Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Association (hereafter CODA) announced on January 29 that a Chinese man who was running Bato.to, one of the world’s largest sites hosting pirated manga, has been criminally charged by local authorities on suspicion of violating copyright law. According to the organization, the crackdown was a collaborative effort between Japanese and Chinese publishers and law enforcement.
On November 19 last year, Shanghai police reportedly searched the suspect’s home, seizing computers and other equipment. He subsequently admitted to running a network of approximately 60 piracy sites (including xbato.com, bato.to and mangapark.io), through which he earned upwards of $57,000 USD in ad revenue during peak months. After being arrested and detained, he was released on bail, but is expected to be formally indicted.
According to CODA, the investigation was launched at the request of five major Japanese publishers (KADOKAWA, Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan, and Square Enix), with CODA’s Beijing office filing a criminal complaint with Chinese authorities on September 25, 2025. Additionally, China Literature Limited, a Tencent subsidiary that runs one of the country’s largest online publishing platforms, also confirmed that its titles were being hosted on the sites in question, and joined in filing the complaint. While the sites remained online for some time after the suspected operator was detained in order to preserve evidence, all 60 sites were confirmed offline by January 19.
Given that Bato.to attracted a combined 7.2 billion visits over the 37-month period from October 2022 to October 2025, CODA considers this a big “victory” against piracy of Japanese content, calculating that the economic impact amounts to over $5 billion USD. They report that after Bato.to’s closure, the US-targeted manga platform MangaPlaza saw its daily sales roughly double.
