Reaper Scans permanently shuts down after a legal notice from Kakao Entertainment

On Friday, May 9, 2025, Team Reaper Scans announced its permanent shutdown following a cease and desist order from South Korean entertainment, mass media, and publishing company, Kakao Entertainment. The scanlation website is set to stop all distribution of unauthorized fan translations.

Reaper Scans was a well-known scanlation website aimed at making amazing stories from East Asian comics accessible for fans worldwide. As part of this, the website worked in a grey area, providing fans with unofficial English translations for titles originally released in Korean.

Team Reaper Scans announces its shutdown

Sung Suho as seen in Solo Leveling: Ragnarok (Image via Kakao)

On Friday, May 9, 2025, Team Reaper Scans posted a message on its homepage for its visitors. After receiving a cease and desist order from Kakao Entertainment, the website has decided to permanently shut down its operations and halt all distribution of unauthorized fan translations.

The team shared that they initially launched their website six years ago to make amazing stories from East Asian comics and novels more accessible to the fans. At the time, the titles weren't available in English, and there was no news about when they would get released in English. Therefore, the scanlation website decided to step up to help the community.

Sun as seen in Past Life Returner (Image via Wuxiaworld)

However, over the years, the webtoon and webnovel industry have observed a booming popularity. With that, companies have started making the titles available in English much quicker, with some titles even receiving near-immediate releases. With that, Team Reaper Scans believed they had largely fulfilled their purpose.

Hence, even with a heavy heart, they were prepared to shut down the website. They thanked their fans and apologized to them for the inconvenience caused.

Lastly, they asked fans to support the original creators by reading the official translations on platforms such as Tapas, Webtoon, Wuxiaworld, Manta, Toomics, Lezhin, and Wattpad. As for stories that weren't available in English, Team Reaper Scans asked fans to reach out to the respective publishers.

Fans' reaction to Reaper Scans shutting down

Barros and Karnak as seen in Monarch of Death (Image via ROK Media)

Most webtoon and webnovel fans were devastated by this news, as they believed the translations were amazing, and the website's closure sent the community back at least five years.

"NOOOOOOOOO REAPERSCANS CLOSED. They were one of the few that had amazing translations," one fan said.

"This has sent the communities at least 5 years back," another fan added.

"RIP to Reaper Scans. Had a great time with all the novels on their site," other fan said.

Meanwhile, other fans thanked the scanlation website as their operations made several untranslated series accessible in English, allowing fans to learn about titles they had never heard of.

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About the author

Gokul has been an anime writer in Pop Culture division at Sportskeeda since 2022. His love for watching anime and his interest in the ever-growing anime industry inspire Gokul to produce insightful content about the genre on a daily basis. He holds a Master's degree in Communication & Journalism, and has worked for close to 3.5 years in the field.

Gokul likes to thoroughly research about the anime he is writing about and only credits a source after verifying its credibility. He loves the popular Shonen anime, Black Clover, for its memorable characters and their development throughout the story.

When not racking his brain behind his next anime story, Gokul likes to play video games, read manga, and play football.

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Edited by Gokul Chettiyar