The original is dead, the name lives on: an ad shell impersonating Kotatsu takes in over a thousand people a day looking for it
What it is A comic app on Google Play that uses the name of the shut-down open-source manga reader Kotatsu. It pushes ads everywhere, hasn't been updated since launch, and has no connection to the real Kotatsu.
Why it took off The real Kotatsu shut down, and it was never on Play to begin with, but its name keeps circulating in TikTok recommendation videos. The copycat app got listed 5 days earlier and with a more matching title, winning the top spot for "kotatsu" searches on Play and picking up roughly a thousand people a day who search for the name.
CHow you could follow this Don't copy the name (the top spot is taken, and it violates policy). Learn from how it finds demand: build a compliant general-purpose manga/CBZ reader with fewer ads, offline support, and Indonesian, Filipino and Spanish first. Target the people who sideloaded the impostor and then deleted it, and launch globally before the 2027 sideloading restrictions take effect.
- Data (updated daily) · first launch 2026-07-17 · 11-07 installs 97,102
Android · Total installs worldwide Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations). Google's detail page only refreshes install counts every other day, so a flat day doesn't mean nobody installed.Android · Ratings count (cumulative) Data 2026-10-29 → 2026-11-07 (10 days, 10 observations)
The open-source manga reader Kotatsu shut down last November and its GitHub repo was archived. But the name is still circulating on TikTok, with Indonesian and Filipino recommendation videos piling up. This July, a London-registered company called BAV GOLKONDA put an app under that name on Google Play. As of Nov 6, searching "kotatsu" in the US store returns it as the first result, with an estimated 97k installs and a 1.4 rating. Below: how it got there, what's left in this window, and why you shouldn't go after the same name.
One Indonesian video, and one negative review
2026 September 12, TikTok user er_kyy000 posted an Indonesian video captioned "nama apk=kotatsu": the app is called Kotatsu, reads manga, manhwa and Chinese comics, and can download them, "good for people who use data, saves a bit." The video got 26k views.
What the video didn't say is that Kotatsu had already been shut down for almost a year by then. 2025 November 5, villainroze posted a shutdown announcement video (104k views): the dev team confirmed the project was ending, citing legal threats from Kakao Entertainment plus Google's new sideloading policy. The real Kotatsu was never on Play. It only distributed APKs through GitHub and kotatsu.app.
People who didn't know this, and who wouldn't install an APK, opened the Play store, searched "kotatsu", and installed the BAV STUDIO app. August 19, a user named FreakyOPPk left a negative review: "More ads than manga, forced ads on everything: when you look at the chapter list, jump to a chapter, or open a manga to read the summary. I should have listened to the other reviews." Four days later another user said it more briefly: "Don't download. You can find manga, but it won't let you read, with ads you can't close."
What it actually is
The store listing almost copies the original's pitch word for word: "an open-source comic reader designed for speed and customization," with a feature list of reading modes, library, and update sync. It's not open source, though. The 1.0.4 build from launch day hasn't been updated since. Going by the bad reviews, it does wire up some comic catalogs, so you can search for titles, but loading often throws errors, and there are ads on every step (we didn't install it to verify).
There are no in-app purchases; all revenue comes from ads. The developer info lists the UK company BAV GOLKONDA LTD, with an address in East London. The developer website is hosted under a GitHub Pages account and contains only an ad disclosure file.
How it grew
| Date | Cumulative installs (Google Play install estimate) |
|---|---|
| 7-29 | 5,308 |
| 8-25 | 33,442 |
| 9-12 | 50,605 |
| 10-08 | 74,469 |
| 11-06 | 97,102 |
Listed on 17 July. From August the curve is nearly a straight line, around a thousand people a day. Recently it picked up 7 more over 6,300 days, slightly slower than the roughly 1,500 a day in early October. This is the typical shape of traffic from search terms: no spike and little decline, with the number of daily installs roughly matching the number of people searching the name on Play each day.
It has only 100 ratings, 80 one-star and 20 three-star, and only 8 more in 9 days. People who install it mostly don't stick around, and don't bother to rate. In November 6, it sat in the free Comics chart in 15 storefronts, between #22 and #35 (Argentina #22, Malaysia, Poland and Thailand #23, UK #31, India #35). Smaller storefronts often share the same category chart, so this amounts to roughly #25 on the global free Comics chart, not country-by-country spending (inference).
No paid acquisition could be found: it's not in the ad libraries, and a 1.4-star, ads-only app can't cover the cost of paid acquisition.
