After months of Reddit threads and memes circulating on social media, it has now been officially confirmed that Bato.to and around 60 associated mirror sites have been permanently shut down. According to the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), this case is one of the largest coordinated actions against manga piracy to date.
When did the case against Bato.to begin?
According to CODA Bato.to had been online for more than twelve years, the first entry on web.archive.org was on September 2, 2014. For most of that time, the site largely flew under the radar of rights holders. That changed in July 2024, when Japanese publishers flagged the platform during a joint anti-piracy meeting. CODA then began coordinating a formal response.
In September 2025, CODA’s Beijing office filed a criminal complaint with Chinese authorities on behalf of several major Japanese publishers, including:
- Kadokawa Corporation
- Kodansha Ltd.
- Shueisha Inc.
- Shogakukan Inc.
- Square Enix Co., Ltd.
The complaint accused Bato.to and dozens of related domains of large-scale copyright infringement.
An overview of key events that let to the shutdown of bato
- 2014: Bato.to launches as a user-uploaded manga piracy site.
- 2018: The later suspect becomes a central operator of the platform
- July 2024: Japanese publishers raise concerns during an anti-piracy meeting
- September 25, 2025: CODA files a criminal complaint in China
- November 19, 2025: Chinese police search the suspect’s residence
- January 19, 2026: All approximately 60 Bato.to-related sites are fully shut down
Police raid and confession by the operator
On November 19, 2025, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau searched the residence of a suspect living in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. CODA reports that the man admitted to acting as the central operator behind Bato.to and its broader network, which included domains such as xbato.com and mangapark.io.
During the search, investigators seized computers and started reviewing server data and the site’s operational setup. The suspect was later released on bail, but the investigation did not end there. By January 19, 2026, authorities had confirmed that all roughly 60 connected websites had been taken offline.
A piracy network with billions of visits
Investigators concluded that Bato.to was not a single site but a distributed piracy network, structured to reach a global audience while reducing the risk of enforcement.
According to CODA, the 60 known sites recorded around 350 million visits in May 2025 alone, effectively making Bato.to the largest manga piracy platform in the world at that time.
Between October 2022 and October 2025, total traffic across the network reached an estimated 7.2 billion visits. Using standard content valuation models, CODA calculated the resulting economic damage at approximately 770 billion yen, or about US$5.2 billion. These figures, however, should be interpreted with caution.
Acording to a 2024 study published by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) manga is the most pirated content within the “publications” category. The study also notes that some readers turn to illegal platforms because official versions are unavailable in their region, released much later, or simply too expensive for them.
While piracy clearly undermines legal distribution, research on digital piracy suggests that illegal consumption does not directly translate into lost sales. Not every illegal read would have resulted in a paid purchase, which makes a strict one-to-one calculation of financial impact difficult.
That said, CODA points to a notable short-term effect following the shutdown. NTT Solmare reported that daily sales on its U.S.-focused e-book store MangaPlaza roughly doubled shortly after Bato.to went offline. For rights holders, this was one of the few concrete signs that enforcement measures can have a direct impact on legal sales.
Cross-border anti-piracy efforts will continue to grow
CODA has described the Bato.to case as a milestone in international copyright enforcement. Takero Goto, Representative Director of CODA, called the shutdown highly significant for cross-border cooperation and publicly thanked both Chinese authorities and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry for their support.
As manga continues to gain global popularity and translation technologies become more accessible, CODA has stated that it plans to further strengthen international partnerships to prevent similar large-scale piracy operations in the future.
