A friend and I recently had a discussion about old games we played in the Junior High era of our lives when Animal Crossing for the Gamecube popped up. After examining many of the fine points of the game we inevitably came to what plot the game had, the intro, and were amused by this odd series of connections we thought of. Is there possibly a theme of indentured servitude or some kind of whitewashed prostitution at foot? Let’s just look at it from the point of view of your character. 

You are on a train to a particular destination that is apparently only accessible by train when some strange, nosey cat-creature comes up and begins talking to you. After you tell him that you have nowhere to live in said town, because apparently you assume that moving does not require anything more than the shirt on your back and a destination in mind, he offers to make a call to a friend to hook you up with a house when you arrive. What a great deal, right? Here’s where it gets shitty. After you arrive the monopoly holding raccoon/businessman leads you to an unfurnished group of beat the hell out of shacks and asks you to choose which one you would like. They are all the same except for the color of the roof so it just comes down to color preference. Tom Nook then lets you know that the house will run you 20,000 bells and takes the only 200 bells you have on you at the time bringing the grand total to 19,800 that you still owe. 20,000 for a shack that is no bigger than a dorm room seems a bit steep, but luckily you can pay it off by working for Tom Nook by planting flowers, running errands, and doing his dirty work for him all while he deducts money from your total that you owe.  After about two or three jobs he lets you go telling you to go work for the other inhabitants of the town to acquire items to sell and pay off your debt. The sum of the story thus far is that you get tricked into buying a shack that is a rip off, even by low standards, and while you still remain indebted to the real estate man, he doesn’t have enough to do for you. So while you are still technically an indentured servant, you officially become the town prostitute that does minor errands and retrievals instead of sexual favors, and it adds another job title for Mr. Nook: pimp. He has you whore yourself out to pay off a debt effectively donning the brightly colored and flamboyant suit, and having the audacity to punish you whenever you do have his money by piling more debt on in the form of an inevitable house upgrade.  It’s safe to assume you’ll never be his bottom bitch. Unfortunately you have to learn how to make your way in this odd place that has a whitewashed version of human trafficking and prostitution, unless of course you find a way to make money without whoring yourself out. 

If you don’t work for the other townspeople, what will you do? Until you save up some money for a fishing pole or a net, to fish or catch bugs to sell, then you can pick and sell fruit, which you are sure Nook sells for at least double or triple what he pays you. Sounds like a familiar story to me; immigrant worker picking fruit because he/she must to stay ahead or even. Surprisingly enough he actually gives you money when you sell stuff to him instead of deducting it from your total debt. It’s somewhat of a dick move because he knows that money is coming straight back to him.  After a while of bartering back and forth like this you finally pay off your debt and feel like a free man whose servitude is no more until the next time you visit Nook and he offers to expand the room you have, or put in a basement. You think it’ll be close to the same price because of the size of the room will only go up a little bit so you go for the living room expansion. You forgot one thing. Nook is a greedy son of a bitch that is hell bent on ripping you off for all you’re worth and the room expansion that is slightly larger than the previous comes out to 148,000 bells. Now it’s back to servitude again unless you want to settle with a slightly upgraded shack.

By: Cody Toothman