After months of speculation on Reddit and social media, it is now official: Bato.to and about 60 related mirror sites have been permanently shut down. The Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA) says this is one of the largest coordinated actions against manga piracy so far.
When did the case against Bato.to begin?
CODA reports that Bato.to had been online for over twelve years, with its first web.archive.org entry dated September 2, 2014. For much of that period, the site went mostly unnoticed by rights holders. This changed in July 2024, when Japanese publishers raised concerns at a joint anti-piracy meeting. After that, CODA started organizing 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.
Here is a summary of the main events that led to the shutdown of Bato.to.
- 2014: Bato.to launches as a user-uploaded manga piracy site.
- 2018: The person later identified as the suspect becomes the main 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 home of a suspect in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. According to CODA, the man admitted he was the main operator behind Bato.to and its network, which included sites like xbato.com and mangapark.io.
During the search, investigators took computers and began checking server data and how the site was run. The suspect was released on bail, but the investigation continued. By January 19, 2026, authorities confirmed that all 60 or so related websites were offline.
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A piracy network with billions of visits
Investigators found that Bato.to was not just one site, but a network of piracy sites designed to reach people worldwide and make enforcement harder.
CODA says the 60 known sites had about 350 million visits in May 2025 alone, making Bato.to the world’s largest manga piracy platform at that time.
From October 2022 to October 2025, the network saw an estimated 7.2 billion visits. CODA used standard models to estimate the economic damage at about 770 billion yen, or roughly US$5.2 billion. However, these numbers should be viewed with caution.
A 2024 study by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) found that manga is the most pirated type of publication. The study also says some readers use illegal sites because official versions are not available in their area, come out much later, or are too expensive.
While piracWhile piracy hurts legal distribution, research on digital piracy shows that illegal reading does not always mean lost sales. Not every illegal read would have been a paid purchase, so it is hard to measure the exact financial impact., 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 called the Bato.to case a milestone for international copyright enforcement. Takero Goto, CODA’s Representative Director, said the shutdown was very important for cross-border cooperation and thanked both Chinese authorities and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry for their help.
As manga becomes more popular worldwide and translation tools improve, CODA says it plans to build even stronger international partnerships to stop similar large-scale piracy in the future.
