It’s hard to believe that these cute young schoolgirls are actually men.

With so many idol units in Japan following the tried and true formula of dancing while pulling cute poses and singing into microphones, it can sometimes be hard to get your group to stand out from the rest.

Japanese boy band 8P (8-Piece) has no problems attracting attention, though, with its eight good-looking members plucked from voice acting careers to form what’s being called a “voice acting unit”.

Now the group is making news after they decided to surprise fans by dressing up as girls at an event to mark the sale of their new CD. And the idol unit skirted into new territory in memorable fashion, by choosing to step into the role of high school girls, complete with uniforms.

Looking at the cute schoolgirl photos posted on the group’s official Twitter feed, it’s hard to believe that this is what they normally look like:

Appearing on the scene late last year, the group’s members include Yu Hatanaka, pictured below in the short bob hairstyle…

Atsushi Kosaka, who gave voice to the character Mitsuya Akuto from The New Prince of Tennis…

Masuyama Takeaki, who like many members of the group, has experience in voice acting for The Idolmaster: SideM video game…

And Arthur Lounsbery, who was actually born in the States but moved to Japan when he was just 18 months oldanime. His voice acting credits include the role of Shinji Watari from the anime Haikyū!!

According to representatives for the group, the decision to crossdress was simply a fun thing to do to surprise their fans who attended the event, with photos from the day asking fans to get involved by picking their favourite “type” from the eight members.

While it looks like the group intend to appear as males for future appearances, the schoolgirls will be coming out to play again at least one more time, for a special broadcast set to be screened on their affiliate Animate Channel on 11 August.

If the idol unit really wants to send their viewer numbers into the stratosphere they might want to think about following in the steps of boy band MeseMoa., who made news earlier this year for kissing each other over and over in their music video. We can’t wait for more groups to break norms in the music idol industry!

Source: Nijimen
Featured image: Twitter/@8p_8piece