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; her primary outfit in the series consisted of 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). In specific episodes, such as Teddygodzilla and Missing Link, it's seen that she typically owns clothing associated with alternative fashion subcultures such as goth, punk and emo, which use arm warmers and stripped patterns with muted reds and blues and buckles and belts.

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 obi 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] Her distant nature is implied to be why, in her own words, she doesn't have any friends. Despite this, she is shown to have some casual friends outside of her direct friend circle with the Lyoko warriors, mostly Kadic classmates in her own grade. Yumi is shown to be academically driven, as she often stresses about the conflict of schoolwork with her commitment with Lyoko. She also rather athletic, being able to perform complex martial arts and skateboard, the former which her parents find "weird". Yumi is shown to commit to a darker style, such as black dresses and boots, unlike other female characters in the series.

While for the most part calm, Yumi is not always patient and has a temper of her own that rivals Ulrich and puts her at odds with him the most out of the group and can be rather emotional. It's implied that despite loving them deeply, her family can be a source of stress, such as the arguments between her parents and the chaotic nature of her younger brother. Romantically, Yumi has only shown genuine interest in Ulrich, but is wary of it as well. While initially friends with William, she eventually warned him that his "casanova" act was actively annoying her. She also does not appreciate Odd or Hiroki's pranks or things like her birthday being forgotten about. While mostly dismissive of Sissi, she is prone to clashing with her as well.

Out of the series, Yumi stands out by being proud of her Japanese heritage. Her upbringing is implied to have a strong effect on her personality, such as being respectful to authority figures and towards her family. However, it is also a source of stress, as prior to her double life, she had no reason or desire to lie and keep secrets. She particularly enjoys sharing aspects of it with others, such as when she presents her family's suit of armor or when she explains why she doesn't open gifts in front of others. She does not appreciate disrespect towards her heritage, as she was quick to correct Sissi when she called her Chinese. On Lyoko, her first costume strongly leaned on a geisha inspired form.

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 and has a similar personality to her brother. 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.

Hiroki Ishiyama

Hiroki is Yumi's younger brother and a force to be reckoned with. In her words, he is a real crook, often leveraging Yumi's Lyoko life to exploit her to do his homework or for money. Similar to Odd, Hiroki can cross the line with Yumi and cause her to get angry. Hiroki later began attending Kadic, much to her displeasure. Despite this dynamic, they have a good bond, much of it which is shown in flashbacks in Lost at Sea, where it's seen Yumi teaching him various things such as Morse code, swimming and vocabulary.

Lyoko

On Lyoko, Yumi is virtualized in geisha form, later closer to a modern ninja in Season 4. Equipped with formidable metallic fans with defensive properties (acting as shields) and also as offensive projectiles, she proves to be a considerable adversary against the monsters of X.A.N.A. Yumi's unique power of Lyoko is Telekinesis, allowing her to manipulate various objects, such as rocks and her fans, for defensive and offensive purposes or to levitate others. However, her power is incredibly taxing on her, causing her to become quickly exhausted and often leaves her vulnerable for attacks, she is usually stationary to focus her power. By Season 4 however, her power causes far less exhaustion. She also shows considerable skill using the Nav Skid and temporarily driving the Skid. Yumi has a strong interest in Pencak Silat, often sparring with Ulrich and is skilled in gymnastics, like Odd, able to perform high level athletic maneuvers to supplement her fighting style.

In Evolution, she is given a Bo staff as an additional weapon.

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)
• Greek: Υακίνθη Παπαδοπούλου (1st dub), Λίλα Μουτσοπούλου (2nd dub)

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 美 (mi), meaning beauty, a reference to Yumi's appearance. Also, a yumi (spelled 弓) 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.
• As seen in some episodes, Yumi has a massive body sized plush toy in her room, highlighted particularly in Missing Link. Despite being labeled as a Totoro plushie, this toy does not resemble Totoro and may just be a inspired character from Studio Ghibli based films, as it has a purple color scheme, horns alongside cat ears and a half closed eye.
• 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.
• By the end of Evolution, Yumi is the Lyoko Warrior to have lost the least amount of codes.

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

• X.A.N.A. Yumi

References

v • e Lyoko Warriors
Jeremie Belpois	Aelita Schaeffer	Odd Della Robbia	Yumi Ishiyama	Ulrich Stern

v · d · e List of characters
Lyoko Warriors	Jeremie Belpois William Dunbar Yumi Ishiyama Odd Della Robbia Aelita Schaeffer Ulrich Stern
Secondary characters	Johnny Cleary Sissi Delmas Tamiya Diop Hiroki Ishiyama Takeho and Akiko Ishiyama Herb Pichon Nicolas Poliakoff Milly Solovieff Kiwi
Kadic Faculty	Principal Delmas Suzanne Hertz Franz Hopper Jim Morales Yolanda Perraudin Rosa Petitjean
Villains	Monsters X.A.N.A. X.A.N.A. William
Minor Characters	Patrick Belpois Mathias Burrel Emily LeDuc Theo Gauthier Claire Girard Romain Le Goff Heidi Klinger Samantha Knight Jean-Baptiste Pujol Brynja Heringsdötir Subdigitals Taelia Magali de Vasseur
Evolution characters	Laura Gauthier Anthea Schaeffer Samantha Suares Professor Tyron Ninjas
Chronicles characters	Eva Skinner
Other Characters	X.A.N.A. Aelita X.A.N.A. Franz Hopper X.A.N.A. Odd X.A.N.A. Ulrich X.A.N.A. Anthea Schaeffer X.A.N.A. Yumi Aelita Clone Jeremie Clone William Clone

v · d · e Lyoko
Characters	Franz Hopper X.A.N.A. Lyoko Warriors Jeremie Belpois Aelita Schaeffer Odd Della Robbia Ulrich Stern Yumi Ishiyama William Dunbar
Locations	Sectors Ice Sector Desert Sector Forest Sector Mountain Sector Sector Five Arena Celestial Dome Core Zone Data Tunnels Skidbladnir Hangar Heart of Lyoko Other Digital Sea Virtual Limbo
Hardware	Factory Interface Holomap Scanner Supercomputer
Virtual Objects	Eye Scanner Lyoko Wires MegaPod Overboard Overbike Overwing Skidbladnir Nav Skid Tower Way Towers Transport Orb Virtual World Shell
Programs	Annex Program Anti-X.A.N.A. Program Avatar Codes Lyoko Earth X.A.N.A. Scipio Deletion Devirtualization Digital Genetic Code Energize ID Card Keys to Lyoko Life Point Memory fragment Pulsations Sector Alteration Program Simulation Bubble Superscan Telephone Vehicle Virtualization Program
Weapons	Lyoko Warriors Katana Laser Arrow Tessen Fans Zweihänder Monsters Circular Laser Flying Mine Hallucinogenic Beam Laser Pulse Beam
Powers	Catclimb Energy Beam Energy Fields Enhanced Marksmanship Feline Execution Monster Riding Second Sight Second View Shield Super Smoke Super Sprint Telekinesis Teleportation
Other	Eye of X.A.N.A. Gunship Virtual Weather