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Odd, can you keep a secret?

–Yumi to Odd in Garage Kids

Yumi Ishiyama is one of the two secondary tritagonists of Code Lyoko. She is a highly valued member of the Lyoko Warriors, and a student at Kadic Academy. 

She is the oldest member of the group (besides William), and one of the most serious and mature. She is both Ulrich and William's romantic love interest, as well as Aelita's closest friend.

History

Yumi was born in Kyoto, Japan, and her family immigrated to France when she was young.[1] Her parents raised her under traditional Japanese values. She shows complete respect for her parents and dislikes having conflicts with them. She seeks to learn more about her country's culture from them and wishes to return to her Japanese roots later in life.

Appearance

In regard to Yumi's personality, her instant trademark is how she is shown to always prefer black clothes, basically the American goth look; a black sweater which doesn't cover her belly button, black skintight jeans, and black boots. Her Season 4 outfit is like her sports clothes consisting of a dark graphite blouse and matching pants with a purple hem. She wears the same boots as in Seasons 1-3 (this being seen in Cold Sweat where when an embarrassing childhood Halloween photo of her is seen, she is wearing big black boots in the picture).

On Lyoko, she is dressed in a black and red sleeveless skirt-length kimono, red leggings, white hand-length sleeves, black thigh-length boots with white bandages wrapping her shins, a large yellow bow that ties together on her back (where she conceals her tessens), her face is powdered pure white like a geisha girl and her black hair is tied in a short tail on top of her head. However, thanks to Jeremy's upgrades at the start of Season 4, her Lyoko battlesuit has become considerably more streamlined; a dark burgundy catsuit with magenta accents that highlight the tops of her legs and her high-heeled black boots are replaced with matching magenta sneakers. She now wears shoulder pads, a white vambrace, two pill-like capsules above her eyebrows, the yellow bow on her back has been simplified to look more like a pack, and her hair has changed to look exactly like it does on Earth.

Personality

Yumi is calm and collected, preferring to get acquainted with people before opening up to them. She comes across as cold from a distance, but once trust is established she assumes a limitless fidelity towards the people whom she likes. She is generous and understanding of people's emotions and personalities, and tries her best to reassure them of her commitment, care and trust. Her personality was primarily inspired by series co-creater Tania Palumbo.[2] Aspects were also said to be taken from Sophie Decroisette, specifically her being serious and reserved.[3]

The easiest way to hurt Yumi is to betray that trust. Her patience only goes so far, and Yumi has often lashed out at people only to deeply regret it later on. This extends throughout major aspects of her life, including the less-than-stable nature of her parents' marriage, the wild antics of her younger brother, and above all the stagnant state of the relationship between herself and Ulrich. Yumi often finds herself struggling to tolerate indecisiveness or uncertainty, which often leads to conflict between herself and the rest of the Lyoko Warriors (as seen in episodes such as The Secret or Echoes), however her faith in her friends always wins out in the end.

Yumi is fully committed, both to the fight against X.A.N.A. and to her schoolwork and sports. She is an adept athlete, focuses heavily on her studies and takes martial arts, the latter of which she does despite her parents calling it 'weird.' She is also very popular at school (particularly with the boys) but generally finds it to be either irritating or irrelevant.

It is stated at various points that Yumi is proud of her Japanese heritage, and enjoys sharing aspects of it, such as in The Girl of the Dreams when she presents at the end of her class report an authentic suit of samurai armor that has belonged to her family for hundreds of years. In the Code Lyoko Evolution episodes Suspicions, Friday the 13th and Intrusion, Yumi is also shown to be interested in charity and environmental projects.

Relationships

Ulrich Stern

The relationship of Yumi and Ulrich is complex and often very ambiguous since they often don't share their thoughts about each other often, even though their feelings are more than obvious throughout the course of the show. In X.A.N.A. Awakens, showing how Ulrich and Yumi first met, the two can be shown to have something of a first attraction to each other, which significantly grows throughout the episode. They two almost kiss in Routine, after their repressed attraction and feelings come to head, but they decide to keep it a secret. Strong respect, mutual admiration and reciprocal feelings (although distant) join these two figures in a very strong relationship. They often find themselves wavering between platonic friendship and genuine romance on a regular basis throughout the show. In Exploration, however, Yumi admits to her parents that she's "in love" when they begin to get suspicious about her daily late-night trips to Lyoko and want an explanation. When her friends ask her what she told them, she simply says she "told them the truth" and smiles at Ulrich.

