With the Asia-Pacific animation market expected to reach a $145 million-plus value by 2029 (per Data Bridge Market Research) leading Asian content streamer Rakuten Viki is investing in new partnerships to bring more animated content to its users. The service has announced the highly anticipated CG anime feature Yumi’s Cells: The Movie will launch this week, as well as a new collaboration with Chinese content powerhouse Bilibili.
Premiering exclusively on Viki in the U.S. on Friday, July 19, Yumi’s Cells: The Movie is inspired by a globally popular, eponymously named Webtoon that has gotten 3.5 billion views. The film premiered in theaters in Korea earlier this year.
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.
The webtoon previously inspired a live-action K-Drama, which also debuted on Rakuten Viki in the U.S. The show was well regarded and saw a 60% increase in viewership between its first and second season.
Bilibili has become the online home for anime, comics and games (ACG) culture in China, and Chinese animation has proven increasingly popular on the platform. The company has launched nearly 600 Chinese animation titles, including 181 titles featured from the beginning of 2022 to date. Platform users collectively spend over 700 million hours annually watching Chinese animations, with each viewer completing 10 series annually on average (total interactions topped 5 billion in 2023).
Rakuten Viki is collaborating with Bilibili to bring more Chinese anime series to the platform. Two new series that will be rolling out on the platform include:
Mom, I’m Sorry
Mom, I’m Sorry tells the story of how the protagonist gives his terminally ill mom a second chance in exchange for reducing his own lifespan.
The anime series is based on a hit Korean Webtoon. A live action K-drama is also in production.
Rakshasa Street Seasons 1-3
In the series, a recent college graduate unknowingly crosses the boundary into a world of spirits for what he believes is a job interview.
Season 3 of the anime series just wrapped up in China. The show has a 9.5 rating on IMDb.
Rakuten Viki has grown its registered user base in the U.S. and worldwide by 23% since April 2023 (now numbering 90 million). The service, which took off with the rising demand for K-dramas, has continued to grow with not only popular Korean content, but also series and films from Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore, among other regions.
Visit viki.com to learn more about the platform and see available titles.
