Does anyone begin to appreciate Tom Nook after New Horizons?

[Megia]

I’ve been playing Animal Crossing since Wild World, so I’ve known Tom Nook for a long time and am aware that he’s supposed to be sort of a ‘main iconic character’ of the game. However, I never really cared much for him until New Horizons. I knew they tried to make him ‘better‘ in New Leaf by giving the role of handling the shop to the Nooklings and the second-hand shop to Reese and Cyrus, and leaving him only in charge of handling estate matters, such that it doesn’t look like he’s running a capitalist society.

However, I still didn’t really think much about him other than the fact that he’s the guy I was supposed to turn to to pay off my loans. It wasn’t until New Horizons that I began to like his character, what with them making Tom Nook the ‘main character’ of the game with an iconic role. He guides you all the way from the start of the game till the credits roll during the KK concert, and he really seems like a genuinely nice and caring guy who provides you with and teaches you everything you need. Now I really wish we could get more interactions with him beyond the ‘main storyline’ because now all he does is handle infrastructure-related matters with us.

To be honest, I was disappointed when Resident Services upgraded and Isabelle began taking over Tom Nook for the daily announcements. I guess most people prefer Isabelle, but still, I wish they’d give us an option to choose whom we want to appoint as the one making the daily announcements, and we could change it anytime. It’s not technically extra work for them because they’ve already written all of the lines for Tom Nook’s announcements -the only change they needed to make was to show Tom Nook in his office making the announcements.

 

[FireNinja1]

I'll appreciate Tom Nook when he gives me back my 5k miles and the ~5m IGB I paid him for the house expansions :^)

 

[Sloom]

not to sound like a hipster but I've always appreciated tom nook

I'm sure you know the drill, you've probably seen people praise tom nook before by mentioning that he allows you to take as long as you want to pay off your loans, he doesn't charge interest, and in NH he even declares you Island Rep with no former job experience or like... literally anything going for you.
he's a saint.

and he's just really cute too, that's also a plus

 

[chibski]

Ehh. I adore Timmy and Tommy, but Tom is nothing special to me. I did like it better when he did the morning announcements, but I think that's just because I've gotten tired of Isabelle's "I did a crossword" and "I watched TV yesterday" non-announcements.

 

[Megia]

I'll appreciate Tom Nook when he gives me back my 5k miles and the ~5m IGB I paid him for the house expansions :^)

Haha then you’re essentially robbing him of the house he built for you and all of the costs incurred.

Post automatically merged: Apr 24, 2020

not to sound like a hipster but I've always appreciated tom nook

I'm sure you know the drill, you've probably seen people praise tom nook before by mentioning that he allows you to take as long as you want to pay off your loans, he doesn't charge interest, and in NH he even declares you Island Rep with no former job experience or like... literally anything going for you.
he's a saint.

and he's just really cute too, that's also a plus

Totally agreed with everything you said! Yeah, I’ve seen people draw gijinka of him, and he’s usually depicted as a typical middle-aged man, but I like him better as a raccoon/tanuki. I kind of like the way his eyes are half-shut by default, and he only fully opens them when surprised. I think he’d look cuter if he had them fully open all the time, like Timmy and Tommy, though.

 

[Stil]

I'll appreciate Tom Nook when he gives me back my 5k miles and the ~5m IGB I paid him for the house expansions :^)

What? He never did that for me?!

 

[Megia]

Ehh. I adore Timmy and Tommy, but Tom is nothing special to me. I did like it better when he did the morning announcements, but I think that's just because I've gotten tired of Isabelle's "I did a crossword" and "I watched TV yesterday" non-announcements.

Speaking of which, that reminds me: I wanted to say that I’ve gotten tired of Isabelle making all those useless irrelevant comments during the announcements, and I’ve found them more irritating then anything. Wish Isabelle could just keep the announcement brief and say that there are no news today, and that’s it.

 

[FireNinja1]

What? He never did that for me?!

Me neither, but I want my money back lol

 

[Stil]

Me neither, but I want my money back lol

AHHHH lol I read that wrong and I was PISSSED

 

[Lumbridge]

nook is suave, smooth, enchanting. when i look into his deep brown raccoon eyes i want to empty my pockets of his fake currency and join his sadistic island cult

 

[Thyl]

As I've grown older and realized how amazing it would be if someone in real life gave me a loan deal like Tom Nook, I have definitely started to appreciate him more than before. But I have always been quite fond of him.

 

[Sharpington]

I've always been kind of ambivalent to him, but I've never disliked him. I remember being really surprised people hated him on the internet as a kid

For me he's just lacking interesting character traits to really set him apart. All other AC characters are bursting with personality but Nook doesn't have any behaviors, opinions, or speech patterns that are unique to him, other than an occasional "yes, yes." He just fills a mechanical role for basic gameplay elements. Ironically him joking about breaking my legs in the Gamecube version actually made me like him more.