However, in Straight to Heart, Yumi declares that they need to assume a platonic relationship status once and for all and announces that they can be friends, but nothing more. This clearly upsets Ulrich, but he begrudgingly goes along with her decision without any argument. Despite this decision on both parts, it becomes clear that they still have feelings for each other. It is implied in the Season 4 finale, Echoes, that they're eventually re-exploring the romantic part of their relationship again.

In Code Lyoko Evolution, one year after the Season 4 finale, it seems as though Ulrich and Yumi have gone back to their "just good friends" status at the beginning of the season (although Ulrich tries to confess his love for her on multiple occasions, and has apparently given up). But as the plot thickens, their romantic relationship, or at least their romantic attraction to each other becomes more and more apparent. She even goes as far as to (indirectly) call him her "soul mate" through an English story assignment when basing a main male character (who is the love interest of the female character) on him in Intrusion. Also, near the end of the episode, Yumi and Ulrich finally admit how much they care for each other and seemingly reconcile their blossoming romance. Later in Massacre, when Aelita asks Yumi how her relationship with Ulrich is going, Yumi admits that things are going much better since he has become more "considerate" towards her feelings, argued less with William and has become more mature than he's been in the past, making her happy. 

William Dunbar

"He's not my boyfriend! He's a little too clingy for me anyhow."

–Yumi to Odd in I'd Rather Not Talk About It.

William and Yumi become instant friends upon his arrival at Kadic, much to the jealousy of Ulrich. William can clearly be seen developing a crush on her during their continued encounters and soon starts to have feelings for her. His romantic feelings are obvious and he does not bother to hide them to anyone, including Yumi herself, being the polar opposite of how Ulrich handles his feelings towards her.

Yumi's shown to have a small attraction to William initially, blushing after he tells her love makes him "totally insane" in New Order and giving him a kiss on the cheek after he gave her flowers in Saint Valentine's Day (although it is implied she only did that to get back at Ulrich for reading a poem that was meant for her to Sissi). Her feelings for Ulrich conflicted with hers for William, which William correctly guessed was why she said she was "confused" when turning down a kiss from him in A Bad Turn.

After Yumi said no to William's offer to take her to the end of the year dance in The Key, she seemed to have lost interest in him. In The Secret, she says she thought his "dumb two-bit Casanova act", while "nice" at first, was "sickening" now and tells him to leave her alone. She reconfirms her feelings in I'd Rather Not Talk About It, when she tells Odd he's "too clingy for me anyhow". Finally in Echoes, she again turns him down and refers to their relationship as "a lost cause".

Jeremie Belpois

The relationship between Jeremie and Yumi can be compared to that of siblings as she often treats him such. Even though Yumi cares about Jeremie a lot, she gets easily angry if she is convinced that Jeremie has made a mistake that affects herself or others' health. An example of this would be in Nobody in Particular, where Jeremie tries to virtualize Ulrich directly into Sector Five for the first time, but then Yumi and the rest of the team become distraught when they realize that the program failed and Ulrich had completely disappeared, maybe forever. Despite this, Jeremie trusts Yumi more than he does with Ulrich, Odd, or William, mostly because of her being slightly smarter than the other three. Jeremie even trusted his very first virtualization to Yumi's hands in Frontier.

Odd Della Robbia

Despite often getting on her nerves, Odd can be considered a good friend to her. He often teases her and Ulrich about their obvious romantic attraction, much to her and Ulrich's annoyance. Although on occasion, he has pushed the two together, knowing of their repressed attraction, and often urging Ulrich to admit his feelings for her and is disdained when his attempts fail. At the beginning of the episode Down to Earth, he even openly tells the two that while they try to insist to everyone that they are only friends, no one buys it.  

Aelita Schaeffer

"We can have a girl-to-girl talk for once."

–Yumi to Aelita in Common Interest.

Aelita is Yumi's only good/best female friend and companion as she doesn't spend much of her time among the other girls at Kadic, despite obviously getting along just fine with them, and simply prefers spending her time with boys. She and Aelita can be seen to be rather close and sometimes can compare to that of two sisters.

In Double Trouble, Yumi and Aelita claim to share a form of 'female intuition' which they used to assure the rest of the group of their safety. This was immediately disproven as X.A.N.A. triggered an attack and they fallen into a trap.

