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Inside ‘Yumi's Cells’: The tactics behind the series' multiyear run

Published: 17 Apr. 2026, 16:23 Updated: 19 Apr. 2026, 16:19

KIM JU-YEON
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Kim Go-eun plays the titular role of Yumi in the third season of ″Yumi's Cells″ (2021-), a romantic comedy series adapted from the eponymous webtoon. [TVING]

Viewers of the Tving drama series “Yumi’s Cells” (2021-) have followed along for more than four years as its protagonist navigates work, love and adulthood.

The series revolves around Yu-mi, played by Kim Go-eun, a 30-something woman living and working in greater Seoul. There are not one or two, but three love interests for the spunky office worker-turned-writer — and just as many seasons of the webtoon adaptation. That remains a rarity in a country where the limited series, typically running 16 to 20 episodes, still dominates.

So how did "Yumi's Cells" get a third season — and why now? Its longevity is as much a business strategy as a creative choice. As production costs rise and streaming platforms reshape viewing habits, studios have increasingly turned to familiar intellectual property (IP), shorter seasons and projects that can extend beyond a single run.

From left to right: Ahn Bo-hyun as Woong in the first season; Park Jin-young as Ba-bi in the second season; and Kim Jae-won as Soon-rok in the third season of ″Yumi's Cells″ (2021-) [TVING][TVING]

Yu-mi is an ordinary working woman whose every move, emotion and thought is governed by a team of personified brain cells. Critic Jung Deok-hyeon says "Yumi's Cells'" slice-of-life genre, added with the distinctive perspective from the cells, made it well-suited for a multi-season run.

“For a series to sustain multiple seasons, it needs to maintain a consistent world while allowing new stories to emerge each season,” he said.

Unlike plot-driven dramas that rely on escalating conflict, “Yumi’s Cells” operates within a flexible narrative system, in which even minor, everyday moments can be reframed as dramatic through its inner world of personified cells. That structure allows the story to expand without losing coherence, he said.

A story built to continue

Posters for ″Yumi's Cells″ season one and two [TVING]

The "Yumi's Cells" adaptation came with a storyline that had been completely mapped out. Screenwriter Song Jae-jung said in a 2021 interview that with such a "strong work, there was little to change," and that the first season aimed to "remain as faithful to the original as possible."

At Studio Dragon, the production company behind the TV series, the producers planned to create two seasons at the start, according to a studio representative, while a third season was not confirmed. The team “approached season two as a kind of ending,” Lee Sang-yeob, who directed all three seasons of the show, said in an interview in 2022 ahead of its release. But even imagining a continuation, it was "hard to picture Yu-mi without Kim Go-eun," he said.

"Once discussions started [for the third season], there was a consensus that Kim Go-eun was the best fit to portray Yu-mi," and a "shared trust and alignment" with the actor saw her coming back to reprise the role, Studio Dragon said.

The cells living inside Yumi in season one of ″Yumi's Cells″ (2021-) [TVING]

That has not always been the case for Korean series attempting multiple seasons.

Often, Korean studios decide to make a second season depending on how well the first season did. The result can be uneven storytelling. Even webtoon adaptations, if they diverge from the source material in later seasons, are sometimes criticized for feeling more like sequels than a continuous narrative. There are also logistical challenges. In one well-known industry case, the producers of “Dr. Romantic” (2016–23) had to rebuild a set they had dismantled after the first season. Securing returning cast members can also prove difficult.

"Yumi's Cells'" ratings proved the multiseason strategy worked. The first season opened to a 2.07 percent rating and averaged 2.23 percent over its seven-week run. The second season's platform release set a record for the highest weekly subscriber growth for a Tving original upon its release, drawing roughly four times as many new subscribers as the first season. It debuted on streaming in June 2022, ahead of its November broadcast on tvN, a staggered rollout that may have contributed to its relatively low cable premiere rating of 1.38 percent.

So why a third season now, four years later?

Kim Go-eun as Yu-mi, right, and Kim Jae-won as Soon-rok in the third season of ″Yumi's Cells″ (2021-), a romantic comedy series adapted from the eponymous webtoon [TVING]

The decision reflects a broader shift in strategy. Streaming platforms have begun to prioritize efficiency over expansion, focusing less on commissioning new titles and more on extracting value from existing ones, according to a March report by the Korea Investor Relations Service’s Stock Research Center. Older series, which carry low accounting value but can be monetized again through renewed viewership and distribution, are increasingly treated as high-margin assets.

