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Rock Band POLYSICS Perform Cells at Work! Code Black Anime's Theme Song

The official website for the rock band POLYSICS announced on Sunday that the band created a song specifically to be the theme for the anime of Shigemitsu Harada and Issei Hatsuyoshiya's Cells at Work! Code Black (Hataraku Saibō Black) spinoff manga. The theme song is titled "Hashire! with Yamasaki Seiya (Kyūso Nekokami)" (Run!), and as the title indicates, Kyūso Nekokami band vocalist Seiya Yamasaki joins the band on the song.

The anime will premiere in January 2021.

Hideyo Yamamoto (Strike the Blood, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka) is directing the series at LIDEN FILMS. Hayashi Mori (The Snack World, Layton Mystery Tanteisha: Katori no Nazotoki File) is supervising and writing the series scripts. Eiji Abiko (Last Hope, Baby Blue) is designing the characters, and Yūgo Kanno (Psycho-Pass, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable) is composing the music.

Junya Enoki is playing Red Blood Cell (Erythrocite), Yōko Hikasa is playing White Blood Cell (Neutrophilic), and Kenjirō Tsuda is narrating the anime. The other cast members include:

• KENN as Red Blood Cell
• Lynn as White Bood Cell (Neutrophilic)
• Yumi Uchiyama as White Bood Cell (Neutrophilic)
• Takashi Narumi as Gastric Chief Cell
• Yurika Kubo as Platelet

Kodansha Comics licensed the manga, and it describes the story:

In this new spinoff of the hit manga, a newbie Red Blood Cell is one of 37 trillion working to keep this body running. But something's wrong! Stress hormones keep yelling at him to go faster. The blood vessels are crusted over with cholesterol. Ulcers, fatty liver, trouble (ahem) downstairs... It's hard for a cell to keep working when every day is a CODE BLACK!

The manga and anime Cells at Work! showed you what happens when a young, healthy body gets in trouble... but what if the body wasn't so young, and was never very healthy? This new take stars a fresh-faced Red Blood Cell and his friend, the buxom White Blood Cell, as they struggle to keep themselves and their world together through alcoholism, smoking, erectile dysfunction, athlete's foot, gout... it's literal body horror! Whoever this guy is, he's lucky his cells can't go on strike!

Harada and Hatsuyoshi launched the manga in Morning and the Weekly D Morning digital manga magazine in June 2018. Kodansha published the manga's sixth compiled book volume on April 23. Kodansha Comics published the sixth volume in English on October 27.

The Cells at Work! Code Black anime has a separate staff and cast from Cells at Work!! (with two exclamation points), the previously announced second anime season of Akane Shimizu's Cells at Work! manga. The second Cells at Work! anime season is also debuting in January 2021.

A theatrical anime based on a story from volume 5 of the original manga premiered in theaters in Japan on September 5. Aniplex stated that the anime will screen in theaters before it airs on TV as part of the second season. The theatrical anime's full title is: Tokubetsu Jōei-ban "Hataraku Saibō!!" Saikyō no Teki, Futatabi. Karada no Naka wa "Chō" Ōsawagi! (Special Screening Edition: "Cells at Work!!" The Return of the Strongest Enemy. A Huge Uproar Inside the Body's "Bowels!").

The first television anime of the original manga premiered in July 2018 and aired for 13 episodes. Aniplex of America streamed the series on Crunchyroll, and Funimation added the show in February. The company released the anime on Blu-ray Disc with an English dub in August 2019. A new anime special aired in December 2018, and Crunchyroll is streaming the special.

Sources: POLYSICS' official website, Music Natalie via Otakomu