Earlier this week, we got a huge new character reveal for Animal Crossing: New Horizons thanks to some new sticker accessories advertised by HMV Japan. But a couple days later now, these advertisements have mysteriously disappeared!

First of all, there was initially a dedicated article page on HMV Japan showcasing all four of the new sticker accessories at this link. That page has now been entirely removed, while the product pages for the stickers have had their featured photos removed.

A couple of the product pages do have a tiny photo near the bottom in a ‘related product’ section, but that appears to be a mistake as only some pages have it, and those tiny versions are the only photos remaining on the website.

Furthermore, the official HMV Japan Twitter account originally tweeted about the new sticker accessories when they were first posted, but that tweet has now been deleted too. We’ve included a screenshot of the original tweet below and you can find the deleted tweet link here.

So, what does this all mean? Many fans were disappointed to see the brand new Animal Crossing: New Horizons characters revealed in such a lackluster manner through a sticker and left wondering why a Nintendo Direct wasn’t held to showcase them first.

https://twitter.com/ACWorldBlog/status/1221797615878033412

It would seem that this was perhaps just an innocent mistake by HMV Japan and the stickers were not intended for release until after a future planned Nintendo Direct. We’ve seen a couple other Japanese retailers with the same sticker accessories listed, yet without any photos included.

Therefore, it’s quite likely that Nintendo asked HMV Japan to take down all of these photos and advertisements for the Animal Crossing: New Horizons sticker accessories until the new characters are officially announced by the company.

So it’s quite possible we will see a new Nintendo Direct or Animal Crossing Direct released sooner than later to showcase these characters, but of course we have no way of knowing exactly when that will happen.

Hopefully very soon though, as this little mishap with stickers has only fueled the fire of anticipation among Animal Crossing fans even more than ever before after getting a sneak peek of such exciting new characters!

If you missed the original news about brand new Animal Crossing: New Horizons characters from the stickers, check our complete analysis from earlier this week here.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons launches worldwide in less than two months from now on March 20th! Check out our release date countdown here, or pre-order the game here. Stay tuned to Animal Crossing World for more news as we approach the release!