Interest

Southeast Asia, India Fans Disproportionately Affected by Pirate Site KissAnime Closure

The piracy anime and manga websites KissAnime and KissManga became inaccessible last weekend. ANN surveyed its readers on their attitudes towards the closure of the sites and found that support for the sites was higher in India and Southeast Asia compared to the United States.

64.27% of respondents in India said that they were "angry or sad" or "extremely angry or sad" about the closure of KissAnime and KissManga compared to 33.89% in the United States. Similarly, only 7.63% of respondents in India said that they were "happy" or "extremely happy" about the closure compared to 24% in the U.S.

In Malaysia, 67.49% said that they were "angry or sad" or "extremely angry or sad," while 7.69% said they were "happy" or "extremely happy." In the Philippines, 57.62% of respondents said that they were "angry or sad" or "extremely angry or sad," while 6.32% responded that they were "happy" or "extremely happy."

Notably, U.S. respondents indicated a higher rate of ambivalence. 41.36% indicated that they felt ambivalent compared to 24.10% in India, 35.32% in the Philippines, and 24.85% in Malaysia.

It is also worth noting that ANN's readers in India skew younger than its U.S.-based readers. U.S.-based respondents aged 17-21 indicated stronger feelings of attachment to KissAnime and KissManga. 56.69% of U.S.-based respondents in that age group said that they were "angry or sad" or "extremely angry or sad," compared to 65.26% of respondents from India in the same age group. On a worldwide scale, 55.46% of respondents aged 17-21 said that they were "angry or sad" or "extremely angry or sad" compared to 40.74% overall.

According to website analytics from Similar Web, KissAnime received approximately 95 million visits in the last six months. It received its highest proportion of traffic from the United States, at 26.52%. However, the Philippines and India were ranked second and third, at 12.60% and 5.85% respectively.

This may be due to limited viewing options. While India and Southeast Asia have their own legal viewing options, the catalog of titles is far less than in the United States. According to the Animeindia website, around 120 Crunchyroll catalog titles are available in India compared to over 1,000 titles available in the United States. Around 160 titles are available through Netflix, and around 30 are available through Amazon Prime. In Southeast Asia, the Aniplus-Asia premium television channel and streaming service offers around 250 titles. Roughly 100 titles altogether are also available through the Ani-One Asia and the Muse Asia YouTube channels.

Yatta-Tachi site owner Katy Castillo reported on Twitter that the site's guides to legal anime streaming sites have seen a recent increase in traffic. "Hey, anime licensors! I'm looking at where our traffic is coming from & it's Southeast Asian countries that tend to get little to no availability accessing legal streaming sites. Maybe this is something to look into or at least revisit? These folks are looking for options," she wrote.

Matthew Czubakowski, who runs the because.moe search engine for legal anime streaming availability, told ANN that the site temporarily doubled its usual traffic following news of KissAnime's closure.

KissAnime and KissManga have been inaccessible as of Sunday. When accessed, both websites state: "All files are taken down by copyright owners. The site will be closed forever. Thank you for your supports [sic]." A post on the "KissCommunity" Discord channel (which claims it is run by community staff members and not site administrators) also stated, "The sites are gone for good, data deleted, and can not be recovered." The KissAnime and KissManga websites linked to and embedded pirated English-subtitled and English-dubbed anime, and pirated English-translated manga.