Education and the Lyoko Warriors

She is the only member of the group living off-campus, whereas the rest of them are dormitory residents. Socially, her relationships do not seem to preoccupy her much; she seems to pay real attention only to her inner group of friends. While some schoolmates admire her when others despise her, she pays no attention rather focusing her attention only on her group of friends. She is shown to be very popular among boys who are interested in her, enticed by her natural and cryptic beauty. Yumi, however, often kindly rejects any attempt on their part.

Yumi is undoubtedly the most mature and the most thoughtful of the group. Naturally warranting respect, her opinion is always taken into account. She always acts within the group as defending others; it is she who makes important decisions on the group's direction, and it is to her that they come for advice.

Personal Life

Aside from her complicated romance with Ulrich, one of Yumi's other main character focuses is her parents' rather unstable marriage, which has proven to be a major strain on her from time to time. Her father and mother can often be heard bickering in the background whenever an episode takes a focus on her home, and at one point, her father even left the house and shortly resided with a friend from work, which took place in Laughing Fit. This is shown to have had a major strain on Yumi as she struggled to understand why her parents were arguing in the first place. 

Although it is often dismissed, she is seen to have a small attraction to William which is often seen at many points in the series. Despite this, Yumi claims he is nothing more than just a friend. These feelings are never ventured, however, rather than just a minor attraction. 

On Lyoko, Yumi is virtualized in geisha form before her avatar is soon re-designed as a ninja in Season 4. Equipped with formidable metallic fans with defensive properties (acting as shields) and also as offensive missiles, she proves to be a considerable adversary against the monsters of X.A.N.A.. Along with her sharp fans used like ninja stars, she also has telekinetic powers for making life difficult for the henchmen of the computer villain. It is realized in the first three seasons that using her telekinetic power on Lyoko is painful and can quickly exhaust her very easily. However, in the fourth season, this proved to be no longer an issue with her new Lyoko avatar. Yumi, like Ulrich, has a strong interest in Pencak Silat, which is very useful in battles on Lyoko and is shown to excel in the art. She is seen regularly practicing moves with Ulrich or in a professional class at Kadic. 

Outside of Lyoko, Yumi seems like one of the more normal characters. Having a normal family with regular sibling rivalry. Yumi is more or less a wallflower, often secluding herself from others despite having the potential for popularity. Yumi is in ninth grade for the first two seasons and in the 10th grade in seasons three and four. In the first three seasons, she was fourteen years old but had turned fifteen in Lab Rat. This implies that Yumi is now sixteen years old, as Code Lyoko Evolution takes place one whole year after Season 4.

Physical Skills

Yumi is arguably the most physically capable of the Lyoko Warriors. She is revealed in the prequel to be a formidable martial artist, able to match Ulrich in hand-to-hand combat. She has knowledge of many gymnastics techniques, which serves her well on both Lyoko and the real world as seen in The Key. She is also incredibly strong for her age, able to tear a screwed-in metal grate out of the ground as seen in the episode Revelation.

In Tip-Top Shape, Yumi set the school record for the 100-meter sprint, with her time being 14.35 seconds.

As revealed in Countdown, Yumi is apparently skilled in a form of stealth called "ninja mode" and has taught this technique to Odd.

Game Information

Code Lyoko: Quest for Infinity (Wii Edition)

Yumi is one of the playable characters in Code Lyoko: Quest For Infinity. In addition to her fans, she has two special abilities: telekinesis and enhanced balance. Her fans can automatically lock onto and hone in targets, unlike Odd's Laser Arrows or Aelita's Energy Fields.

Enhanced Balance

This superhuman ability is used to walk along narrow paths that the other characters cannot. To activate, go over an ability hologram and press C. Hold the Nunchuk joystick forward and tilt the Wii remote sideways in the opposite direction from where the eye of X.A.N.A. is tilting.

Telekinesis

Yumi's telekinesis abilities are used to move, propel, manipulate and control multiple jagged rocks and boulders, bring Insekts down to the ground, or to telekinetically levitate fellow avatars or enemies all at once for short or long periods of time with ease. To just move something to the side, move the cursor over the object and hold C. Swing the Wii remote either left or right to toss it aside. To move the object with more precision, hold C for a few seconds, then move the cursor and walk around to move the object.

