TOKYO—Following news reports that its most recently-enacted visa program designed to lure gaijins to the country was bringing in far less than hoped, the Japanese government announced Monday it will seek to bolster those numbers by placing a total ban on all anime exports.

“If you want to watch anime, you’ll have to move to Japan,” said Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in a press conference shortly following the announcement of the ban.

Within twenty-four hours of the news, Japanese consulates in America and Canada had to lock their doors to the public and request aid from respective countries’ police and armies because of mobs desperately attempting to submit visa applications.

“This is madness,” said one consulate official in Washington, D.C. “Why make this announcement on Monday with a full work week ahead of us? They should’ve announced the ban on Friday and given us the weekend to submit our resignation letters before Monday came around.”

OMGaijin’s senior political analyst, Baba ‘Banzai’ Nohara, weighed in on the matter following the announcement by Abe.

“On the one hand, the Japanese government is delighted to finally be getting the exact amount of foreign labor it needs,” he said. “But on the other hand, they’re horribly ashamed to learn that the only thing most foreigners care about when it comes to Japan is its weird cartoons.”

Fans of anime around the world were shaken by the news, with many expressing disbelief, shock, and outrage.

“I can’t believe they expect me to just drop everything and move to Japan under one of their BS predatory visa programs just so I can watch the new Dragonball Super movie,” said thirty-year old Charlotte Gobler of New Brunswick as she hurriedly packed her bags. “This isn’t how I always envisioned myself moving there.”

“When I heard I wouldn’t be able to watch the new season of Attack on Titan, I immediately dropped out of school, quit my job at GameStop, and submitted an application to go be a construction worker in Japan,” said nineteen year old Tom Fletcher, a first year student at MIT. “There’s no way I’ll ever regret this decision. It’s for anime, after all.”

Meanwhile in England, Australia and New Zealand, the news of an anime ban didn’t seem to have any effect on visa application submissions.

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