New Anime Pirate Site Gotaku Gets a Boost From Manga Site Pop-Ups

New pirate sites usually need months to find an audience. Gotaku, an anime streaming site that launched in late September, is getting a helping hand from two manga pirate sites.

Readers of Kagane and Mangadot are being sent to Gotaku through pop-ups, which open the anime site in a new tab. The traffic shows up in Gotaku's own visitor stats, which anyone can view.

The new site is doing well so far. It ranks fifth among anime streaming sites on EverythingMoe, a popular index ranked by its users, and its library has grown to more than 9,000 titles.

From manga to anime

Gotaku's developer introduced the site on Reddit in late October. They described a project in the works since August, with around 4,000 titles, hard-coded subtitles and plans for AI subtitles on dubbed episodes, also known as dubtitles.

Around the same time, manga readers started seeing the pop-ups. Kagane users complained on Reddit about new tabs opening while they read.

That came as a surprise to some. About ten days earlier, Kagane's admin had said that ads would probably stay off until the end of October, adding: "I can't promise there will never be pop-ups again."

Not every pop-up on Kagane leads to Gotaku. Kagane, a frequent target of takedown requests, also works with regular ad networks, and its ads page says pop-ups bring in more than 90% of its ad revenue.

The Gotaku link stands out, though. When OtakuDown looked at Kagane's code on November 6, it was built into the site itself rather than served through an ad network. A click anywhere on the page opened Gotaku in a new tab, at most once an hour.

Mangadot, one of the larger manga pirate sites with an estimated 3.1 million visits in September according to Similarweb, appears to send visitors too. One EverythingMoe reviewer even thanked Mangadot for pointing them to Gotaku.

Gotaku's public stats

The clearest picture comes from Gotaku itself. The site uses a free visitor counter, and its stats page is open to anyone.

The stats show visitors arriving through links tagged with Kagane and Mangadot. No other referring site showed up while OtakuDown kept an eye on the page. During a check on November 11, 118 of the 280 people on the site were on pages opened through those two links.

Overall, Gotaku had roughly 55,000 visits a day in early November. That works out to about 1.6 million a month, which is still small next to established sites. Miruro, for example, had an estimated 68 million visits in September, according to Similarweb.

It is not clear whether Gotaku pays for these placements, or what the arrangement is.

No ads

In search results, Gotaku promises visitors a site with no ads. Its About page tells a different story. It says ads help pay for the site and asks visitors not to block them.

The site's growth has also attracted a copycat. Gotaku warns that it only uses gotaku.to, and a lookalike at gotaku.io was registered in early October.

The AnimeKai theory

Some users believe Gotaku is a revival of AnimeKai, one of the largest anime pirate sites until it went offline in May. They point to the hard-coded subtitles, a similar subtitle font and a clean, simple design. Under the developer's Reddit post, one user simply welcomed AnimeKai back.

There is no evidence to back this up. These features are common on anime pirate sites, and an archived copy of AnimeKai shows a site that was built quite differently.

Gotaku's developer has not mentioned AnimeKai, and who runs either site is not public.

No legal action so far

Gotaku has not faced any known legal action. Like many pirate sites, it uses Cloudflare, and its terms ask rights holders to send complaints through a contact form.