Yumi's Cells (유미의 세포들; Yumiui Sepodeul) is a live-action/animated hybrid TV drama based on the webcomic of the same name. It aired on Viki on September 17, 2021 and has two seasons with fourteen episodes each.
32-year-old Yumi Kim lives her life as an office worker. Personified emotions live in her brain and work together to help her navigate life, though they tend to argue a lot. Love Cell has been in a coma since Yumi was abandoned by her previous boyfriend, but Yumi's crush sets her love life back in motion by setting her up on a blind date. As Yumi works through her new relationship, she also rediscovers an old passion that changes the path of her career.
Yumi's Cells contains examples of:
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Louis had long, unkempt hair and a beard in the webcomic, but he has shorter hair and is clean-shaven in the adaptation.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Compared to the World of Technicolor Hair in the source, the characters have more realistic dark hair. Yi Da and Ruby, however, have dark auburn hair while their webcomic counterparts had black hair.
- Adapted Out: A number of characters are cut from the show, and their roles are taken by other characters.
- Woong's Naughty Cell doesn't exist, so Naughtysaurus roams freely.
- Babi's Detective Cell and Overreacting Cell have their roles split between the typical Rational/Emotional/Love Cell trio.
- Yunhee, Daeyong's girlfriend, is replaced by Yi Da and Ruby.
- Age Lift: Daeyong is the same age as Yumi in the webcomic, but he's her seonbae in the TV drama. This is presumably to preserve the age gap romance now that Yi Da takes Yunhee's place.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Woong takes off his jacket and gives it to Babi after passing out and seeing Yumi wearing Babi's jacket.
- Cathartic Chores:
- After Yumi runs into her ex, she angrily cleans up around the house.
- As the deadline for Yumi's manuscript approaches, Housekeeping Cell suddenly has the desire to do his job.
- Celebrity Paradox: While looking for the Babi Yoo fan club, Rational Cell comes across the Choi Min Ho club that wants to call Minho from SHINee "Oppa". Nobody makes note of the fact that Minho was Wu Gi, Yumi's crush in the first season.note
- Cutlery Escape Aid: Fashion Cell has been digging a hole with a spoon in her prison cell until she gets paroled.
- Depower: Love Cell is demoted from Prime Cell after Yumi breaks up with Babi, and Writer Cell takes her place. Writer Cell is then demoted when she ditches her job after Yumi loses her laptop. Both of them return to their blue suits and lose their Prime Cell powers.
- Flash Forward: Yumi's most embarrassing moment, when she told Ji Wu-Gi that she and Woong were getting married, is framed by a record-keeping Cell giving a tour of the library 40 years in the future. Yumi is revealed to be a married woman, though the face of the groom is obscured.
- Follow That Car: When Yumi sees Babi in a taxi when he should have been in the US, she gets in the next taxi and tells the driver to follow him.
- Fury-Fueled Foolishness: Emotional Cell gets so upset when Ji Wu-Gi tells Yumi that he's getting married that she starts rambling about Yumi and Woong getting married.
- Gender Flip: Writer Cell and Stingy (Cheapskate Cell) are female while their webcomic counterparts are male.
- Headdesk: Writer Cell slams her head on the ground when she realizes she didn't back up Yumi's misplaced laptop.
- Offscreen Romance: Yi Da and Daeyong's wedding is announced in a bit of Bait-and-Switch when Woong thinks Yumi is getting married to Babi. At the wedding, Yumi explains that they happened to run into each other when meeting with her, and they started going out.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Woong gets a wedding invitation from Yumi and sees her apparently moving out and taking out a loan. He congratulates her and says he looks forward to seeing her in a wedding dress, much to her confusion. It turns out the wedding invitation was for Yi Da and Daeyong's wedding, and Yumi was buying and remodeling her apartment. She thought Woong was congratulating her success until he brought up the wedding.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: To compress the lengthy webcomic into a few 14-episode seasons, scenes from several different arcs are merged. Na Ri's wedding stands out, as it also comprises Yumi's run-in with her ex, Yumi's resolve to look her best at the wedding (originally for a different wedding), and Yumi's attempt to hype down Woong when she expects him to look like a mess (originally for the Christmas party).
- Race for Your Love: After Yumi turns down Babi, she realizes she does have feelings for him, so she chases after him at the park. It brings back memories of her running to Wu Gi only to get set up on a blind date, weakening her resolve. Babi finds her anyway, so she can confess her feelings.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Writer Cell jumps out of her palace when Yumi fails to find her lost manuscript before Yi Da and Daeyong's wedding.
- Sequel Hook: At the end of season 2, Yumi gets a message from a new editor whom she met at the corporate party but forgot. She thinks back to the hazy details of their meeting, but she can't remember his name or face. The episode closes on a message of him revealing his name: Sin Sun Rok.
- Setting Update: The show is set a few years later than the webtoon so the relative distance to the present is the same.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: The "couple T-shirt" scene plays out similarly to the source material but goes a bit farther. Yumi cuddles with Woong while he's shirtless, and the camera pans to the couple shirts.
- Sudden Eye Colour: The Cells had black eyes throughout the webcomic. In CGI, most of them have light blue eyes.
- Visual Pun: Straightforwardness is depicted as a fastball stone, since they sound the same in Korean.
