This review may contain spoilers
Basic plot elevated by great execution
I started this for the cells and pretty much ended it for the cells.I have to say all the scenes where they focus on psychological aspects and what's going on inside Yumi's head with the cells were amazing to watch and not just because they were hella cute (obviously they 1000% were xD), but because you could clearly see how much thought and research the webtoon artist put into these scenes.
Average and mundane stuff that I am sure everyone goes through- feeling insecure,making and breaking resolutions, doing chores (or not doing them lol), getting crushes, reigniting a old hobby and countless other things- were presented in such a beautiful way... I'd be surprised if anyone didn't find them relatable.
Also Yumi and Woong's relationship felt really realistic. They were two characters with very real flaws dealing with very real problems that pop up in relationships like trust and communication issues. Personally for me this was both a plus and minus point because while on one hand I appreciated the realistic aspects, it also became boring really quickly. At one point I had basically stopped caring about their relationship altogether. But there were a lot of cute scenes sprinkled throughout to keep me engaged.
My major complaint against this was sometimes it felt all the live action scenes were written in the 90s, the internalised misogyny was so strong here. Maybe I am thinking too much because at the end it's just supposed to be a cute rom-com but I didn't like how Yumi's entire personality revolved around her love life and boys, or how they were constantly throwing the fact that 'girls and boys can't be just friends' in our face, or how Yumi's friend circle were pitying her when they thought she didn't have a boyfriend (like the idea of a girl being single and living her best live is so scandalous). There were quite a few of such scenes but these are the only ones I remember.
By the end they did give Yumi a bit of development with her focusing on her career and finally putting herself first on her priority list but it was too little too late imo.
As for s2 I feel like we might see more of Yumi's development and obviously the cells are always there so I will check it out.
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I like how authentic and vibrant Yumi's cells are, only the story is a bit lackluster
Yumi develops a crush one day, long after being dumped by her boyfriend. This awakens her love cell, which sends her to literally run after him. Our story continues as we see Yumi's cells embracing her new love with the ups and downs of her emotions.I like the creativity of Yumi Cells for these personified cells with such diverse emotions and that they are given a real city. They even got a legal justice system and my favorite is the endorphins band stage! So epic! The fun color tone also adds to that youthful kind of bubblegum fun feeling.
At first, not all the cell moments land because they ruined the emotional momentum of the real-life scenes. But as the show went on the pacing and the balance between characters and the cells really smooths out. I’m having fun with Wung cells' teamwork and his algorithms towards unexpected situations, they were so random yet unique 🐻 #IYKYK
No doubt acting is excellent, but I’m not so happy about the romance arc: it’s too youthful; with strong egos, naive, miscommunications, which is not a bad thing IF they resolve it. The two supporting girls who were jealous of Yumi are very annoying like nasty mosquitoes… and their roles suit best as a spice to develop our lead's growth, but they weren't really use this potential.
The ending is proper but feels very incomplete. I don't think they're given enough closure, besides getting to know Yumi and the people around her, and their flaws.
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This review may contain spoilers
Unrealistic / Gradually Cringy / Not for the Old Schoolers
The concept of cells ? Awesome and original. The cartoon characters ? Super cool. I was a fan of the leads at first, but some things annoyed me so much that by the 11th episode, I couldn’t keep watching this show.Let’s keep in mind that these two are in their 30s, just like me.
First it was the beach outfit on a first date, which means in real life « I don’t really care about anything, I’m sloppy », but I tolerated it.
Then when she insisted on paying for some dates, I started feeling weird. If you’re one of those 50/50 girls or boys good for you. This is a turn off for me personally. I’m attracted to leaders. This « girls paying for dates » concept is not happening among most Koreans, and definitely NOT millennials, considering that on average, women are raised to date men who make more money than them, to sustain a family. And that was the case for this couple, he OWNED a house, and had his own business while OWNING that house. If he could pay for an officetel apartment (some of the most expensive places, in Korea, that the middle class generally cannot afford), he earned way more than she did.
The last straw for me was when she insisted that he moves in with her after she found out he was sleeping at his office because he sold his place. And worse, he gave in. A capable, grown man, who sold his own house and therefore has more than enough money in the bank, and whose office is actually an apartment. The guy wasn’t wandering in the streets, give me a break. In real life, a man with pride would move back in with his parents as a LAST resort, before he would even allow himself to be housed by his girlfriend, especially as a former officetel apartment OWNER. Let the man figure it out, and bounce back, cheer him up, but don’t mommy him. Also, this whole forcing him to shave his beard was annoying. His beard was neat. Can you imagine a guy telling his girlfriend that he met with short hair (as that was the case for YuMi) to absolutely let her hair grow and insists, threatening to break up if she keeps her hair short ? Ummm it’s a no for me.
So I checked the ratings in Korea, less than 3%, even for tvN this is pretty low. It figures. This guy would be seen as irresponsible in his country at his age, and in most Traditional countries or circles.
I hope YuMi wrote and sold that book, because I was rooting for her. I hope Woong’s business took off because I was rooting for him too. But this childish, « can’t communicate like grown adults », « can’t stay with you if you don’t move in with me although you have the amount of the cost of a house in your account, and a big apartment as an office », « you’re a well-off man, but subway’s on me » type of script, is LITERALLY NOT MY CUP OF TEA. To each their own.
