YMMV / Upin & Ipin

• Americans Hate Tingle: Despite the show's success in Malaysia and Indonesia, it is widely hated outside those countries, especially in other parts of Southeast Asia. Moreover, this show is tailored towards the Malay Muslim rural community, so most non-Muslims out there, even the non-Muslim Malaysians, might not get it and see it as a dumb, unentertaining show.
• Archive Panic: A whopping 543 episodes spread across fifteen seasons makes this one quite a binge-watch.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Fizi. Some are really annoyed with his Innocently Insensitive persona, even claiming that he is actually a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. While some defend that he is a child, and he still may not understand between right and wrong of his attitude and his conversation.
  • Kak Ros. Due to some Values Dissonance and Flanderization of her treatment over the Twins which made people view that she is so antagonistic towards them. While most viewers can see her treatment toward the Twins, her Freudian Excuse and her personality are quite understandable.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Giant Serpent in the caverns in Geng. It came out of nowhere and doesn't have any origin and reason to be there other than being another obstacle and the reason why the poachers were able to capture Oopet's mother. At least Oopet and his mother were originally from a different dimension.
• Common Knowledge: Just because there are many Indonesian staff and they have a culture similar to Indonesia doesn't mean that "Upin and Ipin" is originally bought by Malaysian from one of Indonesian cartoonist like the rumors said.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Tok Dalang is remembered fondly by the fanbase for his Cool Old Guy qualities and some of his cool creations, such as the TDR-3000.
  • Mail is also loved by viewers, due to him being a Running Gag of his Money Fetish and sometimes his character is close to most typical "cool kid" in fiction.
  • Jarjit Singh. Because his character is so meme-able to older viewers, full of ham and cheese and never stops using "poems" every time he talks.
  • Abang Salleh/Sally is also pretty well known among the fanbase for his eccentric and effeminate behavior, as well as being secretly caring towards the kids despite what happened in the Geng movie.
• Fandom Heresy: Never say anything bad or comment about Kak Ros's flaws, especially to older fandom who feel that they can relate to her character of being a Parental Substitute or a stressful older sibling taking care of a younger sibling. The majority of them can't take this kind of comment and you will blamed for "Not understanding being forced to "be an adult" at an early teenage age".
• Friendly Fandoms: Overlaps well with BoBoiBoy fanbase, if the meme community is any indication.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: It is wildly popular in Indonesia to the extent where The Simpsons looks obscure, with (often bootleg) merchandises being sold all over the place. This is partly due to most of the Malaysian language sounding hilarious in Indonesian.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: After the debut of Ultraman Ribut, the kids play at being Ultramen with identical masks, only to get into an argument because "we can't both be Ultraman." Turns out it's possible.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Pretty much the only reason people outside of Malaysia and Indonesia have even heard of this show is because of Ultraman Ribut.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: "Upin and Ipin" was the pioneer of iconic 3D Malaysian Animation before BoBoiBoy, Agent Ali and Mechamato aired, which makes the series sort-of iconic back in 2007 until 2010. As the season progresses, many local fans feel "Upin and Ipin" is no longer enjoyable by many viewers, both from older and younger audiences. The exaggeration of the main character's personality, the character not growing up and often being the viral topic of the main story which leads to the show slowly losing its charm.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Mail is always being targeted into this. Mainly because sometimes he becomes the Only Sane Man to the twins and their friends and his character being close to leaning towards a "cool kid" in fiction. Occurred to the extent that older viewers like to joke his interactions with Mei-mei as a Ship Tease while in-universe, he has Puppy Love towards Susanti.
  • Post Season 2, Tok Dalang has gained this status as he seemingly is able to do anything as demanded, as well as defaultly being a good role model towards the kids.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Abang Sally is often portrayed as this after getting knocked out in one punch by Kak Ros in Geng.
  • Fizi is already a Butt-Monkey in the franchise proper, but after his insensitive remarks towards the twins below, the fanbase would associate his name for being an equivalent of an offensive slur.
  • Even animal characters aren't safe - Rembo, Tok Dalang's pet rooster, ALWAYS gets into unfortunate situations, especially in later episodes.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Dua Seringgit^Explanation "Dua Seringgit" stands for two piece for 1 ringgit, which is the common price for Mail's goods. It's almost always used by him that it's essentially his Catchphrase. Naturally, the fanbase ran wild with it.
  • CANCEL FIZI/FIZI TAK ADE AKHLAK^Explanation Thanks to his insensitive remark that there are no paradise for motherless orphans which ended up dousing the situation for both of the twins and Kak Ros in Eid Fitr Special in 2020, Fizi receives a flak for his actions to the point that he issued an apology to the twin that framed like he's apologizing to the entire viewerbase. An effort to defame and cancel Fizi as a character for his actions even to this day, especially after some of her more insensitive remarks from past episodes come to light, to the point of calling him a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. Naturally, jokes about obscuring his face and censoring his name akin to an offensive slur starts appearing.
