Mario character Toad is genderless, says Nintendo

Gamers all over the world will have to forget everything they thought they knew about Mario's pal Toad as Japanese gaming giant Nintendo recently revealed that the character is genderless and not male, as was widely assumed.

Nintendo director Koichi Hayashida revealed in an interview that Toad was never intended to be a gendered character, despite the somewhat confusing presence of Toadette.

Speaking ahead of the release of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Hayashida stated that Toads are genderless beings that take on gendered characteristics (Toad is both the name of an individual character and the race of mushroom-like helpers to which it belongs). He explained:

“This is maybe a little bit of a strange story, but we never really went out of our way to decide on the sex of these characters, even though they have somewhat gendered appearances”.

The Nintendo boss also confirmed that Toad and Toadette are not related but are simply "adventure pals". Hayashida threw in another curveball saying that Toad may not even be a mushroom, despite looking just like one.

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Sanrio, the Japanese maker of Hello Kitty caused similar confusion earlier this year when it revealed that the decidedly feline character is in fact not a cat, but actually a human girl who just happens to look like a cat.