Tiger Mask Anime Adds Two Characters That Resemble WWE Stars

Toei Animation and New Japan Pro Wrestling recently brought back the popular Tiger Mask anime, [...]

By Christian Hoffer

Toei Animation and New Japan Pro Wrestling recently brought back the popular Tiger Mask anime, featuring a mix of fictional characters and real life Japanese wrestlers like Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Tetsuya Naito. To help promote the series, NJPW hired superstar wrestler Kota Ibushi (one of the stars of the WWE's Cruiserweight Classic) to play Tiger Mask within the ring at select events.

Now, Toei Animation has announced two new additions to the anime, who bear uncanny resemblances to some of the WWE's biggest stars. In a tweet posted last night, Tiger Mask introduced two new characters that look an awful lot like the WWE's Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch.

It's possible that the redhead, who's described simply as a "petite" character, only bears a coincidental likeness to Lynch, but the blonde is a dead ringer for Charlotte. In addition to sporting similar ring gear and having the same physique as Charlotte, the blonde wrestler is even nicknamed "Queen", one of Charlotte's nicknames.

This isn't entirely uncommon in Japan, as several fighters and wrestlers have made unlicensed cameos in video games and animes. Edge, Jeff Hardy, and Bubba Ray Dudley all made cameos in Shaman King, Balrog from the Street Fighter games is likely based off Mike Tyson (and even has the name M. Bison in the Japanese version), while Final Fight had goons name Andore that looked an awful lot like Andre the Giant.

So what do you think, wrestling fans? Is it mere coincidence that these characters look like two of the world's biggest wrestlers? Or did NJPW poach some WWE talent for their anime series?

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