Code Lyoko: Quest for Infinity: PS2 Edition

Code Lyoko: Quest for Infinity: PSP Edition

Code Lyoko: Get Ready to Virtualize

Yumi is one of the playable characters in Get Ready to Virtualize. She can use Telekinesis in some places. Her fans can't lock onto enemies unlike in Quest for Infinity. She uses her Enhanced Balance ability as a victory pose when she destroys all the monsters.

Code Lyoko DS: Fall of X.A.N.A.

Code Lyoko: Social Game

Yumi can be unlocked in the social game by getting a streak of 3 stars or better for every fight in sectors 3, 4, and 5.

Voice actresses

  • French: Géraldine Frippiat
  • Japanese: Haruka Kajiyama and Sayaka Kinoshita
  • Spanish (Latin America): Liliana Barba
  • Spanish (Spain): Adelaida López
  • Polish: Anna Sroka (original series); Marta Kurzak (Evolution)
  • Serbian: Andrijana Tasić
  • Italian: Anna Lana
  • Russian: Olga Zubkova (Seasons 1-2); Olga Golovanova (X.A.N.A. Awakens)
  • Finnish: Viivi Tamminen
  • Indonesian: Devi Kania (Season 1-2); Lis Kurniasih (Season 3-4)

Etymology

Yumi is the romanization of a common Japanese given name with many different possible spellings and meanings, although it is often spelled using the kanji , meaning beauty, a reference to Yumi's appearance. Also, a yumi (spelled ) is a type of traditional Japanese longbow known for being exceptionally tall and thin, a reference to Yumi's slender build and considerable height for her age.

Ishiyama is the romanization of the Japanese family name 石山, which translates to "stone mountain".

