Tag: merch

I recently got my hands on the Animal Crossing sticker book that was released earlier this year. This post covers my impressions and thoughts about the book.

The Stickers

Of course, the main attraction here is the stickers…and there are a lot of them. Over 800, in fact. There generally seems to be one sticker of each New Leaf villager, including the RV villagers that were featured on cards from the Welcome Amiibo update. I should note that I didn’t check for every specific villager, but it’s likely that they’re all included. Except, of course, villagers from other game series that were unlocked with Amiibo figures. So there are no stickers of W. Link, Epona, Viché, Cece, Ganon, or Inkwell, for example.

Aside from the villagers, there are also stickers of fish, bugs, flowers, fruit, balloons, music notes, stars, tools, PWPs (public works projects), seashells, Nook’s leaf icons, trees, furniture, and NPCs (non-playable characters such as Isabelle and Tom Nook).

Not An Album

One thing that should be pointed out: This is a sticker book, not a sticker album. The pages are not glossy, and you will probably not have much success if you try to move a sticker after you’ve already placed it in the book.

Activities

The book itself is basically an activity book for children. You’ll find some word searches, mazes, connect the dots, and pages where you’re asked to unscramble words or count the objects on a page.

The more interesting parts of the book are the ones that encourage creativity. One page shows a town tree and lots of green, open space. You’re asked to use stickers to add trees, a fountain, flowers, and more to improve the look of your town. Another page asks you to design a fun scene for each season (with backdrops of winter, spring, summer, and autumn).

Some other pages ask you to design the layout of your house, or even make a pattern to use as wallpaper. Another page shows comic strip style scenes with various characters and an empty speech bubble. You’re asked to write in the bubbles to complete the comic strip.

An Appealing Book

While some of the activities are clearly designed for very young children, other activities will appeal to all ages. And of course, everyone loves stickers! If it sounds good, you can buy the sticker book at Amazon. I bought one to give as a gift and another one for myself. 😀

If you have any questions about the book, just leave a comment below.

As you probably know, I’m a pretty big Animal Crossing fan. And when I heard that there was an Animal Crossing 2016 wall calendar, I decided to pick it up. So I’ll share my thoughts on it and show you what it looks like.

Each month has a large Animal Crossing character displayed, although each one is unfortunately just a simple character model displayed on very basic backgrounds (stripes, grass, triangles, etc.). It’s a simplistic look, so you’re not going to be blown away by any of the art.

The calendar isn’t just based on U.S. holidays; it also lists holidays for Canada, Mexico, the U.K., Ireland, and Australia. The only downside is that it doesn’t include the dates of Animal Crossing events! But it’s made to function as a regular, real-life calendar…not a game guide.

Here’s a look at which character appears for each month:

• January – Sable
• February – Phyllis
• March – Pete
• April – Copper
• May – Leilani
• June – Nat
• July – Timmy & Tommy
• August – Brewster
• September – Lyle
• October – Jack
• November – Blathers
• December – Jingle

Jack and Jingle (in October and December, respectively) make perfect sense; they are characters from holidays in those months. Nat in June also fits, since he hosts the Bug-Off. Maaaaaybe you could say Lyle looks like a teacher for back-to-school in September. But I’m not so sure about the others. Why not Pavé for Festivale in February? Why not Zipper for Bunny Day in March? Why not Franklin for the harvest festival in November?

There is one other cool feature about this calendar: It comes with stickers! It has a sheet of over 50 stickers featuring animal villagers, human villagers, special characters, fruit, and trees. You can stick them to dates on the calendar or use them for anything else. But for some reason, roughly one-third of the stickers are pictures of fruit. I think most Animal Crossing fans would rather have more of the characters that they love, rather than fruit and trees. Still, the stickers are a nice bonus.

The calendar may not be perfect, but it would make a good gift for any Animal Crossing fans this holiday season. Check your local stores for it or you can buy it from Amazon.com.

If you have any theories as to why certain animals were shown for certain months, please share them in the comments!