Viki

Viki is Rakuten's global streaming platform for Asian drama, film, and variety, and it remains one of the clearest routes through which Korean television travels internationally. Launched in 2010 and acquired by Rakuten in 2013, the service built its reputation on community subtitling, giving viewers outside Asia a faster and broader path into Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese titles than most Western platforms offered during the first major K-drama expansion wave.

That subtitle system is still the core differentiator. Viki turned fan labor into a global accessibility engine, then layered editorial curation, watchlists, events, and platform-native promotion on top of it. The result is a service that feels more active than a passive content warehouse, especially for viewers who follow currently airing Korean dramas and want multilingual access without waiting for larger global streamers to move.

The current era is about turning that fandom infrastructure into a stronger brand universe. Viki has leaned into originals, cast-facing content, and global campaigns such as International K-Drama Day while keeping a public-facing press and social footprint that stays tightly aligned with Korean drama culture. That mix of fandom fluency, subtitling scale, and direct K-drama editorial identity is why Viki still matters in a streaming market full of much larger names.