700+ Manga Wiped Overnight: Manga Industry Declares War on Piracy.

During the second week in the month of May 2025, there occurred what was from the outset described as “the largest manga purge to date.” Enthusiasts and frequent users of sites such as MangaDex, in fact, suddenly found themselves deprived of comic book content that had become a guarantee in their daily lives. More than 700 titles have been removed from websites dedicated to publishing scans online.

The move was perpetrated by the manga industry itself, in an attempt to counter in its own way in the eternal fight against piracy. The decision directly accompanied a takedown of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that, as pointed out by several users on Reddit and in the appropriate forums, seems unprecedented.

The takedown plan was proposed and carried out by a group of Japanese and South Korean publishers, including Square Enix, Kodansha, Shueisha, Shogakukan, Kakao, and Naver. The strategy was, in addition, supported by Kameso, an anti-piracy campaign.