monster of the week thing is definitely how this show is going to go though if the manga is any indication. The info dump bits are gonna stick too, but they are FAR less than the manga. I think it is striking a fair balance.
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July 30, 2018 at 8:38 am
I haven’t read the manga, so, at least that is comforting knowing the info dumping is less than the manga. But, yeah, as much as I enjoyed this episode, it did feel like something was missing too.
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July 27, 2018 at 11:51 am
It did feel like there was a lot more explanation going on in this episode and that, in addition to me not really caring much about Naive as a character, made this probably the weakest episode so far for this series. Not that it was bad, just didn’t give me quite the buzz the first two did.
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July 30, 2018 at 8:39 am
I mean, not that is has been some time since I wrote the post, I still feel indifferent, I can’t really say it was weaker than the previous episodes but I can’t say it was stronger too, it was still a nice change of direction compared to the previous ones. But as for Naive, yeah, I could care less for that character, and I would be surprised if he appears again given the nature of this show.
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July 27, 2018 at 2:02 pm
“Enjoyable except for the infodump” – that’s actually a pretty fair summary…
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