Reviving a familiar title like “Yumi’s Cells” can generate fresh demand while sending viewers back to earlier seasons, extending the commercial life of a single property. The first and second seasons of "Yumi's Cells" climbed to the sixth and fourth most viewed shows on Tving during the week ahead of the third season's release on April 13.

And as the domestic market contracts, studios are increasingly looking overseas for growth, relying on international distribution and licensing deals to drive revenue. The third season of "Yumi's Cells" was released simultaneously across 17 Asia-Pacific markets on HBO Max, as well as on Disney+ in Japan through Tving’s branded hub.

Webtoon to TV pipeline

An illustration from Lee Dong-gun's webtoon ″Yumi's Cells″ (2015-20) [NAVER WEBTOON]

The eponymous webtoon on which the TV series is based, written and illustrated by Lee Dong-gun, ran from 2015 to 2020. By the time it ended, it had drawn 3.2 billion views and nearly five million reader comments on Naver, where it was serialized.

Choosing a popular webtoon for a TV production is a tried and tested strategy, with hits like Netflix's historical thriller “Kingdom” (2019–20) and Disney+'s "Moving" (2023).

They're considered a "safe bet" in a high-risk industry, especially as local production costs skyrocketed after global heavyweights joined the market. A 2025 survey by the Korea Creative Content Agency (Kocca) found that 67.9 percent of broadcasters said using existing intellectual property reduced costs, while 71.4 percent said it shortened production timelines.

The popularity of the original work can also reduce post-production marketing costs. The Kocca survey found that 38.4 percent of viewers watched webtoon adaptations out of curiosity about how they differ from the original, while 34.6 percent watched them because they were fans of the source material.

One of Yumi's many cells, which manage her thoughts, emotions and actions, reacts to Soonrok, a producer at Yumi's publishing company, in season three of ″Yumi's Cells.″ (2021-) [TVING]

TV production studios are part of the broader media ecosystem in which the same IP circulates across platforms, creating a self-reinforcing loop, according to Prof. Park Ki-soo, head of the Department of Culture Contents at Hanyang University.

"The streaming platforms have a stake in the [webtoon companies], and they have their first pick in choosing new IP," he said.

The third season of "Yumi's Cells" comes as the supply of new material tightens. The number of new webtoons released in Korea fell by 10.3 percent last year, as demand in the domestic market struggled to keep pace with the volume of new content, according to the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency. Ironically, the agency attributed the decline in part to competition from streaming platforms as well as short-form content drawing audiences away.

Webtoon companies are instead prioritizing intellectual property that can be repurposed across formats, including dramas and games. Naver Webtoon is focusing on developing web novels and webtoons that can be adapted into dramas or merchandise, while Kakao Entertainment is pursuing similar diversification.

Director Lee Sang-yeob speaks to reporters during a press conference for the third season of “Yumi’s Cells” (2021-) at The Link Seoul hotel in Guro District, southern Seoul, on April 7. [NEWS1]

The third season, after premiering on April 13, ranked fifth on Good Data Corporation’s weekly list of most talked-about dramas for the second week of April. It was Tving’s leading driver of new subscriber growth on the day of its release, according to the streaming platform. The pilot, which aired Monday on tvN, drew a 2.3 percent rating, the highest among all cable channels that day, before slipping to 1.7 percent for the second episode.

It will have eight episodes, down from 14 in previous seasons.

“The way people watch television has changed significantly over the past four to five years,” Lee said at an April 7 news conference. “I wanted to make it more compact and focus on the most engaging parts.”

Jung said it may be a smart move in an increasingly crowded media market.

“The stories are becoming more tightly packed,” Jung said. “Rather than letting the narrative drift, they keep pushing forward with dramatic developments.”

“With so much content available now, even keeping up can feel overwhelming,” he added. “Shorter series can offer a sense of efficiency,” though he noted that some viewers, especially those accustomed to longer formats, have expressed frustration with the shift.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]