Why it took the top spot
No one controls the name. The real Kotatsu had 8,952 stars on GitHub and was archived after 2025-11-04 its last commit. Community forks Kotatsu-Redo, Yukimi and Doki also only distribute APKs, and some have shut down too. No official owner on Play is in a position to reclaim the name.
The name still circulates. Searching "kotatsu app" on TikTok, the top results are videos from Southeast Asia and Latin America: Filipino BL manga recommendations with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of views; a Spanish video "Android manga app: kotatsu redo" with 55k views; an Indonesian video explaining "update kotatsu but switch to a different app" with 73k views. The storefronts where it charts include Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong, which match the languages of these videos (inference).
The routes to reading manga keep narrowing. In 2026 January, Bato.to was taken down by an anti-piracy group, and a TikTok video said "before we lost Bato.to, we first lost Kotatsu" (26k views). Websites got harder to use, so people turned to app stores. Google's developer verification took effect from September 30 in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, making sideloading harder. But the install curve shows no clear jump around late September, so this hasn't really driven it yet.
It got there 5 days ahead of its peers. GoldenDev Studio also published a "kotatsu: Manga & Comics" app on July 22. Its title isn't as close, it doesn't appear on the first screen of search results, and it has 4,129 installs so far. Same name, 5 days earlier and with a closer title, and the result is 97k versus 4 thousand.
Behind it is a set of sock puppets
The same BAV STUDIO also has a "Mihon" app using the identical playbook, with 110k installs. The GitHub account behind the developer website was registered in June 2026, has 92 repositories, and each repo corresponds to an app borrowing a name: Mihon, Tachiyomi, Kotatsu, MangaFire, LectorTMO, plus others borrowing the names of piracy sites for movies and sports. These apps are spread across several developer accounts, so if one is banned, the others aren't affected.
It has also tried other genres. A variant with ".anime" added to the same package name still has the title Kotatsu, but its description says "discover movies, series and web dramas." It only got a few dozen installs before being taken down, and its detail page now won't open. The string "mangakutsmanhwasdfe" in the package name also shows this is an account mass-produced with keywords stuffed into the package name, not something meant to be run as a brand.
Revenue isn't disclosed, there's no media coverage, and nobody on X is discussing it. Assuming a thousand low-quality installs a day and a single ad network, this one app might bring in roughly a thousand dollars a month (pure speculation).
Who it's competing with
| Competitors | Scale | How it differs |
|---|---|---|
| Real Kotatsu (open source, archived) | GitHub 8,952 star | Real reader with over a thousand sources, no ads; shut down, not on Play |
| Kotatsu-Redo / Yukimi / Doki | Community niche | Real successors, APK-only distribution, some shut down |
| Mihon (open source) | GitHub 25k stars | The community's top pick for a replacement, though the official side says it won't be on Play |
| GoldenDev "kotatsu" | 4,129 installs | Same impersonation, 5 days later, ranked lower |
| GoldenDev "Tachiyomi" | 68,284 installs | Borrows another open-source reader's name, same playbook |
| WEBTOON, K MANGA and other official apps | WEBTOON about 190M installs | Official serialized comics. Users want "read anything," not the same thing |
As a product, it's no match for anyone. It leads for one reason only: it was first to grab the term with the closest-matching title, and it hasn't been taken down since.
If it were you
Verdict: Worth learning from, don't copy. Someone already holds the first spot for this term, and a second is queuing behind it. Using another project's name is "impersonation," which Play explicitly bans, and one complaint gets it pulled. What's worth taking: a demand-finding signal. When a project dies but its name keeps getting recommended in short videos, search demand lingers for over a year, and nobody is guarding its spot in the store.
Who it suits: Someone who has built an Android reader or file-manager type tool and is willing to ship a compliant product with 1 to 2 people; or someone who knows ASO, has a Play developer account, and is hunting for the next search-term gap.
Who it doesn't suit: Anyone who wants to launch another "Kotatsu" (the spot is taken, and it's a violation); anyone who wants to earn from manga content (official rights sit with WEBTOON and publishers, and pirate sources are exactly why the originals were forced to shut down); anyone planning paid acquisition to monetize with ads (apps like this don't retain users, and the revenue can't cover paid installs).
How to build it: Make a reader that stays off pirate sources and actually works: local CBZ, CBR, EPUB and PDF, with a library and reading progress, and it should connect to self-hosted libraries like Komga and Kavita. Pick a generic name so searches like "manga reader," "comic reader" and "cbz reader" find you, and don't use anyone else's trademark. The bad reviews complain about exactly what you should get right: few ads, offline downloads and saved data (the Indonesian video praises this point), Indonesian, Filipino and Spanish interfaces first, and regular updates.
