ALBAWABA - After 80 days of inactivity, one of the world's largest piracy anime sites, "HiAnime," has officially shut down permanently, following international pressure from governments and copyright agencies.
Other well-known anime streaming piracy sites recently suffered a similar fate, including AnimeKai, whose developers took to social media to announce that a third-party data center running the site's servers had burned down. While the site still operates, users are currently met with a message that reads, "Sorry, our data center has been burned :( We're no longer able to provide the file hosting service," when attempting to watch a show.
Several anime-related outlets reported that users lost contact with the website's developers, and that all their major accounts were reportedly deleted or removed.
HiAnime permanently shut down after 80-day inactivity
A Mod for HiAnime's Discord community released a statement that read, "As you are aware, it has approximately been 80 days since the website affiliated with the community has been shut down due to certain reasons. During this period, the staff team and the administration board has consistently attempted to contact the website team on all allocated means of contact, considering a possible rebranding."
They added, "However as of recent, we have lost our final contact with the website team, alongside their major networks and accounts being confirmed to be deleted/removed."
The mod announced that the Discord server will remain active, but will instead switch to a general community for anime fans.
HiAnime was considered one of the largest anime streaming platforms to date, hitting roughly 364 million monthly visits in 2024 and reporting 150 million in 2026 across its several domains, beating official streaming platforms such as Crunchyroll and Disney+ before it shut down.
