History WMG / AnimalCrossing

Maybe Nintendo saw something on the show they didn't like on Robot Chicken (the show did poke fun at Nintendo characters and portray them in a less then flattering light in some episodes after all) and being the lawsuit-happy company they are, proceeded to sue the creators of the show. Seth Green, being the awesome insane person he is, brought up during the trial that Nintendo had a robot chicken villager in Animal Crossing and twisted that into their defense. So as part of the settlement, Nintendo had to drop the robot chicken and Robot Chicken can no longer feature Nintendo characters. Only in 2015 did a senior judge look over the trial and realized that it is a nonsensical attack on free speech both ways and invalidated it, allowing Nintendo to use Sprocket again and Robot Chicken free to satirize Nintendo characters again.

[[WMG: Sprocket was temporarily removed because of a lawsuit]]
Maybe Nintendo saw something on the show they didn't like (the show did poke fun at Nintendo characters in some episodes after all) and being the lawsuit-happy company they are, proceeded to sue. Seth Green, being the awesome insane person he is, brought up during the trial that Nintendo had a robot chicken villager in Animal Crossing and twisted that into their defense. So as part of the settlement, Nintendo had to drop the robot chicken and Robot Chicken can no longer feature Nintendo characters. Only in 2016 did a senior judge look over the trial and realized that it is a nonsensical attack on free speech both ways and invalidated it, allowing Nintendo to use Sprocket again and Robot Chicken free to satirize Nintendo characters again.

[[WMG: This essay]]
[[folder:It's very long.]]
If you have a Nintendo Gamecube, chances are, you have played Animal Crossing, and if you get through all of the quests Tom Nook sends you on, you will be forced to let the Happy Room Academy, or HRA, go into your house and give it a rating based on how well-designed it is. For most gamers the HRA is nothing more than an annoying group of people who examine your house and then give you a rating. For some gamers, impressing the HRA is an important quest because they want that elusive manor model to finish their re-creation of their town that they have in the basement. However, the HRA is not just this RPG’s “Evil Empire.” The HRA is actually a major symbol in Animal Crossing; the HRA symbolizes the main character’s insecurity. The main character, who we will call Spike for his Viking helmet, pays off tons of Bells to get his house remodeled and re-furnished so that he can get a high HRA score, but as he gets closer to having the required score of 100,000 HRA points needed to earn the respect of the HRA, and of course the manor model, Spike’s insecurity continues to make the HRA stronger. This analytical essay will take you all the way through the inner workings of the HRA and how these villains create the symbol of Spike’s insecurity flawlessly.
When a new file is created, the first character in Animal Crossing Spike meets is Totakeke, also known as K.K. Slider. Like the HRA, K.K. Slider is also a symbol, but K.K. Slider is a symbol of a being a free man; he does not play his guitar to look “cool,” and he does not play his guitar to make money, which is demonstrated by the fact that he gives Spike his music for free. He represents an ideal of breaking free from inhibitions and insecurity. However, after Spike meets him and takes the train into town, Spike goes into town where he meets the main villain of Animal Crossing, Tom Nook. When Spike meets him, he has Spike pick one of four houses to live in, and then after Spike selects his house, Nook charges him 19,800 Bells, even though Spike only has 1,000 Bells. As a result, he forces Spike to fall into his trap by making Spike work at his store until he has enough money to pay off 1400 Bells of this huge 18,800-Bell debt. This part of the game makes Tom Nook seem less evil than the rest of the game does because he is the character who is running the “tutorial level” of Animal Crossing, thus gaining Spike’s trust. However, as soon as Spike finishes his part-time job, Tom Nook then waits at his store in ambush, and the next time he goes in to buy something, he forces Spike to represent the town in HRA inspections. This event is a turning point in the plotline of Animal Crossing because as soon as Spike gets his first letter from the HRA, he loses that free personality that is represented by K.K. Slider and then Spike is filled with the insecurity that is represented by Tom Nook and the HRA.

