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EXCLUSIVE: Korean animated film Yumi’s Cells: The Movie will be released on streaming platform Rakuten Viki on July 19, after a theatrical run at the domestic box office in April.
The Asian-content focused Rakuten Viki has unveiled a collaboration with Chinese video site Bilibili to bring Chinese animated series Mom, I’m Sorry and Rakshasa Street seasons 1-3 to its platform.
Yumi’s Cells: The Movie was adapted from the eponymous webtoon, which originally received an enormous 3.5 billion views. The webtoon also spawned two live action drama series titled Yumi’s Cells in 2021 and 2022, which are available on Rakuten Viki. Broadcast rights to the show were sold to more than 160 territories.
According to the Korean Film Council’s data, Yumi’s Cells: The Movie grossed around $445,000 from 76,500 admissions at the Korean box office in April.
Yumi’s Cells tells the story of an office worker Yumi and the different kinds of cells in her brain, including the Rational Cell, Anxiety Cell and Love Cell, which each have a responsibility for driving Yumi’s emotions and actions. The animated feature is co-produced by Locus Corporation and Studio N.
Collaboration with Bilibili
Rakuten Viki will be bringing more Chinese animated series from Bilbili to its platform, including two upcoming new series: Mom, I’m Sorry and Rakshasa Street.
“We started bringing Asian animation onto our platform last year and we’re seeing an increased interest from our audience that we want to continue to lean into,” Sam Wu, CEO of Rakuten Viki, told Deadline in an exclusive interview. “We also see in the market a growing interest in animation, with Japanese animation having lead the way over the last few years.
“Seeing that crossover between webtoon audiences with with Korean live action drama audiences, we wanted to see how this translates into the animated movie format. Some of the titles that we’re introducing from Bilibili are also adapted from webtoons.”
Wu said that his team had already been working with partners in China for more than a year and was trying to figure out what type of content might be interesting to global audiences, before joining hands with Bilibili to provide Chinese animated titles.
Mom, I’m Sorry was adapted into an animated series from a hit Korean webtoon. A live-action Korean drama based on the same webtoon is also in production. The plot revolves around a son with a terminally ill mother. He makes a deal with a mysterious stranger, exchanging his remaining years for his mother’s.
Rakshasa Street tells the story of a recent college graduate who unknowingly crosses the boundary into a world of spirits for what he believes is a job interview.
Bilibili carries anime, comics and games on its platform and is home to nearly 600 Chinese animation titles, including 181 titles which have launched from 2022 onwards.
Rakuten Viki shared that users of Bilibili collectively spend over 700 million hours annually watching Chinese animations, with each viewer completing 10 series annually on average and total interactions around Chinese animation on Bilibili topping 5 billion in 2023.
Rakuten Viki’s content strategy
Acquired by Japanese retail giant Rakuten for $200M in 2013, Rakuten Viki now offers over 3,500 TV shows and movies available in the U.S. from Korea, Japan, China, Thailand, and other Asian countries, with 90 million registered users globally — which is an increase of 23% year-on-year.
Rakuten Viki reps have revealed that around 75% of Viki viewers are from non-Asian descent and the average viewer on the platform spends more than 12 hours a month viewing the service. Wu added that he has around 10 employees on the platform’s content team, looking after programming strategy and acquisitions.
Of course, the platform has significant competition from the likes of Roku and Tubi, which have depositories of Asian content, and more obviously direct rivals such as Kocowa. Wu said Rakuten Viki stands out due to its broad approach to content. “There are different providers of Asian content, but they are mostly focused on content from specific countries,” he added. “We find ourselves more in the middle, where we are working to provide our audiences a broader slate of Asian content.”
Unsurprisingly, Wu said that Korean dramas are the most-consumed content on the platform, with six Korean shows ranking among its top-10 performing titles in its history: True Beauty, What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim, My Lovely Liar, A Good Day to be a Dog, Lovely Runner and Perfect Marriage Revenge. The other four top-performing shows are Chinese titles Love Like the Galaxy and Only For You, as well as Thailand’s F4 Thailand: Boys Over Flowers and Japan’s An Incurable Case of Love.
K-drama has been hot property getting hotter for well over a minute now. Perhaps the Bilibili pact shows there’s something new happening in China as well.
