Dobutsu no Mori – The Animal Crossing Movie – Video Game Animated Adaptations

Since the announcement of a new Animal Crossing game has happened recently. I figured it’s a good time as ever to revisit the Animal Crossing movie.

This movie released on December 16th 2006 in Japan only. It was produced by OLM, Inc. and distributed by Toho. It’s based around Animal Crossing Wild World. The only way to watch it in English is online with unofficial subs or an incomplete fan dub.

A Fresh Start

The movie starts off with the main character Ai, moving to Animal Village. In Kapp’n’s taxi and answering the same kind of questions someone making a character at the start of Wild World would. The music is from the game series being composed by Kazumi Totaka. Which really adds to the feel of the movie and capturing the game’s heart. The start of the movie continues to follow the same path as a new character in Wild World. Ai-chan herself being made to work part time for Tom Nook, at least she gets a bike. The movie has plenty of light hearted humor, and characters even use the same emotes you can earn in game to express themselves.

Friends and Seasons

The friends Ai makes in particular are Sally (Margie in English) the elephant and Bouquet (Rosie in English) the cat. Throughout the film the antics of Albert (Alfonso in English) the lazy crocodile and his human friend Yu from the town over, involve themselves with the girls on occasion. There are a few other villagers depicted as being older, that appear in various points. However the younger ones are the main characters. I love that they also perfectly ecapsulated the personality types of the different villagers.

As the movie progresses so to do the seasons, from the start in spring, to beach fun and fireworks in summer. Then the somber tone of Autumn and finalizing in the wonder of Winter. At least I assume, it doesn’t snow anywhere near me in Winter.

Cherry Pie

Sally and Ai have a special bond. Their first conversation starts about cherry pies. How much they’d eat of them. Sally turns this into talking about how you should keep using your talents or they’ll be forgotten liked pie slices in the fridge.
They later plant some cherry trees. After that Sally shows off her fashion designs to Ai, who calls the book her cherry pie. This is their personal metaphor for realising their dreams. Ai comes to decide that she wants her own cherry pie. After Sally pursues hers she encourages Ai to do the same.

This movie, is one of the pieces of media that made me feel more inspired in life, to actually do something. Of course not much changed, I can’t even remember what I would have considered my cherry pie back then. I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with picking a new pie in that case, right?

Self-Belief

Bianca (Whitney in English), tells Ai to believe in herself. The first time watching this is when I actually understood the concept. As a lot of movies and shows talk about believing in oneself but it never occurred to me for that to mean creating your own self confidence. Ai herself states that if her friends believe in her than she can too. It’s quite a normal thing for a friend to have a higher opinion of someone than they do of them-self. Taking in friend’s opinions instead of ignoring them can be another way to increase self confidence.

She also talks about female friendship. Saying that no matter how long away from each other, meeting again will be as if it was just yesterday. I can’t say that’s entirely true for some people, but if the friendship didn’t end then it can really feel that way. I have a friend from Primary school days, I kept in loose contact with her as I moved several times but now she’s one of the few friends I have locally. Certain circumstances in life change but the connection doesn’t have to. Actually in this case I became better friends, since she was no longer my friend’s friend, but mine.

It’s A Wild World

Overall I adore the little touches in this movie. Various aspects of game play gradually tie into the plot. It also has plenty of details such as the clothing and stationery being from the game.  I’ve not mentioned most of the story that there is because it’s better to watch it than read it. Watching it this time was the first time I saw the credits and post credit scenes as well. I find it pretty amazing how this movie can make me think of so many things in my life. Even though it’s a bit of trouble to watch I recommend this for any Animal Crossing fan, and especially anyone fond of Wild World.

Currently it’s available to watch here (until it isn’t).

4 comments

  1. I own this movie! I love it! It’s in Japanese, but I bought in 2016 through Play Asia. I also watched the original fan dub that was never finished, and the fan dub version. There has since been a fan subbed version with several voice actors that was finished. You can find it on Veoh. I have linked it on the facebook article in the LadiesGamers group, but I don’t want to link to it here because some of the ads on Veoh are NOT Child friendly!

  2. Silly me. I meant to say I watched the fan subbed version, and that there is a new fan dubbed version since that is complete.

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