It seems the emotion of women is too complex and delicate for a man to understand. Looking at their feelings, their criteria of the judgement, their patterns of the action, their points where they would get angry on, and so on, it seems men and women are quite different to each other. Considering all the elements I can think of, like the formation of the social gender, the gender-discriminatory recognitive structure, and the patriarchal world perspective, it seems it’s right that men are simple and women are more complex than them. Of course, it’s possible that I couldn’t remove such elements properly, or there are neither essential femininity nor masculinity which are removed of such elements.

But there’s a man who knows well on such women’s emotions. He even expresses them in his works. Donggeon Lee, who has been loved from many readers for A Bittersweet Life, which depicted women’s emotions delicately, is depicting the many complex layers of women’s emotions comically and profoundly, through Yumi’s Cells. In fact, Yumi’s Cells is a long-loved work enough not to need an introduction. It has been recognized its quality, and has been awarded Today’s Manhwa Award 2016.

The author delicately catches the situations and the emotions those are known only to the women or those of women are keen to and more sympathetic to. They are surely ephemeral, like: the feeling of the moment one can’t explain, the discomfort for an unknown reason, the emotion suddenly emerges, or the tension men are hardly aware of. The author catches such moments with accuracy, and shows the complex inside of women to us with the story of personified cells. Though there’s also a cell who only functions as a device for jokes, Yumi’s cells basically symbolizes ‘me as something’. In other words, inside of me, fractions of me are mixed together: rational me, emotional me, me likes to eat, naughty me, me desires to love and be loved, and so forth.

The basic direction of unfolding such many me is comicalness. The cells quarreling in the Land of Yumi makes the readers laugh, by either cuteness or brutality. The idea on comicalization is also special. For example, the idea to express a casual compliment as a content of a parcel is surprisingly delicate. His idea and sense get more shine through his solid directing. The author, Donggeun Lee, who enthusiastically adopted the form of cut-toon when the form is first introduced, maximizes the effect of directing with the form of cut-toon itself. The sudden contrast and reversal between the real world and the world of cells are best to be read in the mobile cut-toon. The author has put an ambush of frames to give a sudden laughter to the readers and now he shows his directing skill even more improved with attaching consequent frames in the recent episodes.

After reading this, sometimes I feel a ‘that was it’ kind of surprise. It must be because I’m a man. Of course, a man’s best way to understand women is to meet them and to talk to them many times. But sometimes you can be the closest person to her and it may hinder you reading her. At that time, Yumi’s Cells can be a help. Of course, it won’t tell you the right answer. But it will give you a hint to start conversation with the close person. So, you guys who are reading this now, go and read the work from the start.