KissAnime is a longstanding piracy website where people illegally stream anime shows.

On August 15, 2020, moderators on the KissAnime subreddit posted a thread announcing the permanent closure of KissAnime.

Sister site KissManga, which hosts manga comics, has also been taken down.

According to Aniradio Plus, KissAnime Support's announced that the beta server had been taken down at 6:19am.

The moderators on the subreddit have also urged people not to visit other unofficial KissAnime sites as they are most likely phishing sites, using the familiar name to entrap users.

Eventually, all files were apparently deleted.

The official KissAnime website currently only shows the words "All files are taken down by copyright owners. The site will be closed forever. Thank you for your supports".

Stricter copyright laws

Japan will be enacting stricter copyright laws from January 2021 onwards. According to Kyodo News, the stricter laws will target leech websites as well.

This means websites that provide hyperlinks to download torrent files of pirated manga or anime will also be targeted.

In 2019, alleged manga pirate Romi Hoshino was arrested while trying to take a plane to Hong Kong from The Philippines.

He reportedly managed Manga Mura, which was considered one of the most notorious manga sharing websites at the time.

CNN reported that Japanese officials said the losses from sales amounted to 320 billion yen (S$4.12 billion).

The site was operational from January 2016 to April 2018. During that time, the Philippines government said publishers claimed to have lost as much $2.9 billion (320 billion yen) in sales, according to Japan officials.

According to Soranews, Japan publishers, including publishers of Weekly Shounen Jump and Shonen Magazine, jointly filed a lawsuit against websites they called "successor sites" to Manga Mura.

According to Soranews, he was deemed by officials as "a risk to public safety and security".

Totally unrelated but here's the latest episode of our podcast

Image adapted from Sensorstechforum and Gamerevolution