I am usually the first to trash Japanese software for their archaic sign-up processes, back-ends, and UI’s.. but I’ve been really pleasantly surprised by U-Next!
I’m not sure I’ve ever had such an easy time signing up for (and more importantly, canceling) a Japanese service. Huge points for not rejecting my name because it wasn’t in the right type of katakana, or requiring some sort of roundabout authentication, or a separate sign-up with a partner company (looking at you docomo), or 本人確認 garbage. No badgering on a cancel, either — just two or three clicks and that was it.
Also, out of all the apps on my LG smart TV, it’s by far the snappiest and most responsive. Just feels really well-designed when compared to the sluggish crap Disney+ and Prime apps. It has a clean interface and a lot of ways to dig for content.
There is a shit ton of content on this app, and they’re not weirdly obfiscated and hidden — you can go straight into an A-Z search of everything if you want. I’ve found a ton of old movies on here that I haven’t watched or thought about in years, just because they just don’t show up (easily) on the other services.
The biggest con I can think of is that a lot of newer or really popular titles require separate “Premium” purchases, but for some reason my account has been absolutely stacked with “Points” to buy them with. I think they came along with the free trials that I’ve been using?
With the free trials, 3 months in, between my wife and I, we haven’t paid anything yet. And I’m not sure I would… the actual cost is something insane like 2200 yen. Is anyone here actually paying that?
As far as other bad points… the lack of English subtitles sucks. Even on English-speaking content, I always like to have subtitles on. Unfortunately UNext only really caters to Japanese speakers.
I guess this comes across as some sort of sneaky ad, but really I was just surprised to come across a Japanese app that wasn’t total crap, and thought it deserved a bit of praise!
5 comments
>but for some reason my account has been absolutely stacked with “Points” to buy them with. I think they came along with the free trials that I’ve been using?
They give you new points every month. I’ve never paid for locked content because they always give you more points.
I always figured unext is expensive because it’s the only streaming service that offers porn.
But yeah, too expensive for me.
I was, for the the duration of house of dragon season.
For the price they charge the service is bad. Lot of streaming issues when trying to watch content. Also use disney plus and Netflix. No issues with them.
I used the free trial and kept it for a month or two after (mostly to watch The Sopranos). If there’s a show I want to watch I’d definitely activate it again. Another nice thing is that you can also use the points at movie theaters!
Wait can you cancel and reactivate the service at will? I thought I read in the fine print that canceling the service after the free trial within your first year incurs a fee and that was the main reason I never signed up.
If its free to turn it off/on for the months I want then I would definitely reconsider.