  • The teaser image of the most recent episode shows the twins with hair◊, which fans have been pointing fun at and made haircut variations for the twins^Explanation Said episode is actually just the twins daydreaming again about having hair from the point of Fizi bragging off his hairstyle and belittling the twins for having no hair. After the dream sequence ends, the twins were given wigs with roughly similar design of what they dreamt off, but they discarded it because the other kids doesn't like them without their signature bald cut.
    • "BOTAK!"^Explanation The quote when Fizi belittles Upin and Ipin's lack of hair from said episode, which caused a mental breakdown for the twins. Often used as an example for the show's decline in writing quality in the newer seasons, changing the personality of the twins.
  • "Macam tak betul je budak ni"^Explanation Lim's quotable line upon seeing Rajoo talking to his cow in the Geng movie; Malay for "There is something wrong with this kid." Often used as a reaction meme for anything suspicious. Kak Ros would later use this exact quote in later episodes.
  • "Wuih, mengerikan!"^Explanation The start of Tok Dalang's description of the Durian Ghost; Malay for "It's horrifying!" Used by memers to describe anything they think is scary, jokingly or not. Some use Tok Dalang's full description if they want to describe it even further.
• Mis-blamed: Sure, both Malaysia and Indonesia share many similarities in their cultures. However, local fans from Malaysia feel that the show is "pandering" too much to the Indonesian audience due to the show still being popular in its country while is no longer being the "most iconic animation" in Malaysia.
• Narm: The English dubs. If you are not used to hearing Malaysian-English, their dialogues might be a bit hard to take seriously. Some voices count as well.
• Periphery Demographic: Many long time fans who started to watch the show as a kid would eventually grew up as an adult. As such, the fanbase is often consisting of people who watched it in the past.
• Ron the Death Eater: After his moment when he insensitively responded to the twins that if they have no mother they can't go to the paradise, Fizi has gained this status among the fanbase and is regarded as being mean and secretly evil. Never mind that he's still a little child and later issued an apology towards the viewers for his ignorance, but few would occasionally point out some of the mean moments prior to the above, such as accusing Jarjit for wanting to become a thief, or teasing on Ehsan for his limited eyesight, or in the newer episode, belittling the twins for not having a single strand of hair, something that they all can't fully control.
• Seasonal Rot: Many believed that after season 9, the show's writing start nosediving in quality, due to the toning down of the down-to-earth Slice of Life moments the series is well-known for and a significant increase of over-the-top moments, comedy scenes, and commercialization of the show, the former being exclusively reserved for Imagine Spot in past seasons.
• Self-Fanservice: Unfortunately, Kak Ros is occasionally a victim to this. If you're a Malay watcher and a fan of the show, we recommend you not to search any of the artwork if you don't want to see any of your childhood being ruined.
• Spiritual Successor: This show is pretty much Rugrats in Malaysia.
• Squick: See Unusual Euphemism on main page
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many people (mainly Indonesians) believe that the series' quality started to decline since the introduction of Cikgu Melati, who substitutes Cikgu Jasmin as the teacher in Tadika Mesra, which significantly changed the personalities of all the students.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • Jarjit looks like somewhere between a short grown man or a fast-growing kid and it's a bit unsettling. Though it's most obvious that he's voiced by an adult as shown in the credits.
  • The monkeys. Their large eyes make them look a bit too human (by the standards of the show's art style).
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Fizi in Eid Fitr special in 2020 ultimately fell into this. It's start when he, the twins and Mail are talking about "Paradise lies beneath the mother's feet". When the twins realized they are orphans, Fizi playfully mocked that they "will" not enter the paradise since they are motherless, which leaves them completely silent and sad over his statement. Instead of feeling bad or apologizing to them, he laughs at that which makes Mail hit him out of anger. While some of the viewers defend him and say that it's part of his Innocently Insensitive and that he is still a 5 years old child, and the writers probably intended this scene to show that children need to have or know social filter while socializing, most of viewer lost their respect to his character especially since most of Upin and Ipin's friends know that they are orphans. To the point, most of them make some Alternative Character Interpretation that his "cry baby" and cowardy persona actually was his"facade", which made viewers thinking that he is worse from his Spoiled Brat cousin, Ehsan.
• Values Dissonance: The show is popular among Muslims in Malaysia, but not those of other religions living in the country, due to being tailored to the rural Muslim lifestyle, and it also has a Conservative bias which does not resonate with those of other religions who live a more progressive and secular lifestyle. This is also probably why the show is failing to catch on outside of Malaysia and Indonesia.
• The Woobie:
  • The eponymous twins counts. They were left by their parents at very young age and has no recollection of it. Fizi insensitively remarks that motherless orphans will have no access to paradise also makes it worse.
  • Ijat. He's illiterate and doesn't have many friends to talk with since he communicates solely through emotive grunts, which not everyone sans Dzul understands. At least until Cikgu Jasmin discovered it and start personally taught him to read, where he would start talking normally every now and then. Then his house got caught on fire...

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