How to get users: The main channel is Play search. Write the description plainly: "local reader, bring your own files, read offline." Target people who installed the impersonating app, deleted it, and still want a reader that works. On TikTok, the Southeast Asian "good Android apps" recommendation accounts are where Kotatsu spread in the first place. Find them and get them to review your app.
When to move: Google is rolling developer verification out globally in 2027. The harder sideloading gets, the stronger the need for "a reliable reader on Play." Aim to launch before the first half of 2027 so you can build up ratings first.
What would show this read was wrong: ① After the impersonating apps were pulled in bulk, a compliant generic reader still didn't take off. That would mean the demand only responds to the "Kotatsu" name and its pirate sources, not to "a good reader"; ② a successor like Kotatsu-Redo passes developer verification and launches on Play itself, closing the gap; ③ new impersonators reclaim the top spot right after takedowns. That would show Google can't keep up, and this space is won by running many accounts and rotating fast, not by doing things compliantly.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Kotatsu (the original) Open source Archived 2025-11 GitHub 8,952 star A real reader, no ads, over a thousand built-in sources; discontinued and only distributes APKs, not on Play Kotatsu-Redo / Yukimi / Doki Open source After 2025-11 Small community circle, unverified A genuine successor, sideload only, some have stopped again Mihon Open source 2024 GitHub 25k stars The community's top replacement pick; the official side says it won't be on Play kotatsu : Manga & Comics(GoldenDev Studio) Android 2026-07-22 4,129 installs Same name clash but 5 days later, didn't win the top search spot Tachiyomi : Manga & Comics(GoldenDev Studio) Android 2026-07 68,284 installs Clashes with another open-source reader's name, same playbook WEBTOON / K MANGA and other official apps Android Years WEBTOON about 190M installs Official serialized comics platforms, not aggregator readers, different demand - Where users come from
- Verified Play Store brand-term search (kotatsu): searching "kotatsu" on the US Play Store, its big card is the first result (Jina scrape 11-06); the curve is flat, about 1 thousand a day
- Inferred TikTok organic spillover (indirect): multiple TikTok "kotatsu app" videos with 2–160k views each (shutdown announcement 104k, Indonesian recommendation 2.6–73k), building name recognition, and users then search Play
- Verified Multi-package, multi-account term testing: the same operator has 92 app-ads repos on GitHub under bavgolkonda; a .anime variant has already been 404 pulled
- Inferred Paid acquisition: not tracked in ad libraries; 1.4 stars and pure ad monetization can't sustain CPI
Why Kotatsu – Read Manga & Comics (com.kotatsu.mangakutsmanhwasdfe) showed up
Channel: Google Play, Comics category. Developer BAV STUDIO (developer site bavgolkonda.github.io/Kotatsu/app-ads.txt, email [email protected]). Store launch 2026-07-17, version 1.0.4, no updates since launch day (app_snap.updated_at 2026-07-17). Research date 2026-11-06. The same operator's "Mihon: Manga Comic Library" already has a separate report (/home/ljr/fanout/why/out/play_com.mihon.baznasmangeaarena.md); this piece adds only Kotatsu's own evidence and cites that report for the matrix section.
Bottom line
It isn't the real Kotatsu. The real Kotatsu was an open-source Android manga reader with nearly 9k GitHub stars, which 2025-11 after legal threats from Kakao Entertainment and Google's new sideloading rules, and the repo was archived. Nobody maintains the brand anymore, but search demand remains. BAV STUDIO used the name on Play to take the "kotatsu" search term: searching "kotatsu" in the US store, it's the only big card at the top. Seven to over a thousand people a day search for Kotatsu from the store and install what they find: an empty shell full of ads, rated 1.4, with 80% one-star reviews. All the growth comes from capturing brand searches; the product itself has no differentiation.