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This review may contain spoilers
Great Cells, mediocre everything else.
You know the storyline is in trouble when the writers revert to poop jokes like five year olds...I know this is a favourite of many, and it broke my heart a bit to drop it because the cells really were fantastic and if they had their own show I'd love it! But unfortunately, the cells were never meant to be the main characters of this drama, it's a love story between two flesh and blood people and it isn't a very interesting one. We have misunderstanding after misunderstanding, an Evil Other Woman and of course, the famous poop humour. All these "delights" can take up half an episode, and that just makes the overly long episodes seem even longer.
No show can survive on only a cute gimmick, there has to be good writing involved. Sadly, the writers concentrated too much on good lines for the little cells, and the main couple was left with second hand scraps. And that's my cue to run far away from this drama.
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So much wasted potential
Well, it gets an A for creativity, but that's it. Yumi is considerably less mature than she should be at her age and sometimes she's unjustifiably an absolute 'b'. Ruby, well she's the cliche annoying child trapped in an adult body. The ML's best friend is the cliche manipulative hag. The male lead, bless, is not a cliche anything so I rather enjoyed his character.I couldn't watch more than one episode at a time, I had to take a couple of days off in between them...to forget the pain of watching. How I made it all the way to episode 11 boggles one's mind.
The actors did well with what they had, as the old saying goes (that I just made up), you can't make a Strawberries Arnaud out of cereal box ingredients.
That's it for me, I'll never be desperate or bored enough to revisit this.
Disclaimer...I'm old.
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A unique premise, but otherwise all over the place
I want to start this review by saying that I did not know how there would be more seasons. I did not know the webtoon and how long it was. I thought this would be all there was.Yumi's Cells is a comedy/romance drama, so there needs to be some uncontrollable force asserting itself every episode to keep the plot going. However, unlike other series that use force majeure, the FL creates every single problem.
What I'm about to say might sound harsh, but I cannot believe that a 32-year-old behaves like this towards a partner. I'm not saying that she's wrong in all instances, but it's just how she decides to handle things. She's not in her twenties anymore - she even proclaims how they were stolen from her by her ex! Another woman getting too close to your partner should be treated calmly and with a discussion with your partner about personal boundaries, not by becoming controlling and causing the "rival" to quit her job. That is highly unprofessional and immature behavior. Again, Yumi is allowed to feel intimidated by this; many would, but acting like a child will only make herself look ridiculous.
Yumi and Wung are very different, and I think the series is much too focused on his faults than Yumi's. I know it will be biased because the only perspective we get is her own and her cells'. They both have some baggage to deal with, and they are not equipped to help the other. The drama tends to stand with Yumi as she's had a nasty breakup earlier as if that justifies everything a person does.
This drama seems so drawn out sometimes, but blink, and you'll miss some significant change in the plot. Some events seem so out of the blue this way, and even those you can predict happen in weird ways. The last three episodes gave me whiplash.
I don't want this to end on a negative note. So I will say that I love the cells and their commentary. Many people in the live comments thought they were annoying, but they made the show much more watchable for me. I would have loved it if the cells were the focus of the drama, and Yumi's life only showed up once in a while. But that would have been more of a cartoon, I guess.
I don't know if I will watch season 2. I'm just afraid that it will be a rinse and repeat plot until the end.
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This review may contain spoilers
Yumi’s Cell is the first Korean drama to blend in animation into the drama in such a intrinsic way. You can seen that there is a lot of work behind it and these little animated figures do a lot for the story and make it stand out from other dramas. The story really come to life because of them.The drama manages to bridge the gap between rom-com and more slice-of-life drama in my opinion. To me it has this calm and gentle focus the characters’ everyday lives that never feels too dramatic or unnatural, aside from the animated characters that bring out the more cute and comedic side of the story.
the cells that bring the humor (and are often my favorite parts of each episode) while the other characters get to be much more down-to-earth. It still has some those characters that you often find in traditional rom-coms but it manages to undermine some of these tropes and make it refreshing to watch. You can really just sit back and relax while watching the episodes.
Some of the side characters do not feel as complex, which may because we do not get to see the cells of all of them work like Yumi or Gu Woong who are in the leads and perhaps the drama relays a little too much on those cell characters to understand the nuances of the characters. But when it does the drama does a good job of showing all the little twists and turns of communication that Yumi or Gu Woong encounter, whether you agree with them or not, because you see the thoughts behind them.
The cells are a key factor in this and often make you look at things from a different perspective. The story really seems to stand by it’s characters though and allows them to be unlikeable when needs be, and also gives us a good lgbt representative (although he does not appear as often as I would like him to do) as kdrams do not do that often.
The pacing a bit unconventional and the story focuses a lot on communication and misunderstanding when Yumi steps back into the dating world after many years of closing her heart and the mistakes that come with that as a result. And I thought it managed to bring that theme it pretty well to the forefront without dragging the plot or making it too dramatic. The story always seems rather mild and light in my opinion. There was a certain calm over the story no matter what happened.
