W-wait, could it be…
Did you actually take “Nishinomiya Tsushin Plus” seriously??
Did you think, “If ads disappear for 24 yen a month, I might actually pay”??
We’re sorry.
Today is April 1. April Fools’ Day.
Nishitsu is not becoming a paid site. The site name is not changing either. All the pages that supposedly required payment to view were completely fake. Starting tomorrow, we’ll be back to the usual “Nishinomiya Tsushin.”
Actually, it’s been “Nishinomiya Tsushin” the whole time.
By the way, Nishinomiya Tsushin does something every year on April 1 for April Fools’ Day.
And this year, once again, we really went for it.
To everyone who got fooled, we’re truly sorry. If you thought, “Wait, is Nishitsu going subscription-based?” we understand how you felt. It’s an era where even the WBC is moving to Netflix, after all.
「西宮つーしんプラス」はどうでしたか？
A Quick Serious Survey
The whole thing was a joke, but may we ask just one real question?
もし本当に月額242円で広告が消えるプランがあったら契約しますか？
If you chose the fourth option, Shachomi is going to cry
To be honest… we do occasionally hear comments like, “There are a lot of ads.” So this survey may look like part of the joke, but we’re actually asking it pretty seriously.
If a lot of people say, “I’d pay 242 yen for that,” then… maybe we’ll actually think about doing something for real, instead of just next year’s April Fools’ joke.Maybe.
What We Did for April Fools’ Day 2026
This year’s prank was pretty elaborate. We’ll introduce everything in the order people were most likely to notice.
① The Announcement Article: “We’re Becoming Nishinomiya Tsushin Plus”
Our annual “We’re becoming ○○” article. This year, it was a double setup: a site name change plus paid membership.
Writing three reasons for the change is also part of our yearly tradition, and this year they were:
・To review our ad display and make the site easier to read
・Because the WBC is moving to Netflix this year, and we wanted to ride that trend
・Because we’ve had more political articles lately, and we wanted to do something newspaper-like
The first one sounds normal. The second makes you go, “Huh?” and we figured more people would catch on by the third.
② Paid Member Notice
This was the biggest trick of the year. Partway through articles, a screen appeared saying, “This article is limited to Nishinomiya Tsushin Plus members,” making it look like you couldn’t read any further.
This appeared on every article on Nishitsu. Did you notice it even showed up on older articles?
If you pressed the “Read the full article for free today only” button, you could read as usual, but we’re sure plenty of people had a little moment of panic before pressing it.
③ The Title Logo Change
We tried to make it feel like a newspaper company, but with a slightly softer image.
④ The “Nishinomiya Tsushin Plus” Details Page
We even made a full details page for the membership plans.
There were three plans: 24 yen/month, 242 yen/month, and 2,420 yen/month. If you noticed that one of the perks for the 2,420 yen plan said, “The continuation of articles feels like it opens 0.3 seconds faster,” you’re sharp.
“Feels like,” huh.
This was also a fake made with AI. But some people said they wanted one, so if we ever make a paid plan, maybe we’ll hand them out.
⑤ Pre-Registration Form
We also set up a pre-registration button. Did anyone press it?
If anyone did press it, we gratefully accept the feeling behind it.
⑥ Hiding Ads
To make the prank feel more convincing, we hid ads on every page for that day’s articles.
So the articles may have been easier to read that day.
However, Nishitsu’s revenue became 0 yen.
About Ad Display
Today, ads were hidden on all pages, but from tomorrow (4/2), ads will be displayed as usual🙏
Nishitsu is able to operate for free thanks to advertisements from our sponsors. Thank you, as always. If we find more sponsored articles or a major sponsor in the future, the day may really come when we can remove ads
Finally
Every year (though we didn’t do it last year because things were pretty hectic), we end up doing these kinds of jokes even though we feel a little guilty. Please forgive the sinful “Nishinomiya Tsushin.” We’ll continue bringing you the latest changes in Nishinomiya’s shops and streets from closer than anyone else.
From tomorrow (4/2), we’ll be back to business as usual.
All of us at Nishitsu will continue sharing information with care, hoping we can add even a little color to your everyday lives.
Shachomi @ Nishitsu