1. Data
- Install curve (googleplay library
app_day_ext, AppstoreSpy estimates + self-collected): 7-29 5,308 → 8-10 19,484 → 8-25 33,442 → 9-12 50,605 → 10-08 74,469 → 10-26 90,784 → 11-06 97,102. From August it's been basically a straight line, averaging about 1,000 a day; over the last 7 days +6,300 (app_profile), about 900 a day, slightly slower than early October (about 1,500 a day). Occasional single-day jumps of 2–3 thousand (8-09, 8-10, 9-12, 10-21); the cause hasn't been found. - Ratings: 100 in total, average 1.4, histogram [80, 0, 20, 0, 0] (
app_snap11-06): 80 one-star and 20 three-star, zero two-, four- and five-star. The distribution is very unnatural, but doesn't look like fake positive reviews. Rating count growth is very slow (+8 over 9 days), meaning people who install it mostly don't stay or bother to rate. We have no review sample for it in our database (it wasn't in the review collection scope). - Monetization: no in-app purchases (
offers_iap=False), ad-supported (ad_supported=True), no Top Grossing ranking. For the ad networks, see the Mihon report: the same operator's app-ads.txt lists only BidMachine. - Charts: 11-06 ranked #22–#35 on the Comics Top Free chart across 15 stores (Argentina 22, Malaysia 23, Poland 23, Thailand 23 … UK 31, India 35;
chart_rank). Since 10-29 it has charted every day in 14–15 stores, with the median rank slowly rising from 28 to 24. Category charts are mostly the same aggregate chart, so this amounts to "around #25 on the global Comics Top Free chart," not country-by-country spam. - The store page shows the 50K+ download tier, with 103 reviews next to the install button (Play search page, Jina scrape 11-06).
2. Where users come from: store brand-term search (confirmed)
- Search results: Jina scrape of play.google.com/store/search?q=kotatsu&gl=us (11-06). Its big card is the first result, followed by Naver Webtoon, WEBTOON, K MANGA and other official apps. The other clashing app, GoldenDev Studio's "kotatsu : Manga & Comics" (com.kotatsu.appkoootattssumangga, launched 07-22), doesn't appear on the first screen and has only 4,129 installs (googleplay library). It launched 5 days earlier, but BAV's title looked more like the real thing and got the term.
- Where the demand comes from: After Kotatsu shut down, the name kept circulating on TikTok. A TikHub search for "kotatsu app": villainroze's shutdown announcement video has 104k views (2025-11-05); an Indonesian "nama apk=kotatsu" video has 26k (2026-09-12); "update kotatsu tapi beda apk" has 73k (2025-12-23); several BL manga recommendation videos from the Philippines and Indonesia have 2–160k views. Many people who watched these don't know it has shut down or how to sideload it, so they search for the name on Play. Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong, all Southeast Asian markets, appear on the charts, which matches the language spread on TikTok (inferred).
- The original isn't on Play: Kotatsu only ever distributed APKs (GitHub / kotatsu.app), and the repo is now archived (GitHub API: KotatsuApp/Kotatsu, 8,952 stars, archived=True, last push 2025-11-04). Community successors Kotatsu-Redo (kotatsuredo.com), Yukimi/Yumemi and Doki also distribute only APKs, and some have stopped again (Reddit r/mangapiracy "What happened to Yukimi/Yumemi"). So no original holder on Play can push this term out.
- Paid acquisition: unverified. The ad libraries show nothing; 1.4 stars plus pure ad monetization can't sustain CPI-based paid acquisition, and the curve has the flat shape of organic search. Judged as not buying installs.
- x-radar searched "kotatsu" over the last 120 days and found 0 posts: nobody discusses it on X.
3. Behind it is a brand-capture matrix
- See section 3 of the Mihon report: behind the developer site is the GitHub user bavgolkonda (registered 2026-06), with 92 repos, each matching a disguised app's app-ads.txt. The names are all pirate sites or open-source tools (Kotatsu, Mihon, Tachiyomi, MangaFire, LectorTMO, StreamEast, Popcorn-Time…), spread across several accounts including BAV STUDIO, AWWSTUDIO and DevMono Studio. The matchable installs in our database total about 380k.
- In our database, BAV STUDIO has 2 apps totaling 208,661 installs (Kotatsu 97,102 + Mihon 111,559).
- The variant mentioned in the data card, com.kotatsu.mangakutsmanhwasdfe.anime, has been removed (Play detail page 404,11-06). The title cached by search engines is "Kotatsu – Manga & Comics," but the description says "Discover movies, drama, web series." It looks like the same package prefix was used to test other genres, then pulled when they failed. This is evidence of "low-cost multi-package term testing," but the exact listing and delisting dates haven't been verified.
- The package name carries a garbled suffix (mangakutsmanhwasdfe), showing the operator stuffs keywords into package names and generates them in bulk, rather than building a brand.
4. Why now
- Kotatsu 2025-11 shutdown (Reddit r/mangapiracy "Kotatsu is dead"; shutdown announcement reshared on Facebook's iitachiyomi: the reasons were Kakao Entertainment's legal threats plus Google's new sideloading rules). It left behind a brand nobody maintains that still gets search traffic.
- Pirate manga sites are getting shut down one by one: Bato.to 2026-01 was taken down by CODA/Kakao (TikTok "Before we lost Bato.to we first Lost Kotatsu" 26k views). The web versions are getting harder to use, so people are moving to apps.
