Why Was AniWave Shut Down? The 2024 Anime Piracy Sites Shutdown Explained

Anime fans are furious that a series of well-known streaming piracy anime sites were shut down without any explanation, especially AniWave, formerly 9Anime, which amassed millions of daily views and accumulated an expressive number of shows that could be watched for free.

The anime and piracy dilemma has walked hand in hand for decades, enabling viewers from all over the world to easily watch their favorite series with just a few clicks (and a bunch of suspicious ads). However, in the last few years, Japan's government has taken more serious actions to eliminate the spreading of illegal content, as YouTuber Saioren explains in rich detail why, what causes it, and what effects piracy has on the anime industry.

Taking down more than 10 privacy sites might've caused a lot of stir and memes in the anime community, but this is likely not the end of the war, here's why!

Why Was AniWave Shutdown?

Late at night of August 26th and early August 27th, thousands of netizens started to post on X, formerly Twitter, screenshots and messages about the streaming piracy site AniWave being shut down. The X page @MangaMoguraRE revealed that several popular anime piracy streaming sites were shut down and had gone offline, including AnimeSuge and AniWave. The tweet (seen below) amassed over 34,000 likes and 7,700 reposts in a few hours.

According to an article posted by the Torrent Freak website, AniWave.to, formerly known as 9Anime, serviced a "mind-blowing 170 million visits a month," and now a message posted on the shutdown site suggests, "that with the arrival of improved legal alternatives, now is an opportune time to stop pirating."

Also on August 27th, an article posted by the CBR website noted that almost all the anime piracy websites affected by the shutdown shared the domain suffix .to, which is the country code top-level domain for the Kingdom of Tonga.

How Did The Internet React To The Anime Piracy Sites Shutdown?

Anime fans weren't happy to discover their favorite illegal sites got taken down so abruptly so they decided to use humor and memes to cope with their loss. For example, X user @DynamoSuperX posted the Pirates of the Caribbean meme of a captain walking down the stairs while his ship is destroyed around him, captioning it as all the anime websites affected by the shutdowns.

Content creators and influencers related to the anime community also shared their thoughts about the ongoing war against piracy, like YouTuber Chibi Reviews, who posted an essay delving into what caused most of the active community to be more piracy-leaning.

TikTokers also mourned the anime site shutdowns, as user @zethie00 uploaded a video with the text overlay of his reaction, writing, "It's over every anime website is gone."

For the full history of the 2024 Anime Piracy Sites Shutdown, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's entry for even more information.