Trivia

  • In the series' original bible, Yumi's appearance was planned to be more prominent, with it describing her as "beautiful but [she] doesn't know it yet".[1] She was going to be popular amongst the boys at Kadic, though "any attempt at approaching her [would be] doomed to mockery". Sissi was also said to be jealous of Yumi's general popularity with boys in this version, "whose natural beauty makes her much more mysterious". Aside from Yumi's name being a remnant of this idea, it was otherwise dropped.
    • Similarly, Ulrich was also described in the bible as being popular with the girls at Kadic. Although this idea made it into Season 1, it was largely dropped afterward.
  • Yumi owns a Totoro stuffed animal that she keeps on her bed.
  • Yumi and Aelita are the only Lyoko Warriors who were prisoners of a Guardian. They are also the only ones who fell into the Digital Sea and got temporarily deleted.
    • Yumi's frequent falls into the Digital Sea are so well known in the fandom that Jérôme Mouscadet and Sophie Decroisette were asked about it in an interview.[4] Both seemed surprised to learn this fact, with Decroisette theorizing it might be because Yumi is "very prone to self sacrifice". She also joked that subconsciously "Maybe I simply wanted to get rid of her".
  • On Lyoko, Yumi is a kunoichi, which literally means "Female Ninja" in Japanese. While traditional ninja were assassins who traveled by shadow and infiltrated strongholds by night with their inept martial arts and military-grade training, kunoichi were masters of camouflage and hid in plain sight. They used their feminine wiles to get close to their targets and had an arsenal of concealed/disguised weapons, such as hairpins that could be serrated enough for stabbing (preferably with the tip poisoned with fugu venom). Yumi does the exact same thing with her fans, which were traditionally a status symbol among the cultural elite, especially during the Edo Period, before eventually evolving into military-grade weapons. In this case, they appear to be traditional fans at first sight, but they are really flying tessens with the exact same functionality as saw blades. Also, tessens are concealable weapons that work in favor of ninja in general.
    • Yumi’s Lyoko form seems to be a combination of a Kunoichi and a Geisha, women who celebrated the Japanese tradition of exquisite beauty (which William has taken notice of on several occasions).
      • Yumi was most likely given the exact likeness of a Kunoichi on Lyoko because of her athletic prowess and cat-like agility being uncanny of those of a real-life ninja as well as her well-established devotion to everything relating to her homeland.
  • Yumi has proven to be a glutton for punishment when it comes to her work as a Lyoko Warrior. Specifically, other than having the highest devirtualization count of the warriors, she's almost always the one to fatally fall victim to the dangers of the virtual world, which in many situations would be X.A.N.A. mysteriously targeting her as the focal point for its evil schemes. Examples include:
    • Episodes 6-10 feature a X.A.N.A. attack all targeting Yumi in some form. As they premiered during the same week in the U.S., they've since been dubbed "Pick on Yumi Week" by fans. A similar, less common nickname is used by French fans (since episodes premiered weekly there instead) "semaine noire de Yumi", which translates to "Yumi's Black Week".[5]
      • Cruel Dilemma when Yumi rams herself into a Megatank to save Aelita from a direct hit from its laser which leaves her hanging for dear life off the ledge of the landmass and she plummets to her demise when Ulrich arrives too late after she loses her grip. Jeremie is luckily able to bring her back to reality with the one-shot devirtualization program Odd accidentally created.
      • Image Problem when she is abducted by a guardian and replaced with an evil clone.
      • End of Take, where she, Ulrich and Sissi are targeted by an alien.
      • Satellite when X.A.N.A. takes control of a military satellite and repeatedly fires its laser at her.
      • The Girl of the Dreams when X.A.N.A. possesses Yumi's samurai armor and attacks her.
    • Missing Link when the scyphozoa steals the code sequence for her human DNA as a ploy to manipulate Aelita into donating her own human DNA sequence code to her so that her memory (containing the Keys to Lyoko) will be exposed and ripe for stealing.
      • An added bonus is that her lack of human DNA makes her an easy target for the monsters since devirtualization will prove fatal without it.
    • Double Take when William admires Yumi's exquisite beauty all the while holding her at blade point at the edge of a cliff - before ultimately shoving her into the Digital Sea (trying to, at least).
      • However, this could've just been William's undying attraction to Yumi that remained in his digital manifestation as the only shred of humanity he had left when XANA permanently possessed him, turning him into its dark champion.
        • In fact, it was this very remaining shred of humanity that allowed William to momentarily regain his full humanity in The Lake when Yumi reminded of him of the oath he swore when he officially became a Lyoko Warrior.
    • Lost at Sea when Yumi is stranded in the Digital Sea after her Navskid is gravely damaged from a battle with a pack of kongers.
      • There were many variables Yumi had to control to stay alive:
        • The dwindling power reserves of her navskid
        • The near catastrophic damage her navskid sustained from the battle
        • The one remaining konger out for her blood
        • The only remaining torpedo that ultimately proved to be the only way of signaling Jeremy
        • William showing up in a digital submarine of his own ready to finish her off
      • If Yumi had given in to even one of these variables, she would’ve fallen victim to the godforsaken empty abyss of the digital sea a second time. And this time, since the current set of circumstances didn't include a one-shot rematerialization like last time, she would've most definitely be gone forever.
  • As of Crash Course, Yumi is the only character who was ever virtualized by Odd.
  • In Hard Luck, Yumi reveals that her least favorite monsters created by X.A.N.A. are Kankrelats due to her understandable animosity towards "big bugs", and that her favorites are Krabs.
  • Yumi and William are the only Lyoko Warriors other than Aelita to be attacked by the Scyphozoa.
  • Yumi is also the first person to be devirtualized by a Ninja.
  • Yumi is the only Lyoko Warrior with two additional weapons (Not counting Ulrich's additional katana gained in Double Take.
  • In the original pilot episode, Garage Kids, Yumi possessed strong telekinetic abilities while on Earth as well as Lyoko.
  • Yumi's mobile in the first three seasons is a dark red Nokia 3310-style cellphone. In Season 4, she gets a more modern model with a sliding keyboard and video call functionality.

Gallery

>> More images of Yumi in Season 1

>> More images of Yumi in Season 2

>> More images of Yumi in Season 3

>> More images of Yumi in Season 4

>> More images of Yumi in Evolution

Garage Kids

Others

See Also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 "The Graphic Bible of Code Lyoko" - CodeLyoko.fr
  2. "Exposition organisée au sein de l’école des Gobelins…". Codelyoko.net. October 18, 2006.
  3. "Interview - Sophie Decroisette, partie 1". Ces Dessins Animés-Là qui méritent qu'on s'en souvienne. March 4, 2014.
  4. "Interview - Sophie Decroisette et Jérôme Mouscadet, partie 3". Ces Dessins Animés-Là qui méritent qu'on s'en souvienne. March 18, 2014.
  5. "Guide des épisodes > #6 - Cruel Dilemme" - CodeLyoko.fr
ve Lyoko Warriors
Jeremie Logo Aelita Logo Odd Logo Yumi Logo Ulrich Logo
Jeremie Belpois Aelita Schaeffer Odd Della Robbia Yumi Ishiyama Ulrich Stern

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