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The World’s Biggest Anime Torrent Site Faces a Landmark New Crackdown
Emilia using ice magic with her hand outstretched in the Re:Zero anime.
Image via White Fox
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By
Ami Nazru
Jul 29, 2026, 7:05 PM EDT
Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents:
Nyaa, the world’s largest anime torrent site, has become the target of piracy watchdogs following the arrest of a first uploader (seeder) who shared a copyrighted work on the platform.
Per the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), the Cyber Investigation Division of the Kyoto Prefectural Police and the Fushimi Police Station arrested a man residing in Sagamihara City on July 28, 2026. The individual is accused of uploading the NHK television drama Midnight Taxi on Nyaa this year by posting a torrent file and distributing the data to users through a peer-to-peer (P2P) network.
Police suspect that the individual has also acted as a first uploader for various other television dramas, which mainly include works copyrighted by Japanese broadcaster NHK.
Anime Torrent Site Nyaa Faces Major New Piracy Crackdown
Naruto, Solo Leveling and One Piece anime collage
Image by Ryan Rice
While the latest crackdown involves a television drama, it will likely provide a precedent for law enforcement to expand legal actions against uploaders sharing anime content on the torrent site.
The Kyoto police previously arrested three people in 2025 for sharing Nyaa torrent links containing episodes of Re:Zero Season 3, Kowloon Generic Romance and Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX. However, these individuals were identified as second uploaders rather than primary seeders.
Tracking copyright infringement on torrent sites has historically proven difficult because the site’s central servers do not host media files, holding only torrent locator files while data transfers directly between user devices. Due to that, this latest arrest of the first seeder, who acts as the source where pirated content originates, is all the more important.
In this case, the suspect was identified by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s (METI) Cross-Border Enforcement Project, utilizing forensic tools from the Japan Hacker Association. This development is expected to expose additional top-level uploaders and increase the scrutiny on the torrent site. In fact, CODA has been actively conducting an investigation into Nyaa since FY2021, along with METI, with a view to identifying such seeders.
Nyaa is recognized as one of the largest anime piracy networks worldwide, with a large volume of new content uploaded on the platform on a daily basis. Interestingly, the operator of illegal anime streaming site B9GOOD had identified Nyaa as a primary source for pirated material following his arrest in 2023.
Nyaa Identified as Major Source of Anime Piracy by Japan
A collage of the anime Jujutsu Kaisen, Solo Leveling and One Piece
Image via CBR
Authorities have earmarked Nyaa as a major source of online copyright infringement for a long time and taken measures against it. This includes a 2019 collaboration with Google to remove the site’s homepage from the platform’s search results.
Despite these measures, the site has continued to thrive, attracting approximately 30 million monthly visits on average in the last 12-month period. Roughly 50% of this traffic originated from Japan itself.
In recent times, however, legal actions against illegal anime streamers and their operators have intensified, with a large chunk of the current piracy ecosystem dismantled this year alone. This includes the shutdown of Hi-Anime, formerly the largest anime piracy streaming website, and the arrest of its operators. Other popular streaming sites like AnimeKai and AniGo have also shut down this year.
With major players out of the picture, CODA and other agencies will likely shift their attention to Nyaa in a bid to curb the copyright infringement that has reportedly bled the anime industry dry for years.
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CBR logo The World’s Biggest Anime Torrent Site Faces a Landmark New Crackdown Emilia using ice magic with her hand outstretched in the Re:Zero anime. Image via White Fox Follow Thread Link copied to clipboard 4 By Ami Nazru Jul 29, 2026, 7:05 PM EDT Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents:
Nyaa, the world’s largest anime torrent site, has become the target of piracy watchdogs following the arrest of a first uploader (seeder) who shared a copyrighted work on the platform.
Per the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), the Cyber Investigation Division of the Kyoto Prefectural Police and the Fushimi Police Station arrested a man residing in Sagamihara City on July 28, 2026. The individual is accused of uploading the NHK television drama Midnight Taxi on Nyaa this year by posting a torrent file and distributing the data to users through a peer-to-peer (P2P) network.
Police suspect that the individual has also acted as a first uploader for various other television dramas, which mainly include works copyrighted by Japanese broadcaster NHK. Anime Torrent Site Nyaa Faces Major New Piracy Crackdown Naruto, Solo Leveling and One Piece anime collage Image by Ryan Rice
While the latest crackdown involves a television drama, it will likely provide a precedent for law enforcement to expand legal actions against uploaders sharing anime content on the torrent site.
The Kyoto police previously arrested three people in 2025 for sharing Nyaa torrent links containing episodes of Re:Zero Season 3, Kowloon Generic Romance and Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX. However, these individuals were identified as second uploaders rather than primary seeders.
Tracking copyright infringement on torrent sites has historically proven difficult because the site’s central servers do not host media files, holding only torrent locator files while data transfers directly between user devices. Due to that, this latest arrest of the first seeder, who acts as the source where pirated content originates, is all the more important.
In this case, the suspect was identified by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s (METI) Cross-Border Enforcement Project, utilizing forensic tools from the Japan Hacker Association. This development is expected to expose additional top-level uploaders and increase the scrutiny on the torrent site. In fact, CODA has been actively conducting an investigation into Nyaa since FY2021, along with METI, with a view to identifying such seeders.
Nyaa is recognized as one of the largest anime piracy networks worldwide, with a large volume of new content uploaded on the platform on a daily basis. Interestingly, the operator of illegal anime streaming site B9GOOD had identified Nyaa as a primary source for pirated material following his arrest in 2023. Nyaa Identified as Major Source of Anime Piracy by Japan A collage of the anime Jujutsu Kaisen, Solo Leveling and One Piece Image via CBR
Authorities have earmarked Nyaa as a major source of online copyright infringement for a long time and taken measures against it. This includes a 2019 collaboration with Google to remove the site’s homepage from the platform’s search results.
Despite these measures, the site has continued to thrive, attracting approximately 30 million monthly visits on average in the last 12-month period. Roughly 50% of this traffic originated from Japan itself.
In recent times, however, legal actions against illegal anime streamers and their operators have intensified, with a large chunk of the current piracy ecosystem dismantled this year alone. This includes the shutdown of Hi-Anime, formerly the largest anime piracy streaming website, and the arrest of its operators. Other popular streaming sites like AnimeKai and AniGo have also shut down this year.
With major players out of the picture, CODA and other agencies will likely shift their attention to Nyaa in a bid to curb the copyright infringement that has reportedly bled the anime industry dry for years.
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