BTS Smash App: How to Watch Smash City
What is BTS Smash City and how do you get to it? We break down how to access the smash. app, in the wake of its new collaboration with the K-pop band.
It’s always a great time to be a BTS fan, but ARMY has been particularly blessed this month. Not only did the Korean band celebrate BTS Festa—a two-week celebration of their 8th anniversary that culminated in a virtual concert event watched by more than 1.3 million people—the band just announced an ongoing collaboration with Japanese-based app smash. (launched by SHOWROOM, in partnership with HYBE). The announcement led many ARMY (including this one) to ask: what the heck is smash., and how do I get BTS Smash City into my eyeballs? I’ve got some answers for you…
What is BTS Smash City?
SHOWROOM president Yuji Maeda described smash.city as “the fictional city … in smash,” adding: “Imagine a place like an oasis where members can spend a little time forgetting their busy days.” Um, done.
According to Oricon Music: “The movie concept in which BTS appears is set in the virtual city ‘smash.city.’ You can peep at the holidays of the seven BTS members spending here. Members who spend their holiday mornings relaxedly, chess, boxing members, etc., are projected with the closeness of a vertical video that seems to be heard even breathing.” Guess who’s boxing?
What is the Smash App?
smash. is “a vertical theater app that develops short video content of about 5 to 10 minutes.” The app launched in October 2020, and is currently available in Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Although, there’s hope for ARMY from other parts of the world as the official press release for the BTS collab stated: “This is the first step in ‘smash.’ offering even more free video content in its effort to provide exclusive content to a wider audience in Japan and around the world.” First step.
smash. is obviously (and cleverly) betting big on this BTS collaboration, but they also feature content from other Korean and Japanese entertainers, including Hey! Say! JUMP, Nogizaka 46, and Hinatazaka 46. Right now, the app describes itself as offering “music,” “variety,” and “documentary” content, but it mentions having plans to expand into “drama” and “animation” in the future.
Where Can I Watch BTS Smash City?
smash. obviously really wants ARMY to download their app, so the content can be viewed by downloading and registering on the “smash.” app. The app is currently offering a one-month free trial for the premium version of the app. After that, it will cost $5.05 per month. Here’s a link to the BTS original content viewing page. And you can find out more about the smash. app, which also features other artists, here. (Note: these links are in Japanese, so…)
When is BTS Content Released on the Smash App?
BTS dropped its first exclusive smash. content on Friday, June 18th at 8am JST. The ep was simultaneously made accessible in Japan, Korea, and the U.S. (For U.S. east coast people like me, Japan is 13 hours ahead, like Korea, which means new content will drop for us on Thursday nights at 7pm.—someone check my math!) The first episode is free (that’s how they get ya!) and aired for 60 minutes. Moving forward, a new episodes will be released weekly and will feature the members showing us how they spend their days off in “smash.city.” (Note: a bit of a contradiction, as this content creation is, by its definition, work, but I get the sentiment. We’re playing by In the Soop rules here.)
Is BTS Smash City Free?
According to the press release, “some” of the episodes will be available for free. What does this mean? Well, the first ep is free, but moving forward only part of the episodes released will be accessible for free. At this point, it’s unclear what that could mean. Likely, a few clips from each hour-long episode will be accessible for free as a way to encourage more people to bite the bullet and buy the whole thing on the smash. app. As mentioned previously, the app is currently offering a one-month free trial for the premium version of the app. After that, it will cost $5.05 per month.
See you in smash.city.
Written by
Kayti is a pop culture writer, editor, and full-time nerd who comes from a working class background. A member of the Television Critics Association, she specializes…