The events of the beginning of Animal Crossing make this game an epic story of insecurity and breaking free of one’s inhibitions. Tom Nook and the HRA dominate Spike’s life for most of the game, as best seen in the mail that Spike receives. Every few days, the HRA sends a letter telling Spike his HRA score, a score based on the appearance of his house. This score raises Spike’s insecurity, especially if the player knows that the house model can be obtained by getting a score of 70,000, and that the manor model awaits for the great gamer who has a house that has a score of 100,000 points. While these letters already portray the HRA very well as a beast of insecurity, another series of annoying letters from Tom Nook himself truly reinforces this portrayal of the HRA as the ultimate symbol of Spike’s insecurity. Sometimes, Tom Nook sends a letter to Spike advertising some furniture that he carries at his store. When the player receives Nook’s letter and the HRA’s letter on the same day, a realization occurs; the HRA tells Spike that his house is nothing more than a smoldering pile of garbage, but then Tom Nook’s letter tells Spike that this problem can all be fixed by spending a few thousand Bells on some piece of furniture that Tom Nook carries, so the HRA and Tom Nook, the masters of Spike’s insecurity, are working together to control Spike. In addition, the mail also continues to be a means of binding Spike’s life to the insecurity that is the HRA through Pelly and Phyllis. Pelly and Phyllis run the counter at the post office, where Spike can pay off his debt on his house, making this house bigger. This relates to the HRA being a representation of Spike’s insecurity in a few ways. Pelly, Phyllis, and Pete, the post office staff, have no intentional connections to the HRA themselves. However, Pete carries the mail, including the letters from Tom Nook and the HRA, and also, in order to pay off his debt, Spike must go to the post office and talk to Pelly and Phyllis. Spike pays off his debt to Tom Nook, and in return, Nook gives Spike a larger house and more debt. Early in the game, Spike gets letters from the HRA telling him that his house is too small to have a high HRA score, so as a result, Spike’s insecurity is made stronger by the mentality that “bigger is always better,” and as a result, Spike gives his hard-earned money to Tom Nook, the master of his insecurity. Because of this, without even realizing it, Pelly, Phyllis, and Pete are actually puppets of evil, working for the HRA despite not being evil themselves.

Like the mail, the very ways of raising one’s HRA score also demonstrate the HRA’s symbolism of Spike’s insecurity. For example, to have a high HRA score, Spike almost absolutely MUST have a theme to at least one floor of his house. This quest for a theme leaves Spike trying to find about ten different pieces of furniture as well as matching flooring and wallpaper. This quest, which can take a gamer a few months to complete without time travel and universal codes, conveys the idea that Spike’s insecurity leads him to always need more. It does not matter if Spike manages to collect every NES game and then the player uses Action Replay to get Spike copies of impossible-to-obtain games like Zelda and Super Mario Bros. The HRA will still tell Spike that he will never have a good gaming-themed house unless he gets his hands on Cyberball for the Sega Genesis (which was NOT put into Animal Crossing, so don’t go and try to use a universal code there). Spike’s insecurity is also seen in the quest for a high HRA score because of the fact that to get the highest possible HRA scores, he must have a theme, and cannot deviate from that theme. Why can’t Spike blast some sweet tracks from his retro stereo in the same room that has cabana flooring? I’ll tell you why. It is because they are from different themes, and Spike’s house can only have one theme; Spike needs to be labeled! Surprisingly, this form of HRA-driven insecurity is not just a form of insecurity that exists exclusively in Animal Crossing; it exists in the real world as well, despite the fact that there is no HRA in the real world. In middle school and high school, while the HRA does not actually exist as a formal organization, the same pressures exist as students try and maintain a label. These students will try to look like punks, goths, jocks, emo kids, skaters, preps, rappers, geeks, nerds, or all-around popular kids, all to gain the acceptance of their school’s HRA, the cliques that are in the school, and as a result, the quest to fit into a clique makes it so that many
students give up their individuality to fit a label instead of being themselves, much like Spike is forced by the HRA to abandon his own idea of a house design in order to fit the label of the themes, series, and sets that will give him a high HRA score. The fact that insecurity exists in this form so commonly in the real world is surprising, but the fact that a real form of insecurity that is so remarkably similar to that of the HRA in Animal Crossing exists further strengthens the HRA’s appearance as the embodiment of Spike’s insecurity. Another thing that demonstrates the way the HRA symbolizes Spike’s insecurity is the fact that if Spike designs a wallpaper or floor design himself, he only gets a few HRA points for it, which once again demonstrates the fact that the HRA is forcing Spike to live with a label instead of being an individual. In addition, if in a town there is more than one player, the players in the town may compete with each other to get the highest HRA score, and since HRA scores are given in a measurable unit, Spike may end up competing with other human villagers in town in order to get the highest HRA score, once again giving Spike a “bigger is better mentality” that puts him on a quest to catch as many red snappers, barred knifejaws, and coelacanths and slam his shovel against every money rock in order to get the Bells needed in order to complete those themes and get any other valuable items that can maximize his HRA score. Also, the method by which the HRA looks at Spike’s house also relates to the HRA being a symbol of Spike’s insecurity; the HRA is able to go into Spike’s house at any time, and then they just keep looking at his house to determine a score based on the appearance of the house. The HRA employees are completely invisible to Spike, so there is nothing Spike can do about them coming into his house, rating his house, and then mailing him an HRA score. This further strengthens the HRA’s depiction as a symbol of Spike’s insecurity; the insecurity has complete access to his mind, much like the employees of the HRA having complete access to his house, and because of this, his insecurity could do anything to him. Therefore, the letters from the HRA, a symbol of Spike’s insecurity, represent Spike’s insecurity strengthening itself.

