Japanese video game giant Nintendo made an announcement last week that surprised fans of the popular game franchise, Super Mario Brothers.

Beloved and, let’s face it, adorable character Toad does not fall into the gender binary. For years, many fans have assumed the character to be male, but producer Koichi Hayashida revealed that Nintendo never decided on a gender for the mushroom-like mate of Mario.

Discussing the new game Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Hayashida told Gamespot, “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.”

In spite of their differently coloured and style costumes, which fans would see as an indication of their gender, Toad and Toadette do not fall within the gender binary, and they are not related.

“But I think what I can say is that Toadette and Toad are not siblings – perhaps it would be more accurate to say they are adventure pals. And that’s certainly true here [in Captain Toad].”

Hayashida also confirmed that the character is neither a toad nor a mushroom, despite what fans have long assumed.