I found Yumi’s Cell to be quite sweet, warm and funny drama to watch. It is missing a key element that I like in kdramas, which is that the story hasn’t ended yet because we are only at the end of season one. I personally really enjoy kdramas because we get a beginning, middle and a end in about 16 episode. It’s one of their charms. There is so many shows that drag the plot and the tension until most of everything you enjoyed about the series is no longer there. But I’m excited to see how Yumi’s Cells handle this multiple season format. The drama is sweet and stands out from other dramas and just hope the next series manages to keep them charming and not drag the story out.
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THE CELLS <33333
I wasn't planning on writing a review until I finished this drama, but it just gets better every episode!After watching the first episode I found it too be a bit lame with the animated cells and thought this drama wouldn't be for me... BUT IT IS AMAZING. It's really a feel-good romantic comedy drama, but of course I am sensing some deeper more dramatic scenes happening in the future. Though Yumi and Woong are super adorable, it's their cells that steal the show!!
I really like how the cells have their own adventures happening 'inside' of their human and though it's a bit goofy I think it really balances out what happens in the real world. When Yumi's cell 'lust' entered the screen I just couldn't stop laughing! It was really funny and I just love the way the drama jumps from drama to animation.
I definitely recommend this drama, can't wait for the future episodes!
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Hello gender conventions
This drama has a whole lot of stuff that where sweet, colorful and fluffy, a bunch of interesting characters, varied pace and shows quite a few interesting ways to handle awkward situations. To be honest I liked the characters more than their cells but the cells where a very interesting and important touch for this show.The cells are these adorable small Inside out meets smurfs combination that do a great job showing the complexity to a persons thoughts as well as what stress can do to ones mind. However they also did one h*** of a job showing how strong gender conventions as well as the man as norm are rooted in our society without making it to obvious. Either that or this was an attempt of showing a person who is non binary without telling us, since Yumis cells where both masculine and feminine while Woongs cells where all masculine or AI. It was lovely to see that Umie was allowed to have a naughty cell, but put up against the dinosaur in Woongs head, Yumies little slightly annoying naughty cell is way easyer to control. So again Men you should probably speak up and ask them to tame the beasts in next season. This reflects well on the conventions we meet in society so I can not complain about it too much but will say that it does not have to be that way...
All in all it was an okay watch, some parts where more predictable than others and they did make me feel for them...
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The actors and actress do it so well. Good story line. Just that the OST are average and too much filter. Sometimes the faces are too white due to filter. I like to see the beauty but I wish they do the other filters instead of making it too white.
I love the voice actors too. Especially the detective cell haha. He is just too cute and funny.
As for the story, I really like it even though romance is not my tea. The story is very realistic. Not everything will follow the wish. There are many things we can’t control. The series not necessarily have an happy ending if the plot is good.
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Quite sweet , warm and funny - Worth watch it !
Yumi’s Cell is the first Korean drama to blend in animation into the drama in such a intrinsic way. You can seen that there is a lot of work behind it and these little animated figures do a lot for the story and make it stand out from other dramas. The story really come to life because of them.The drama manages to bridge the gap between rom-com and more slice-of-life drama in my opinion. To me it has this calm and gentle focus the characters’ everyday lives that never feels too dramatic or unnatural, aside from the animated characters that bring out the more cute and comedic side of the story.
the cells that bring the humor (and are often my favorite parts of each episode) while the other characters get to be much more down-to-earth. It still has some those characters that you often find in traditional rom-coms but it manages to undermine some of these tropes and make it refreshing to watch. You can really just sit back and relax while watching the episodes.
Some of the side characters do not feel as complex, which may because we do not get to see the cells of all of them work like Yumi or Gu Woong who are in the leads and perhaps the drama relays a little too much on those cell characters to understand the nuances of the characters. But when it does the drama does a good job of showing all the little twists and turns of communication that Yumi or Gu Woong encounter, whether you agree with them or not, because you see the thoughts behind them.
The cells are a key factor in this and often make you look at things from a different perspective. The story really seems to stand by it’s characters though and allows them to be unlikeable when needs be, and also gives us a good lgbt representative (although he does not appear as often as I would like him to do) as kdrams do not do that often.
The pacing a bit unconventional and the story focuses a lot on communication and misunderstanding when Yumi steps back into the dating world after many years of closing her heart and the mistakes that come with that as a result. And I thought I managed to bring that theme it pretty well to the forefront without dragging the plot or making it too dramatic. The story always seems rather mild and light in my opinion. There was a certain calm over the story no matter what happened.
I found Yumi’s Cell to be quite sweet, warm and funny drama to watch. It is missing a key element that I like in kdramas, which is that the story hasn’t ended yet because we are only at the end of season one. I personally really enjoy kdramas because we get a beginning, middle and a end in about 16 episode. It’s one of their charms. There is so many shows that drag the plot and the tension until most of everything you enjoyed about the series is no longer there. But I’m excited to see how Yumi’s Cells handle this multiple season format. The drama is sweet and stands out from other dramas and just hope the next series manages to keep them charming and not drag the story out.
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