The ideas of labeling one’s character and Tom Nook and the HRA symbolizing Spike’s insecurity are also further extended into Spike’s life in Animal Crossing when Spike leaves his town to go visit another player’s town. Tom Nook exists in every Animal Crossing town, which symbolizes the idea that Spike cannot escape the insecurity that haunts him even as he leaves his town to visit a friend. In addition, sometimes in order to get more furniture to complete a set and ultimately have a higher HRA score, some players choose to take Spike out of town to Animal Island and collect the island furniture, which can only be obtained using a Game Boy Advance. This is a particularly interesting symbol, as the Game Boy Advance costs money in real life. Since you control Spike and you are buying that Game Boy Advance, the act of getting Spike to Animal Island symbolizes Spike’s insecurity becoming so powerful that it reaches out as far as Spike’s Higher Self. However, the biggest example of the idea of labeling one’s character that exists when Spike leaves his town in Animal Crossing actually is related to a character that has absolutely nothing to do with Tom Nook or the HRA. This character is none other than Blanca, the faceless cat. Most of the time when Spike goes to another town, he meets Rover, the cat that he met at the very beginning of the game who he talked to on the train ride into town. However, occasionally on the ride into another town Spike will meet Blanca, a cat who has no face. The symbolism is obvious here. Blanca has Spike draw her a new face, which could be just about anything. In other words, she is letting him force a label onto her, much like Spike is insecure, and is therefore letting the HRA force a label onto his room design. Spike and Blanca have this similarity: they are both insecure characters who let others make their decisions instead of thinking for themselves in order to gain the acceptance of others.

Earlier in this essay, I mentioned how K.K. Slider is a symbol of Spike being a free man. Because of this, I will now elaborate a little more about how he fits into the symbolism of Animal Crossing. K.K. Slider’s appearances in the game are mostly the appearances on Saturday nights to play his guitar at the train station. Saturday night itself is connected to Spike being a free man because Saturday is part of the weekend, so with Spike now enjoying the weekend, he can go to a K.K. Slider concert and enjoy being free from the evils of Tom Nook and the HRA, even if it is only for a little while. As I mentioned before, K.K. Slider has the cool personality of a guy who is just being himself. At the very beginning of the game, K.K. Slider talks to Spike about the beginning of a new life as a free man, and being the first character in Animal Crossing that the player and Spike meet, K.K. Slider takes the appearance as a role model and a hero. Even after K.K. Slider’s message of freedom is destroyed by Spike’s encounters with Tom Nook and the HRA, K.K. Slider still enters the town on Saturday nights, which symbolizes him entering Spike’s mind and reminding Spike that he is a free man and that he should not let the HRA, Tom Nook, or any other forces of evil defeat him and create a new and insecure Spike.

