K-Drama: Rom-Com That Your Cells Would Relate To

Yumi’s Cells | 유미의 세포들 (2021)

Everyone has multiple thoughts, opinions, emotions, and personalities that run wild inside. But these all come together to make one you. Yumi’s Cells makes a very creative approach towards what goes on inside a person’s head, representing each emotion as so-called “cells”. This K-Drama that I’m about to introduce to you is about Yumi, her life, and the cells that love her more than anything else in the world. 

tvN / Naver WEBTOON

The story of Yumi’s Cells originates from one of the most popular webtoons in Korea. In the cartoon series, it wasn’t a difficult job to show both real people and the cells inside them - since of course, they're all drawn images. This was one of the reasons why the webtoon’s fans were concerned when they came across the news of the K-Drama remake. Despite the worries, the series was a huge success! Using a very novel concept of collaborating animated scenes and real-life scenes, the show invites us to the different characters’ “cell town”. The quality of the animation met top standards, which I think, made the live-action & animation transition so smooth. 

tvN | Yumi's Cells

To talk a little bit about these adorable cells that live in a town in Yumi’s head, there are thousands that each represents every little thought of Yumi’s. The interactions between the cells and each event that happens in the town are what makes the simple daily-life incidents of Yumi so fascinating. The few main cells that lead most of Yumi’s decisions include Reason, the one who thinks rationally and realistically to make the best decisions. Emotion, the one who lives in fantasy and is very easily triggered 😂 Hunger, the biggest sized cell in Yumi’s cell town, in charge of her appetite. Detective, who isn’t always correct, yet helps to solve minor mysteries and attempts to read others’ hidden intentions. There are other few cells that make as many appearances as these four, like Fashion, Hysterious, Naughty, Anxiety, etc. Out of all, the most important cell of Yumi is Love, her prime cell. In this series, they say that everyone has a “prime cell” that is the most powerful and influential in the cell town, determining the person’s core values. For Yumi, that’s Love, meaning that her most treasured values lie with love relationships.

tvN | Yumi's Cells

This makes it easy for this rom-com to roll, as the story unfolds around Yumi’s love life. Yumi (Go-Eun Kim) is a very ordinary girl in her 30s, who works in the Accounting department at DaeHan Noodles. After an emotionally traumatic breakup that happened three years ago, her Love cell went into a coma ever since. Things were fine and Yumi was busy with work until she started having feelings for a colleague, Woogi (Minho Choi). That’s when Love opens her eyes and brushes off the dust off of Yumi’s long-forgotten love life. There are three guys that Yumi encounters in the series, Woogi, Woong, and Babi - which relationship will you root for?

tvN | Yumi's Cells

I am actually in love with how realistic and “ordinary” Yumi’s life is. There’s nothing too special or unusual about her life events and struggles that she faces. This personally made it easy for me to relate to super fast. Nonetheless, the cells inside her make us feel like she’s the most special being on earth! All the cells work constantly to make Yumi’s life a better one and feel her emotions with her. They always have Yumi’s back and support her in every way possible. While watching the series, I felt like there might also be thousands of cells inside me that loves me more than I love myself - and somehow this got me feeling very warmhearted and comforted 🥰

tvN | Yumi's Cells "Fighting Yumi!"

Spoiler Alert! In the final episode of Season 1, the scene where the viewers felt most touched was when Yumi dreams of visiting the cell town. On the town bulletin board, cells write down thoughts and wishes and the Bulletin Board Manager Cell comes by each night and bins whatever thoughts that are not considered important. Yumi tells the cell that she wants to stick a note on the board that says “I want a happy ending with Woong.” To Yumi’s surprise, the Bulletin Board Manager Cell tells her that Woong isn’t the male lead in Yumi’s life. When Yumi asks who is, the response was stronger than any other. “There’s only one leading person in this place.” Yumi’s Cells is telling us that the most important person and the only main lead in one’s life is themselves, and that got everyone tearing up a bit 🥺

There are fourteen episodes to Season 1, and the second season is being filmed right now with new characters starring! If you’re planning to be a happy couch potato this holiday, make sure you’re on track with Yumi's Cells for some heartwarming & hilarious rom-com to be ready for Season 2 next year! Watch the trailer here 👉 https://bit.ly/3rsPW7b