Anime Tosho Switches Off Downloads and Feeds as Its Operator Moves On

Anime Tosho, a long-running service that mirrored anime torrents to file hosts and Usenet, has shut down its storage and feed server. Downloads, screenshots, feeds and the site's API no longer work, and the operator says the project is ending because they want to move on.

The notices announcing the closure mention no legal complaints or takedown pressure. The Anime Tosho website itself still loads, but nothing new has been added since May.

A mirror behind the scenes

Anime Tosho did not host torrents of its own. According to its FAQ, it automatically mirrored anime releases from Tokyo Toshokan, Nyaa's English-translated anime category and nekoBT, and uploaded the files to direct download hosts and Usenet.

Along the way it took screenshots, extracted embedded subtitles, and offered RSS, Torznab and Newznab feeds plus a JSON version. Those feeds made it a building block for automation software that searches for and fetches new episodes. The FAQ, last updated in 2021, says around 200GB of files were uploaded every day.

The service carried no ads and did not accept donations. Its FAQ also told users to be careful with unexpected executables or scripts in releases, the kind of file used in fake SubsPlease torrents this year.

A planned shutdown

The operator announced the end on April 27. "I've decided that I want to move on to other things," they wrote, after running the project for roughly 15 years.

They called it a difficult decision and acknowledged that other projects relied on the site. The notice describes Anime Tosho as a zero-revenue project with relatively low upkeep. The operator also said they did not want to leave it semi-unmaintained and would not hand control to anyone else.

Updates stopped permanently on May 9. A notice on September 16 then said the storage and feed server would expire in early to mid October and be shut down, ending downloads of torrents, NZBs and attachments, screenshots, feeds and API requests.

When OtakuDown checked on October 12, the feed and storage servers no longer responded, while the main website was still online. The operator says the site will stay up "for at least some months" without those features.

A data dump and new projects

The operator has released a data dump as a torrent of about 1TB, holding the site's databases and its stored files, including extracted subtitles and attachments, NZBs and the frames used for screenshots. A database-only version is also available. The operator wrote that they could only seed the torrent for a few days and would not keep the data themselves.

The code behind the site, including the scripts that processed new releases and a setup guide, is public on GitHub. The domain will not be sold, according to the shutdown notice.

Community projects have stepped in. Anime Tosho NEW, which says it grew from the original project's source code and is funded by donations, runs its own feeds and API. On October 5, the open-source project AIOStreams marked its original Anime Tosho entries as archived.

The Anime Tosho website now points visitors to five recently started projects looking to continue aspects of the service: ameNZB, Anime Tosho NEW, aninzb, TsukiHime and Otakuness. As they are relatively new, the operator notes, they "may be rough around the edges for now."