Tom Nook and the HRA are two of the most evil villains in the history of gaming, as well as the ultimate symbols of Spike’s insecurity, Blanca’s insecurity, and even the insecurity of real people. They clash with K.K. Slider, Animal Crossing’s symbol of freedom from inhibitions, so that they can try to control Spike and force him to work in the quest to live under a label, compete with other human villagers to have the best looking home, and throw away individuality, all in the name of one pointless and evil number: Spike’s HRA score. The fact that there is no escape from Tom Nook and the HRA even if Spike goes into a friend’s town or Animal Island as well as the fact that the HRA employees can waltz into Spike’s house at any time demonstrate that Spike has a quest to break free of his inhibitions, but that this quest is very difficult to succeed in. The quest seems impossible, but the fact that Spike is a human villager in a town of animals conveys the idea that Spike is an individual, and that no matter how powerful Tom Nook and the HRA are in Spike’s mind, Spike will not give in to his insecurity and become less of an individual just to please the villains of Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing is not about having a theme for Spike’s house and the quest to get the 100,000 points needed to get the coveted manor model. That is just what the villains of the game are telling Spike so he gives up his individuality and gives in to his insecurity to get a six-digit HRA score. Animal Crossing is a man’s quest to break free of an insecurity that has dominated his life, no matter how far he has to escape to. This symbol is seen most strongly in the fact that whenever Spike listens to K.K. Slider play his guitar; the credits roll, which symbolizes Spike’s victory.
Maybe someday in a later game, Spike will have a boss battle with Tom Nook and finally defeat this insecurity that has left players trying to impress the HRA for three games, but until that game is released, just fill Spike’s house with whatever furniture you want, get out an Action Replay, use the C-Stick to grow, and Z-button jump over Tom Nook and the HRA once and for all!

* I've seen this as vandalism on the Animal Crossing Wiki

* That has a lot of detail
[[/folder]]

Go with me on this 1. excluding visiting other players towns you can't return home and can only visit an island in the barrier. 2. you are the only human in the town 3. Rover or whoever it was found you and took you to the town to keep you safe. Tom Nook, Tortimer and his family are an example of it being true since tom is a tanooki and Tortimer is a kappa or monster. Some villagers are hostile towards you when you first move in perhaps because you are human. Then there is the fact that Undertale also had normal creatures like the dogs. With new leaf Isabelle instantly has a spark of friendship with you and insures you become mayor so that you never leave and possibly get slaughter by king Asgore. the letters you get from mom/dad is written by Isabelle or one of the villagers so you think you're still in the outside world.
* Also i think Isabelle and Digby's parents are Dogamy and Dogaressa.

In future animals took over Lylat System ,and [[FridgeHorror destroyed humans]].

[[WMG: animal crossing is part of the world in Undertale.]]
go with me on this 1. excluding visiting other players towns you can't return home and can only visit an island in the barrier. 2. you are the only human in the town 3. Rover or whoever it was found you and took you to the town to keep you safe. Tom Nook, Tortimer and his family are an example of it being true since tom is a tanooki and Tortimer is a kappa or monster. Some villagers are hostile towards you when you first move in perhaps because you are human. Then there is the fact that Undertale also had normal creatures like the dogs. With new leaf Isabelle instantly has a spark of friendship with you and insures you become mayor so that you never leave and possibly get slaughter by king Asgore. the letters you get from mom/dad is written by Isabelle or one of the villagers so you think you're still in the outside world.
* also i think Isabelle and Digby's parents are Dogamy and Dogaressa.

* you can also time travel though since you the player aren't doing it to survive and escape you just use it to collect crops faster. Also ever notice how every time you load the game you're at your house that could be from frisk resetting.

If we assume that autosaving is going to be a thing for New Horizons, the need for a Reset Center is all but phased out entirely, which means Resetti is in need of a new job, leading to helping the player get back to their house. The music that plays from the February 20, 2020 Nintendo Direct is his theme too, if it wasn't edited in. It if isn't him, it might be his family doing it, be it offspring or relatives.

[[WMG: Gracie is a trans woman.]]
Being male in the Japanese version, and female in the English translation, she seems to be trans.

** Plus, [[spoiler: the protagonists of both games are both children who rarely speak, predominately have one expression, and have the power to mess with time and RESET. Heck, Resetti and Sans are similar in that regard.]]

What am I describing: Animal Crossing, or Series/ThePrisoner?

When their meat supply runs short, carnivorous animals grow an eye for natural prey and kill them. They store the bodies and go back about their day until they cook the meat for meals. Since writing neighbors goodbye letters is a tradition in Animal Crossing, they sometimes forge these letters for their missing neighbors to avoid suspicion.

All who go there eventually consume food bewitched with Circe's enchantment and become an animal.

[[WMG: The landmass on which the games take place is actually the [[Literature/TheOdyssey the island of Calypso]].]]
All who go there eventually consume food bewitched with Calypso's enchantment and become an animal.

[[WMG: The AnimalCrossing Switch game will just be like Pocket Camp, but with no microtransactions. The game will also have DLC]]