One of the largest underground manga piracy operations on the internet has officially been taken offline, marking a major moment in the global fight against copyright infringement and signaling that international enforcement around digital piracy is tightening fast.
On November 19, 2025, in Japan and China, authorities confirmed the arrest of the operator behind Bato.to, a massively popular manga piracy platform, along with around 60 related websites, including xbato.com and mangapark.io. The operation was announced by Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), which said the takedown followed a coordinated investigation between Japanese publishers and Chinese law enforcement agencies.
For years, Bato.to sat at the center of what fans often called the “scanalation” ecosystem short for scanned translation. Volunteers would scan manga, manhwa, and webtoons, translate them into English and other languages, and upload them for free, often within hours of official releases. For readers, it became a go-to site. For publishers, it became one of the internet’s most persistent piracy hubs.
By May 2025, CODA says the 60 connected sites under Bato’s network recorded a combined 350 million visits in a single month, placing it among the most trafficked piracy operations globally. That scale also translated into serious money. Investigators estimate that during peak months, the operator earned over 400,000 yuan roughly $57,000 per month from advertising alone. That revenue, according to authorities, came directly from unlicensed distribution of copyrighted works.
Bato.to first launched in 2014, quietly building a reputation as one of the cleaner, better-organized manga aggregation sites on the web. Over time, it evolved into a major infrastructure layer for unofficial manga distribution, hosting user-uploaded content across genres and regions, from Japanese manga to Korean manhwa and Chinese manhua. While many users framed it as a community-driven service that filled gaps left by slow licensing cycles, publishers argued that it undermined legitimate markets, hurt creators, and distorted distribution economics across Asia, Europe, and North America.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
The arrest itself happened in China, where authorities detained the site’s operator on suspicion of copyright infringement. CODA later confirmed that the individual admitted to running both Bato.to and its network of affiliated domains. The operator has since been released on bail and is expected to be formally indicted in the coming months.
This takedown stands out not just because of Bato’s scale, but because of how it happened. Historically, many piracy sites avoided serious consequences by shifting servers, changing domains, or operating in legal gray zones across jurisdictions. This case, however, reflects growing cooperation between copyright holders, national regulators, and international enforcement agencies — especially between Japan and China, two countries that haven’t always aligned closely on digital copyright enforcement in the past.
That coordination is part of a broader strategy shift. Rather than focusing only on takedown notices or ISP-level blocking, publishers are now targeting the infrastructure operators, ad networks, payment systems, and hosting providers that make large-scale piracy financially viable in the first place. The Bato case shows what happens when enforcement moves upstream.
For manga fans, the shutdown creates immediate disruption. Many readers relied on Bato.to for fast access to new chapters, obscure titles, and works not yet licensed in their countries. Some will likely migrate to other piracy sites. Others may turn to official platforms like Shonen Jump+, Manga Plus, or Webtoon, which have been aggressively expanding simulpub releases and free ad-supported models in recent years.
For publishers, however, the takedown represents something more structural: proof that even long-standing piracy ecosystems can be dismantled if enough legal, financial, and political pressure converges. CODA has framed the operation as one of the most significant anti-piracy victories in the manga industry’s history, both because of Bato’s traffic volume and because of the international cooperation involved.
Still, the story doesn’t end here. Piracy networks tend to fragment rather than disappear entirely. New mirrors, clones, and community-driven distribution systems almost always emerge after large platforms go dark. But enforcement experts say that sustained crackdowns raise operational costs, shrink advertising revenue, and reduce visibility slowly eroding piracy’s economic incentives.
In that sense, Bato’s shutdown isn’t just about one website going offline. It’s about whether the manga industry is entering a phase where unauthorized mass distribution becomes harder to sustain at scale, especially when tied to monetization models like ads, subscriptions, and affiliate networks.
The shutdown of Bato.to and its 60-site network shows that large-scale manga piracy is no longer operating beyond the reach of law enforcement. With coordinated action between Japanese publishers and Chinese authorities, one of the most trafficked scanlation hubs in the world pulling in an estimated $57,000 per month has been dismantled. While piracy won’t disappear overnight, this case signals a shift toward targeting the business infrastructure behind illegal distribution, not just the content itself. For the manga industry, it’s a major enforcement win. For readers, it may accelerate the transition toward faster, more accessible official releases.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
