YMMV / Yumi's Cells

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Babi himself admits that he doesn't do nice things without reason, which coupled with his mysterious fascination with Yumi made a lot of Webtoon fans think he was trying to date her from the start. This paints him as a manipulative two-timer, since he was still with his old girlfriend at the time.
• Archive Panic: The comic has 511 chapters, with roughly 30 panels per chapter. That's at least 1500 panels. Following the conversion to the Daily Pass system, with two passes per day, it would take six months to read from start to finish without special promotions.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Babi - the ideal boyfriend and perfect for Yumi, or a boring borderline character with no personality to speak of? While he does get a major flaw later on (namely, his tendency to overreact in a situation and do more than what's called for), fans also debated if it humanized him or didn't count as much of a flaw at all.
  • For that matter, Yumi herself. Is she a go-getter, hardworking young woman who's making steady emotional improvement over the course of the series, or is she a hypocritical and immature partner who doesn't truly put in her two cents when it counts? Some fans also argue how much she was at fault in any of her relationships and whether or not she receives any meaningful challenges in her life.
  • Woong gets plenty of criticism too. Some fans find him an immature and clingy suitor for still having feelings for Yumi after their breakup and trying to get back with her years after the fact, which only get worse when he actually confronts Babi. Others find his boyishness and flaws as a boyfriend refreshing and a good contrast with Yumi's dilemmas.
• Broken Base: Who was really at fault for Yumi and Babi's initial breakup? One side argues that Babi was completely in the wrong as he should have known better than to accidentally encourage his employee Da-eun's already blatant crush on him by giving her his jacket, and the narrative has already shown multiple times that his tendency to give mixed signals or come on too strong played a crucial role in his failed relationships. He also, for a fleeting moment, admitted that he found Da-eun cute and hesitated to officially fire her, and that he doesn't do nice actions for a reason, meaning Yumi was right to think there was something going on. However, other fans argued that Yumi went too far to break up with him for a moment of weakness, one that he didn't even act on, and came off looking like a hypocrite since she also eyes men sometimes. They also argue that Babi had a decent reason to give Da-eun his jacket (it was cold and he didn't want to see her off getting sick), and it seemed she was already overly wary of Babi's interactions with Da-eun even though he kept their relationship strictly professional. Still others thought the whole arc was overblown, as there was no reason to fight since Da-eun herself quit.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • In the early days of the comic, readers wanted Ruby dead painfully for trying to get between Yumi and Wook, with her mildly annoying and selfish behaviors bringing a frothing response probably out of scale with her actions. After the reveal that he's gay and neither of them stood a chance, reader opinion lightened toward her antics considerably, with everyone eventually cheering for her to get together with Ctrl-Z.
  • The hostility transferred to Sia for trying to block Yumi and Woong. Unlike Ruby, she never really got forgiven since her actions didn't have the comedy factor Ruby's did. However, in Daily JoJo, she seems to have had an epiphany and become a better person.
• Seasonal Rot: The arcs starting with Yumi quiting her job to accomplish her dream of becoming a writer (around Chapter 249 out of 511, so it's essentially a second half of the series) are generally more polarizing than parts before them, despite having massive Character Development for main characters. A common complaint is that Yumi's struggle as a rookie writer is often glossed over because it's overstuffed with Romantic Plot Tumor, with a love triangle between Yumi, Woong and Babi taking over the plot, and even a few more new love interests of them join the fray to complicate the matters further. Rom-com is nothing new in Yumi's Cells, but this arc pushes the Cells to background more often than before (like when Writer Cell becomes Yumi's new Prime Cell and acts more level-headed to shush wacky shenanigans), leaving the story without their usual humor to even the drama. The reception got better in the last stretch of the run when it cleaned up the mess and shifted back to Yumi's life goal, reaching a finale that's generally considered satisfying, but do expect a lot of Ship-to-Ship Combat in the discussion when reading on Webtoon.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: A pretty fierce one for Woong versus Babi over Yumi. Though this ends up being moot, as Yumi ends up with neither of them.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Yumi and Woong's breakup and the aftermath:
    • When Woong makes the first move to break up, Yumi wants to cling to him despite her previous attempts to break up. That night, she calls Woong with the hope of pretending it didn't happen, but his lack of response makes the reality of their breakup sink in.
    • When Yumi goes to get rid of Woong's things, her Cells keep making excuses not to throw them away. When she gets to the frog sweater, which got her to open up to Woong in the first place, she just breaks down.
    • When Woong buys Yumi's rice cooker, he tries to strike up a conversation with her only to be shut down. Yumi still cares about Woong and wants to ask how he's doing, but she's dating Babi and can't let Woong into her heart anymore.
  • In the adaptation, Yumi and Babi's first breakup is more heart-wrenching. They're both holding back tears as Babi begs Yumi not to leave.
  • How Control-Z's ten-year relationship ended. His girlfriend died in a car accident. He was planning to cheer her up from a bad day, but he never got the chance.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Many fans on Webtoon expressed disappointment that Wook is rarely used in the story, given that he makes a pretty solid friend to Woong and often gives out decent advice. His being gay and in love with someone also doesn't go anywhere after it's first brought up. It doesn't help that his narrative circle is pretty limited— he's tethered to the office and Ruby's crush on him which become secondary after Yumi quits to become a writer, and only personally connected to Woong which also becomes secondary following her dating Babi and falling in love with Shin.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In the early series, it was established that cells have the opportunity to fuse with each other for a higher purpose, such as Ruby's Love and Lie cells forming Foxiness and Yumi's Checkmate cell. After those two, the topic was never brought up again or utilized. Foxy at least is relevant, but Checkmate hasn't been seen in years.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Naughty Cell. The other cells find him annoying/embarrassing, but he is far-and-away the most popular cell with readers.

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