- Google developer verification: starting 2026-09-30, sideloading of unverified developer apps is restricted in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand (developer.android.com/developer-verification/guides). In the data, there's no clear jump before or after 9-30 (9-18 55,668 → 10-01 64,004, still about 1k a day), so the lift isn't obvious yet.
- 2026-07 is the month these copycat apps flooded the stores: BAV, AWWSTUDIO, GoldenDev and OLEXK all launched name-clashing versions of Mihon/Kotatsu/Tachiyomi/Mangadex in July.
5. Competitors
| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kotatsu (the original) | Open source / APK | Around 2020, 2025-11 archived | GitHub 8,952 star | A real reader with thousands of built-in sources and no ads, but discontinued and not on Play |
| Kotatsu-Redo / Yukimi / Doki | Open source / APK | After 2025-11 | Small community circle, unverified | The true successor with the same features; sideload only |
| Mihon | Open source / APK | 2024 | GitHub 25k stars | The community's top recommended alternative; the official project says it's not on Play |
| kotatsu : Manga & Comics(GoldenDev Studio) | Android | 2026-07-22 | 4,129 installs | Same name, 5 days later, didn't win the top search spot |
| Tachiyomi : Manga & Comics(GoldenDev) | Android | 2026-07 | 68,284 installs | Clashes with another name, same playbook |
| WEBTOON / K MANGA / Naver Webtoon | Official Android app | Years | WEBTOON 190M installs | Legit serialized content; users want an aggregator that reads everything, not the same thing |
6. Differentiation
The product has no differentiation, and it's negative: never updated since launch, 1.4 ratings, 80% one-star. The only thing that sets it apart from the original and the other copycats is that it grabbed the word "kotatsu" on Play early with a title that looks almost identical to the original, and it hasn't been taken down. That is the whole reason it ranks.
7. Visibility and copycats
- Revenue isn't public, and no media outlet or big X account has written about it (x-radar 0 posts). In pirate manga circles people only discuss the real successors; nobody is breaking this clone down as a business.
- Copycats already exist: GoldenDev Studio's "kotatsu : Manga & Comics" directly copies the name, and several teams run the same playbook on Mihon, Tachiyomi, Mangadex and LectorManga. The gap is already crowded; Google just hasn't cleaned it up.
8. What others can learn
- Watch for brands where the original has shut down or left the stores but the name still circulates on TikTok. Be first in the store with the closest title and you get free, steady search traffic. Early movers beat late ones by a lot (BAV 97k vs GoldenDev 4k).
- Risks: impersonation / trademark complaints, Google takedowns, and developer account bans. The operator spreads risk across many accounts and batch-hosts app-ads.txt on GitHub Pages.
- The legit version: build a compliant reader that actually works (local CBZ/EPUB, library management, update reminders), using generic names these search terms can still pick up. Retention will be far better than an empty shell.
9. Still unclear
- What the app actually shows inside (whether it bundles pirate sources). I didn't install it to check.
- Whether it runs paid acquisition (the ad libraries didn't track it) and the reasons for a few single-day spikes.
- Operator identity and country; ad revenue (estimated from about 1k low-quality installs a day plus BidMachine data, roughly a few thousand dollars a month per app, pure speculation).
- Exact listing and delisting dates for the .anime variant.
Sources
- googleplay library (agent-im server, DuckDB):
app,app_snap,app_day_ext(AppstoreSpy estimates),chart_rank,app_profile, 2026-10-29 to 11-06 - Google Play search page play.google.com/store/search?q=kotatsu&c=apps&gl=us (Jina, 11-06); .anime variant detail page 404 (11-06)
- GitHub API repos/KotatsuApp/Kotatsu;github.com/Kotatsu-Redo/Kotatsu-Redo;kotatsuredo.com/
- Reddit r/mangapiracy:www.reddit.com/r/mangapiracy/comments/1oo2djr/kotatsu_is_dea… ;www.reddit.com/r/mangapiracy/comments/1pv23m4/kotatsu_altern… ;www.reddit.com/r/mangapiracy/comments/1s0ve9w/what_happened_…
- Facebook iitachiyomi shutdown notice repost: www.facebook.com/iitachiyomi/posts/-kotatsu-app-officially-s…
- TikHub TikTok search "kotatsu app" (11-06); x-radar search "kotatsu" (120 days, 0 posts)
- developer.android.com/developer-verification/guides
- Same operator report: /home/ljr/fanout/why/out/play_com.mihon.baznasmangeaarena.md