KissAnime and KissManga, popular anime and manga hosting sites, have sadly passed away of lethal dose of copyright strikes on August 15th, 2020. The sites bravely fought against takedown charges for years by, for example, changing domains and the country code to reflect the island kingdom of Tonga, but in the end the changes had not been enough and the plug was officially pulled after a lengthy journey.

During the early years, KissAnime quickly became famous for being one of the first streaming services to offer pirate video streams in 240p instead the usual 144p, marking the era of a drastic quality improvement in the streaming industry. KissAnime was also one of the first websites to ensure that they got every penny users had to offer by widely preventing and banning people using adblock in order to keep improving the site quality with much deserved ad revenue. There most likely isn’t a single person who isn’t brought to tears by all the fond memories of advertisements showcasing sexual Naruto fan-art for browser games or touting suspicious claims of hot singles available in their area.

As a sister (imouto) site, KissManga also proved itself to be up to the quality standards of a trademark Kiss-site — hosting watermark-riddled scans often in completely the wrong order, with a majority of the scans scaled far too large to fit the screens of most users. Coupled with a lack of resizing options and an odd captcha system that sometimes appeared after every chapter, the aftertaste was always that of a user-friendly site.

Both KissManga and KissAnime were also supported by a sprawling community. Various Discord servers and the Disqus commenting service were home to sharp commentary, polite language, and accepting moderators who enforced the comment section rules by banning people who dared to suggest the existence of alternative hosting services.

But even in death, the legacy of various Kiss-sites still continues. Many of us still have the shady browser extensions, broken bookmarks, and malware installed on our computers, making sure the memories of pop-ups never quite fades away.

All in all, it is unquestionable that no other pirate site will ever offer the same exact polished experience. In the undying words of Richard Nixon:

“The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.”

-Richard M. Nixon

Thank you for all the years of service!