Japanese publishers are pursuing pirate site operators all around the world but no matter where they\u2019re physically located, the majority have some kind of infrastructure directly behind a reverse proxy at Cloudflare. All rightsholders have to do is obtain a DMCA subpoena, serve Cloudflare, and sift through the resulting mountain of logs for clues and, in an ideal world, signs of an operator security blunder.<\/p>\n
Shueisha Targets ~25 Domains<\/h2>\n
Shueisha\u2019s appearance at a U.S. court this week adds to a growing list of actions in the United States by Japanese publishers including Shogakukan, Kadokawa and Kodansha.<\/p>\n All listed domains are accused of infringing Shueisha\u2019s rights in ONE PIECE, a manga series featuring a search for mythical treasure and a chance to become the next King of the Pirates.<\/p>\n The domains of interest to Shueisha look broadly familiar; most feature the word \u2018manga\u2019 and the term \u2018raw\u2019 (a reference to unmodified comics in their original language) is quite common too. Beyond that, the list represents a typical example of domains that probably won\u2019t be in use for very long. At some point they\u2019re likely to be replaced by others that in many cases will look confusingly similar to their predecessors.<\/p>\n For those outside the manga piracy community, keeping track of these changes can become a real chore. A site with a new domain, assisted by various means, may appear out of what seems like thin air, before becoming one of the world\u2019s most popular pirate sites in a matter of weeks. Others may disappear into obscurity in what seems like an instant.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The screenshot above shows the site at the top of Shueisha\u2019s list. Mangajikan, or \u2018cartoon time\u2019 in English, was registered in May 2024 and for the first couple of months of 2025, attracted very little interest from rightsholders.<\/p>\n In early March, everything changed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n DMCA takedown notices for Google search initially tripled, and then around two weeks later, doubled in volume. Traffic of \u2018just\u2019 a few million in January kept increasing; in March, Mangajikan received over 104 million visits, then in April a surprise reduction to \u2018just\u2019 90 million.<\/p>\n Then, in May, Mangajikan more than doubled its existing traffic; in just four weeks, 90 million visits became 185 million.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This surge made Mangajikan the most popular site in SimilarWeb\u2019s \u2018Animation and Comics\u2019 category for the whole of Japan, and the 17th most popular site in the country overall.<\/p>\n In such a short period of time, that type of growth could be mistaken for magic. Sleight of hand probably shouldn\u2019t be ruled out, or indeed, a few extra domains up a sleeve donating unwanted traffic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Whatever the technique, Mangajikan was more popular than Facebook, and more visited than ChatGPT. Lagging behind in 24th position, Pornhub didn\u2019t even make the chart.<\/p>\n After taking the internet by storm in the blink of an eye, Mangajikan.com\u2019s apparent retreat into the ether was even more swift. The site\u2019s goodbye note is functional, even bilingual, but fairly brief by most standards. The same message appears on mangajikan.to<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So did the site really shut down or did it just change shape?<\/p>\n If we refer back to Shueisha\u2019s list, traffic to most of the domains has either fallen dramatically in the last three months, or increased in much the same way.<\/p>\n One of the Mangaraw-branded domains in the list had 27.5 million visits in March but just 7 million in May. Another with the same branding saw visitor numbers fall from 28.4 million to 19.4 million in the same period. A third Mangaraw domain had 20.4 million visits in March, 8.4 million in April, and 3.8 million in May. Visits seem unlikely to have simply dried up.<\/p>\n Overall, Vietnam-focused domains may be the biggest movers in the DMCA subpoena application, two in particular. Both had zero traffic in March but during May, one had 27.5m visits which made it the 24th most popular site in the whole of Vietnam.<\/p>\n SimilarWeb data shows that the second grew even more quickly \u2013 zero visits in March to 77.2 million in May, allowing the domain to take the #9 slot in Vietnam\u2019s most-visited website list with relative ease.<\/p>\n There are clear signs that visits to Mangajikan found their way to other domains, one with identical branding and another with a more generic name. According to Semrush data, the latter had a significant visitor boost in May after receiving close to 40% of Mangajikan\u2019s outbound traffic.<\/p>\n URLQuery reports that Quad9 flagged the domain as \u2018malicious\u2019 and then sinkholed it, protecting users of its DNS from what appears to be a Chaturbate-linked or Chaturbate-branded popunder affair, followed by whatever surprises came next.<\/p>\n We have no information about the outcome but on the balance of probabilities, it\u2019s unlikely to have involved free Japanese comics. And if there\u2019s no new manga involved, in practical terms that translates to zero interest shown by those eager to consume it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a problem for all current major anti-piracy campaigns globally, regardless of the content they aim to protect.<\/p>\n Source: \u00a0![\"one-piece](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/one-piece-list-s1.png.webp\")
<\/picture>Shueisha\u2019s subpoena target is Cloudflare and having already served DMCA takedown notices as required, Shueisha should receive data for around two dozen pirate domains.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s Manga Time<\/h2>\n
![\"mangajikan-ss\"](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/mangajikan-ss.png.webp)
<\/picture><\/center> <\/p>\n![\"mangajikan-td\"](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/mangajikan-td.png.webp)
<\/picture><\/center> <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/mangajikan-traffic.png.webp\")
<\/picture><\/center> <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/jp-traffic.png.webp)
<\/picture><\/center> <\/p>\nBye. Website Closed<\/h2>\n
![\"mangajikan-closed\"](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/mangajikan-closed.png.webp)
<\/picture><\/center> <\/p>\nOrganized Instability<\/h2>\n
A Disappointing Ending For Some<\/h2>\n
![\"TorrentFreak\"](\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/quad9-sinkholed.png.webp)
<\/a> TorrentFreak.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![\"TorrentFreak\"](\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/torrentfreak.png\")
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