'Operation Animes' Shuts Down 16 Illegal Streaming Sites: Japan and Brazil have teamed up to fight piracy by shutting down anime streaming sites

If you woke up this morning hoping to catch up on One Piece or maybe some Jujutsu Kaisen episodes on your favorite illegal streaming site, you probably had a rude awakening. You probably discovered that the site doesn't exist anymore.

That's because Japan and Brazil teamed up to obliterate 16 of the biggest illegal streaming sites on the Internet because they dared to stream anime.

Japan has been steadfast in its fight against anime piracy. And it makes sense why. It's one of their biggest cultural exports and rakes in billions of dollars a year, and they'd probably be making a lot more if these sites didn't exist. So, they collaborated with Brazilian authorities on a special operation called "Operation Animes."

The first phase of the operation, in February and March 2023, resulted in the closure of 36 anime pirating sites. The second phase has been underway since September 2023 and has been responsible for the closure of 16 another sites, including Aniwave aka 9anime. Three of the site takedowns were reportedly following criminal charges by Toei Animation, Toho, and Bandai Namco Filmworks.

The whole operation has been spearheaded by an organization called CODA, or the Content Overseas Distribution Association. Based in Japan, the organization enacts countermeasures against global piracy of Japanese media, mostly anime and manga. All of this coincides with a Brazilian antipiracy initiative launched in 2019 called "Operation 404" which aims to cease the operations of piracy sites, apps, and social media accounts.

Brazilian authorities conducted "knock and talk" raids of the site owners' premises. Eleven of the sites were voluntarily surrendered by their operators. The sites now redirect to a CODA page announcing their closure.

One has to wonder how effective these operations are going to be, considering that piracy sites are a dime a dozen. It's essentially a giant game of Internet whack-a-mole. You can take down 16 of them---but will another 50 quickly take their place?