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Japan's Anime, Manga, Game Creators Celebrate April Fool's Day: Part III

The anime, manga, and software creators celebrated April 1 on Sunday with a slew of April Fool's spoofs and jokes. Here are some of those that have cropped up this year — click on the thumbnail images to see the original!

AKB84

Voice actor Ryōhei Kimura announced AKB84, a new entertainment group of six voice actors and voice actresses who were all born in 1984: Kenji Akabane, Marina Inoue, Yūki Ono, Kimura himself, Toshiyuki Toyonaga, and Yoshino Nanjō. (The AKB is short for A-Ka-Bane.) Inoue and Ono vowed to do their best in this new singing/acting unit, and Inoue revealed the real secret behind the group just after midnight.

[Via Ota-Suke]

Google

The Internet services company unveiled the latest way to enter Japanese into computers: Google Japanese Input Morse Version.

Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita

Marvelous AQL announced that the Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita anime has been cancelled.

JManga

After announcing that select titles will be available worldwide, the manga-reading website revealed the next step: it's going intergalactic.

Kuroko no Basuke

Tetsuya #2, the pet dog of the main character Tetsuya, finally gets his day in the sun and becomes "Tetsuya #1" with his very own project.

Visual Art's/Key (Little Busters!)

Visual Art's adult game brand Key announced that an anime adaptation of Little Nya-sters!, a cat-eared cast version of Little Busters!, has been green-lit. The mission starts this fall.

LovePlus

Okinawa information site Dee Okinawa announced a new dating simulation game HabuPlus, a spoof of Konami's LovePlus game franchise. The dating simulation features habu, a poisonous breed of snake found on Okinawa.

Medaka Box

Misogi "All-Fiction" Kumagawa renounces his pathological lying ways. But is it "true or lies"?

Mega Man/Rockman

The heroines of CAPCOM's Mega Man/Rockman games — Roll, Mayl, and Luna — are forming their own idol unit to celebrate the franchise's 25th anniversary. Their debut CD has the songs "Kimi no Heart o Transmission" (Transmitting Your Heart") and "Copy wa I.H.O!"

Thanks to TitanXL for the tip!

Miracle Train

Miracle Train, the franchise that anthropomorphizes Japanese train stations into handsome male characters, announced a new series for Tokyo's creaking old street cars. The Toden Arakawa Line's Waseda and Sugamo Shinden stations are now the "old men" (like Tiger & Bunny's cast) Shigenobu Waseda and Shinden Sugamo.

[Via Netlab]
There are many more anime/manga/game April Fool's Day celebrations out there, so if you know of one we've missed, feel free to let us know in our forums or by email (newsroom at animenewsnetwork.com).