What Happened to HiAnime? Is It Coming Back, and Why Anime Piracy Sites Keep Shutting Down

HiAnime, the biggest anime piracy site in the world, is gone: it posted a goodbye message in March 2026, shut down by June, and Vietnamese police arrested seven people accused of running it. It isn't coming back, and every "HiAnime is back" site you find now is a copycat run by someone else. HiAnime was also not the only one. In its October 2026 report to the U.S. government, the Motion Picture Association listed AnimeFLV and Cineby as shut down too. Here's what happened, why it happened now, and where fans can still watch anime.

What Happened to HiAnime?

HiAnime shut itself down in 2026, and its operators were arrested a few months later. It was the best-known name in anime piracy, and it had already changed names twice to stay ahead of enforcement:

At its peak, HiAnime drew more than 150 million visits a month, with English subs and dubs and no subscription fee. That size is exactly why it became a top target.

Why Did HiAnime Get Taken Down?

HiAnime was taken down by a police investigation in Vietnam, backed by the film and TV industry and U.S. authorities. Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security arrested seven suspects. Four alleged ringleaders are in custody, charged with copyright infringement and money laundering. The other three face copyright charges and are barred from leaving their homes. All seven are waiting for trial.

Investigators say the group ran more than 100 websites, uploaded more than 26,000 pirated anime titles and earned about $12.85 million in advertising revenue between 2020 and April 2026. ACE, a coalition of more than 50 studios and media companies, thanked U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and the Department of Justice for their help in what it called a "multi-year investigation."

According to the MPA, the same network also ran Sflix/MyFlixer and the video host Megacloud/Vidcloud. That last part matters: many other piracy sites pulled their videos from Megacloud, so when it went down, they broke too.

Is HiAnime Coming Back?

No. The people accused of running it are under arrest, the domains are dead, and the video servers behind it are offline. HiAnime came back under new names twice before, in 2023 and 2024, but both times the same team was still running it. That team is now facing trial.

That's also why the "is HiAnime back" posts on Reddit keep pointing to different addresses. Any site using the HiAnime name or logo today is run by someone else, who borrowed a famous brand to pull in search traffic.

Is HiAnime Safe? What About the Copycat Sites?

The copycats are riskier than the original ever was. You don't know who runs them, and they earn money from the same thing HiAnime did: ads, usually the aggressive kind. Pop-ups, fake "download" or "update your player" buttons and fake login pages are common on clone sites, and none of them has a track record to judge.

The MPA also warns that brand names live on after a shutdown. In its latest report it flags clones of Cineby, and TorrentFreak notes the AnimeFLV name has been taken over by copycats as well. The rule of thumb: if a famous piracy brand "came back" on a new domain, assume it's a different operator.

Which Other Anime Piracy Sites Shut Down in 2026?

HiAnime was the biggest name in a year of shutdowns. These are the anime-related ones that were confirmed:

The MPA filed its yearly "notorious markets" report with the U.S. Trade Representative in October 2026, and it counts all of these as wins. It also admits the problem hasn't gone away. The report lists dozens of sites still running, plus new video hosts that serve hundreds of pirate sites at once. The USTR is expected to publish its own list early next year.

Shutting sites down is one half of the story. The other half is why so many people used them in the first place.

Why Do So Many Fans Pirate Anime?

Mostly price, access and ownership. In 2026, legal anime got more expensive and less flexible:

• The free option disappeared. Crunchyroll ended its free, ad-supported streaming on December 31, 2025.
• Prices went up. In February 2026, Crunchyroll raised its U.S. prices to $9.99 (Fan), $13.99 (Mega Fan) and $17.99 (Ultimate Fan) a month. Existing subscribers paid the new price from their first bill after March 4.
• Shows are split up. A fan who wants this season's big shows may need Crunchyroll, Netflix, HIDIVE and Prime Video at the same time. Some shows also aren't licensed in every country at all.
• You don't own what you pay for. When Funimation closed on April 2, 2024, the digital copies that buyers had unlocked with their DVD and Blu-ray codes did not move to Crunchyroll. Those buyers lost access to that digital library.

None of this makes piracy legal. It does explain why sites like HiAnime got so big, and why the industry's answer can't only be arrests. Here's where you can watch anime legally right now.

Legal Anime Streaming Sites in 2026

The last row is the only one where nobody can take the show back later. That's the part of this story I care about most.

Kairo's Take

Honestly, I think piracy is okay. When you pay for a streaming subscription, you don't own anything: you're renting a license to a limited library, and that license can be taken back at any time. That's unfair to consumers. I believe fans have the right to own their own copy of an anime, buy it legally from a store, and then keep it or sell it, their choice. So while piracy sites are unethical and illegal, I see them as pushback from the community itself, a way to keep some balance between big corporations and the regular people who just love anime and want to watch it. That's why these shutdowns feel so unfair to me.

For more on the business side, read why Sony is building an anime empire around Crunchyroll, how anime studios make money and what Netflix's layoffs mean for anime, or browse all our industry news.

Sources: BleepingComputer (HiAnime arrests and ACE statement), tbreak (charges and timeline), TorrentFreak (MPA notorious markets report, AnimeFLV, Cineby), MPA 2026 notorious markets submission (PDF), Anime News Network (Crunchyroll prices and free tier), Anime Corner (Funimation digital copies). Cover photo: KonoSuba TV Blu-ray box set by Solomon203, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.