I do appreciate his love for KK in this one, it was really cute. I wonder if his character just doesn't translate as well to western audiences. A sort of reserved but determined businessman is a recognizable architype in Japan, but not so much in the US.

 

[starlightsong]

Nope! ...Because I always liked him lol, I think he's one of the best special NPCs in the games. I never understood all the memes about him being an evil landlord or a loan shark when you own your house and you pay for it (at an honestly pretty small price if bells are equal to yen) whenever you want in whatever increments you want with absolutely zero interest. Seriously, he's an extremely generous contractor and he should be paid for his work especially considering that he's raising 2 little kids and donates 90% of his funds to an orphanage?? He's kind of a saint and also his love of KK Slider in NH is so cute. His character design is adorable too.

I wish he and Isabelle could rotate on who's doing the announcements! Like say it's Tom in the morning and Isabelle at night, or Tom for half the week and Isabelle for the other half, or they switch every other day, something like that... I love seeing them both in the office together and it'd be really nice to see Tom Nook more and would keep Isabelle's announcements from getting too repetitive. I remember when I first started NH I thought "oh, Nook is taking over the announcements...? huh, that's cool but I'm actually sad, I'll miss Isabelle" and then when I realized Isabelle would be doing the announcements again I went "omg but now I'm gonna miss Tom Nook doing them "

 

[JKDOS]

I've never not appreciated him. I never saw anything wrong in him selling us house expansions or owning a shop. The only thing I've ever hated was being forced to do the part-time job for him after resetting.

Forced house upgrades are weird, but your house is one of the main focal points in Animal Crossing.

 

[Megia]

I've always been kind of ambivalent to him, but I've never disliked him. I remember being really surprised people hated him on the internet as a kid

For me he's just lacking interesting character traits to really set him apart. All other AC characters are bursting with personality but Nook doesn't have any behaviors, opinions, or speech patterns that are unique to him, other than an occasional "yes, yes." He just fills a mechanical role for basic gameplay elements. Ironically him joking about breaking my legs in the Gamecube version actually made me like him more.

I do appreciate his love for KK in this one, it was really cute. I wonder if his character just doesn't translate as well to western audiences. A sort of reserved but determined businessman is a recognizable architype in Japan, but not so much in the US.

I actually disagree with the part about not having speech patterns that are unique to him - in fact, one of the most distinguishing things about him is the way he adds ‘yes, yes’ and ‘hm?’ to his sentences. I remember a description of him somewhere that even mentions how he says ‘yes, yes’ a lot. And the way he speaks just sorts of has its own charm too. It’s even more obvious in the Japanese version, where he adds だなも to the end of almost every sentence.

 

[Krissi2197]

I always appreciated him tbh. He was never a bad guy in my eyes.

 

[claracampanelli]

i've always liked him. he's too cute.

 

[ForbiddenSecrets]

Maybe because I was 26 when I first played AC but I've always liked him.

 

[Tako]

I love Tom Nook to bits! <3 I've never understood why he's getting so much hate; no one else in their right minds would give you a loan of several million dollars with no interest or re-payment deadline.

 

[stiney]

I've always been kind of ambivalent to him, but I've never disliked him. I remember being really surprised people hated him on the internet as a kid

For me he's just lacking interesting character traits to really set him apart. All other AC characters are bursting with personality but Nook doesn't have any behaviors, opinions, or speech patterns that are unique to him, other than an occasional "yes, yes." He just fills a mechanical role for basic gameplay elements. Ironically him joking about breaking my legs in the Gamecube version actually made me like him more.

I do appreciate his love for KK in this one, it was really cute. I wonder if his character just doesn't translate as well to western audiences. A sort of reserved but determined businessman is a recognizable architype in Japan, but not so much in the US.

I disliked him in City Folk, which I played for a hot second (less than an hour, I think). I didn't like playing on the Wii, and I was very put off by the fact that the first thing that happened in the game was I was made to get a mortgage and then had to sell items to the person who gave me the mortgage in order to pay it back. I started playing New Leaf because I thought it was research for my last job (turns out they meant Pocket Camp but they just kept saying "Animal Crossing" so I assumed) and got very into it. I don't dislike him as much anymore, and divorcing him from the store definitely helped with that. I do agree he doesn't have much personality.

I think his fandom for KK is cute, but I also am really bugged by KK--his nakedness, his voice, his "cool cats and kittens" phrasing so...

But anyway, moreso than a businessman, I think Tom Nook is supposed to be a furusato, a traditional Japanese village role related to collective debt, which makes sense when you think about the way investing in the island works. (I really like Ian Bogost's essays even when I disagree with him.)