Did you know there was anAnimal Crossingmovie? Don’t feel bad, neither did I. Or, if your answer was ‘yes, obviously’, feel good! Because I didn’t! Released in 2006, it made $16 million at the box office in Japan, but was never released elsewhere. It still hasn’t been, but a fan dub in 2015 (later added to Internet Archive) made it accessible in the West for the first time. If you’re a fan, you need to check it out.
Animal Crossing is a very vibes-based game, and as such Animal Crossing (actually Gekijoban Dobutsu no Mori) is a very vibes-based movie. Not much happens, but then not much happens in Animal Crossing. Our hero Ai, a human girl, travels to Animal Village and is put to work by Tom Nook, where she meets a variety of classic Animal Crossing characters. It leads to a strange, sci-fi ending that is oddly reminiscent of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, but otherwise it’s like watching an anime Let’s Play of Animal Crossing.
Animal Crossing’s Movie Is A Warm Hug In Anime Form
The game it most closely resembles is Wild World, which launched just a year before it came out. That means some of the modern characters are absent - no CJ, no Flick, no Daisy Mae, no Leif, no Zucker, and most obviously, no Isabelle. However, there are still a lot of recognisable locations, from Able Sisters to Blathers' museum. Ai goes for coffee at The Roost, finds bottles washed up on the beach, gets shouted at by Mr. Resetti (a fresh experience for players who started withNew Horizons), gathers items for Gulliver, and even has to avoid Redd’s forgeries.
It fully embraces the Animal Crossing lifestyle. Though clearly made on different budgets and scales, and two decades apart, it offers a major contrast towhat we’ve seen from A Minecraft Movie. There is no suggestion at any point that this is a video game, that anything happening in the village is silly, or that this reality cannot be held up without a knowing wink to the camera. This is just a year in the life of an Animal Crossing town, and the friends Ai meets. There’s another human, Yu, who is constantly changing clothes and hairstyles while hunting for fossils and spiders - he’s a more obvious stand-in for the player character than Ai herself, and even then he gets a real story arc.
Since I’m sure you’re desperate to know, this is every Animal Crossing character in the movie:
- Kapp’n
- Champ
- Gulliver
I heartily recommend checking this one out because it’s been out for 18 years, nine of which it has been available in English, and despite being a major Animal Crossing fan with over 250 hours in New Horizons alone, I had never heard of it. Though it takes Ai through each season (as is the Animal Crossing way), I’d say Autumn/Fall is the best time to watch it as its plotless beauty makes it the perfect cosy film for a night in. It perfectly channels Animal Crossing and gives you everything you expect from an evening playing the game in a smooth, 90 minute bite.
It’s just refreshing to see a video game movie that respects the game it’s adapting the way a book adaptation does.No isekai, no lampshading, no contorting of the game’s themes to make it accessible or to avoid putting non-gamers off. It’s just Animal Crossing in anime form. That’s got to be worth a few Bells, right?
