Bato.To is Dead (Again?)

[Evans01]

Seems Kakao Entertainment is behind this; Kakao Entertainment Behind the Bato.to Piracy Crackdown, Operator Identified (torrentfreak)

Kakao: I'd do anything rather than fixing my user experience issues and caring my employees

 

[OisE]

Kakao: I'd do anything rather than fixing my user experience issues and caring my employees

When in Korea, do as the Koreans do.

 

[Evans01]

When in Korea, do as the Koreans do.

Hm... maybe yes, maybe no.

Yes if I got treated as how Koreans served. No if they left my favorite manhwa's next season not translated into my local language, enough for making a wide gaps with the raw. Also no (this one is the Webtoon ID case) if they start just spamming shoujo rofan (romance fantasy) and start forgetting to treat their male (shounen based) reader. I mean, why do I had to care them enough when they not caring about me as their consumer?

But in general, yes, I agree with you.

 

[OisE]

if they start just spamming shoujo rofan

I would be happy!
shoujo is totally japanese but well...

 

[Evans01]

shoujo is totally japanese but well...

Lol, sorry my bad. I mean, shoujo here is the audience segmentation, which mean, Webtoon ID spamming the manhwa one, not the manga lol. As their reader from 7-8 years ago, it's kinda annoying since they just spamming their shoujo rofan manhwa, ignoring shounen based manhwa or local comics, and pretending not knowing that their consumers was bombing them with suggestions, critics, or any else in social medias. Recently, they also start add 3rd party advertisement. Dunno why but then a lot of people asking, "The, what's the difference of my experience in those illegal sites compared to that called 'legal platform' if I keep haunted by those ads too?"

I would be happy!

Happy for you too!

 

[HDMI1]

 

[PokutoHokuto]

Just found this article which is also related to the batoto takedown

2026.01.29

Operator of the World’s Largest Manga Piracy Site BATO.TO Criminally Investigated in China​

On November 19, 2025, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau of China searched the residence of a man living in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on suspicion of copyright infringement.
The suspect is alleged to have operated the world’s largest manga piracy site, BATO.TO (including approximately 60 related sites such as xbato.com, bato.to, and mangapark.io),
and to have illegally distributed Japanese manga and other works without authorization from rights holders after translating them into more than 50 languages, including English.

Although the group of sites continued limited operation temporarily after the suspect’s detention for evidence preservation purposes, related parties later announced the shutdown of the services on social media. By January 19, the closure of all 60 sites had been confirmed.

coda-cj.jp/en/news/830/ (it's an anti-piracy site, don't give it clicks, because they datamine, and they can trace back to the site where the link is, use the archived version) (though they should already know mangadex exists)
https://archive.fo/6wpci

Didn't knew batoto and mangapark were related.
So they also kept the raided sites open for 2 months to metadata the site visitors, scummy.

Furthermore, the operator simultaneously ran a large number of similar sites under different domain names.
Investigations by CODA and the publishers have confirmed at least 60 such sites.
In May 2025 alone, these 60 sites recorded a combined 350 million visits,(1) making BATO.TO effectively the largest manga piracy site in the world. Total traffic over the 37-month period from October 2022 to October 2025 reached approximately 7.2 billion visits

This case originated from concerns raised about BATO.TO at the Five-Publisher Manga Piracy Countermeasures Meeting held in July 2024.
Through collaboration with cybersecurity experts, including ethical hackers, CODA conducted open-source intelligence (OSINT) investigations. Upon discovering that Chinese services were being used, CODA worked with a Chinese investigative firm to identify the operator, leading to the filing of a criminal complaint with the China’s public security bureau.

Many of the unauthorized translated manga uploaded to BATO.TO were produced through so-called “scanlation,”

The notorious scanlation terror of publishers (how old or out of touch are these people, really?)

in which organized teams known as scanlation groups scan manga, remove the original text, insert translated text, and distribute the works online, causing widespread global infringement.
In recent years, as Japanese manga and anime have gained increasing worldwide popularity and AI technologies have advanced, the damage caused by such unauthorized manga translations has intensified

What damage? Who is getting damaged by translations of series without official translation? Which is most of the series
Ok, this, and the "value of lost revenue estimates" are the usual trite points they spout every single time...

In response to the site closures, Takero Goto, Representative Director of CODA, commented: “The closure of the world’s largest manga piracy site through criminal enforcement is highly significant for cross-border anti-piracy efforts. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Chinese authorities, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and all others involved who devoted their efforts to this case.” He also emphasized CODA’s commitment to strengthening cooperation with all relevant parties to fully uncover the facts of the case.

Seems Kakao Entertainment is behind this; Kakao Entertainment Behind the Bato.to Piracy Crackdown, Operator Identified (torrentfreak)

So there was a korea+japan team on one side, and an other china+japan team on the other side, both targeting batoto and related alt sites at the same time