topic Re: Rakuten Viki in What's On

Rakuten Viki

Mr+Ripley — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 12:48:03 GMT

I discovered a new app on my Samsung TV last week called Rakuten Viki, which is dedicated to Asian TV, so I thought I'd share it on here for anyone else who enjoys Asian TV. The app itself is really well laid out, and it has a very good UI, easily as good as the major platforms. There are series from South Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand. We're currently watching two series, Duty after School, a really good sci-fi series, which is very gory, and Twinkling Watermelon, which is very loosely based on Back To The Future. We also have about another dozen series lined up on the Watchlist.

It has a 7-day free trial & then costs £4.99 pm, which is pretty good. It doesn't have 4K content, series are in HD, and there aren't any ads. I'm not sure if it's available on other brands of TV. If you like Asian TV, it is well worth looking into.

Re: Rakuten Viki

BenJoBanjo — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 14:20:20 GMT

I agree - it's a good app, and been around for years on FireTV, Apple's tvOS and other platforms. I have several Asian friends who use it all the time.

The RakutenTV app is also very good and is awash with free, ad-supported content. It has a multitude of live FAST channels as well as on demand movies to stream free with ads or purchase in up to UHD with HDR resolution.

The fact of the matter is, there's an absolute plethora of content sources offering an endless supply of movies and shows, for free. There's literally too much choice...

Re: Rakuten Viki

Mr+Ripley — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:41:15 GMT

@BenJoBanjo wrote:
I agree - it's a good app, and been around for years on FireTV, Apple's tvOS and other platforms. I have several Asian friends who use it all the time.
The RakutenTV app is also very good and is awash with free, ad-supported content. It has a multitude of live FAST channels as well as on demand movies to stream free with ads or purchase in up to UHD with HDR resolution.
The fact of the matter is, there's an absolute plethora of content sources offering an endless supply of movies and shows, for free. There's literally too much choice...

@BenJoBanjo Nice to see another user. You're definitely right about there being too much choice; all the platforms seem to have an Asian category now. I even found one on Amazon called Kocowa. I'm currently trying to find any content with the actress Park Eun-bin, she is very good. I've seen her in Extraordinary Attorney Woo & Castaway Diva, & have a few other shows tucked away on various watchlists.

Btw, do you remember when Rakuten was Play.com back in the late 90's? They were a rival to Amazon. I always used Play for my DVDs & CDs before I was swept over to Amazon.

Re: Rakuten Viki

Mr+Ripley — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:47:55 GMT

This is to any moderators out there. Once again, a post of mine has disappeared. This is the second time in the last few days & I'm not breaking any rules as far as I know. Can it be reinstated, please? Thank you.

Re: Rakuten Viki

caesarome — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:56:44 GMT

@Mr+Ripley

As was explained the other day the filter used on here to keep spam off the site does sometimes remove posts that it shouldn't so. It has certainly happened to me and probably just about every regular contributor in here I would have though this has happened to at one time or another. It will be restored as soon as possible by a moderator as your one from earlier in the week was.

Re: Rakuten Viki

Mr+Ripley — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:00:21 GMT

@caesarome Thanks for the reply. I know it's something that happens, but when it happens twice in 3 days, it's quite annoying. Anyway, when a moderator does sort this out, can they also remove these posts about the filter so that the thread remains as it should? Thank you.

Re: Rakuten Viki

Daniel0210 — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:21:02 GMT

@Mr+Ripley

Those posts will be useful to other customers in the future explaining to them the possibility of the filter gobbling up their posts.

Re: Rakuten Viki

BenJoBanjo — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 09:50:35 GMT

@Mr+Ripley wrote:
@BenJoBanjo wrote:
I agree - it's a good app, and been around for years on FireTV, Apple's tvOS and other platforms. I have several Asian friends who use it all the time.
The RakutenTV app is also very good and is awash with free, ad-supported content. It has a multitude of live FAST channels as well as on demand movies to stream free with ads or purchase in up to UHD with HDR resolution.
The fact of the matter is, there's an absolute plethora of content sources offering an endless supply of movies and shows, for free. There's literally too much choice...
@BenJoBanjo Nice to see another user. You're definitely right about there being too much choice; all the platforms seem to have an Asian category now. I even found one on Amazon called Kocowa. I'm currently trying to find any content with the actress Park Eun-bin, she is very good. I've seen her in Extraordinary Attorney Woo & Castaway Diva, & have a few other shows tucked away on various watchlists.
Btw, do you remember when Rakuten was Play.com back in the late 90's? They were a rival to Amazon. I always used Play for my DVDs & CDs before I was swept over to Amazon.

Oh my word, yes - I do remember when play.com morphed into Rakuten! I used them all the time for buying DVDs and CDs too. I actually found a load of old invoices/receipts from them recently when I was throwing out some old accounts documents, the shiny paper with the address label removed which was put on the jiffy bag!