An Animal Crossing Tale

An Animal Crossing Tale
Based on	Animal Forest
Produced by	Ben Carswell
Music by	Kazumi Totaka (Original Score)
Production company	Twisted4KStudios
Distributed by	Nintendo (Japan)
Release dates	September 23, 2014 (2014-09-23) (USA)
Running time	6 Minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	N/A
Box office	$126.52 million

An Animal Crossing Tale is a 2014 American Animated film based on the 2001 Nintendo Video Game Animal Forest e+ and is the prequal to Dōbutsu no Mori. The film was originally a parody animation for video sharing based audience until November 30th, 2020 when Nintendo released Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch on March 20, 2020. The film was picked up to be aired on United States Television with a TV-PG rating. The film follows Ben who is the main character villager who Is a grateful humble villager who goes by his day just like anyone else does in Animal Crossing, However worse comes to worse when he is asked by Rollo To take a package to Pierce, so when he declines Rollo is upset and wants revenge so when Ben returns home, he is threatened and Ben hits Rollo with a shovel but trouble comes in to play when Bob Finds Ben burring Rollo alive.

Development on the film was not expected at all. nor was it teased. The film started off as just a comic around the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, soon the idea for the movie developed into a storyboard that was considered as a "Quick Joke" as stated by the writer and director, Ben Carswell in the 2014 year end video for the studio. Soon the story kept adding on until it was finally becoming the storyboard to what would become the film. Also stated by the Writer and Director, Ben Carswell was that he played Animal Crossing (GameCube) when he was younger and would be great to see the game come to life. Some of the story has been told in the 2014 Twisted4kStudios year end review.

Cast

Voice Cast:

• Ben Carswell as Ben:

• Sam Zamora as Rollo the Hippo
• Trelis Skeem as Bob the Cat:
• Ben Carswell as Copper
• Lydia Carswell as Mitzi the Cat

Production

Development

The film was first played out by Ben Carswell. Ben Carswell played Animal Crossing for the Nintendo GameCube a lot and wanted to see how it would work in an animated movie form. The idea was brought up again in 2013 when Ben Carswell wanted to make a movie about Animal Crossing and got to work on writing and storyboarding as just quick drawings of characters and soon started to make a story out of it. Upon making it he considered it to be a joke movie but soon kept adding on to the story and kept developing to what would become An Animal Crossing Tale. In 2014 the film was announced and released.

Writing

While in the process of developing the film, it was originally going to be similar to Dōbutsu no Mori with how it played out but was soon scrapped to become more of an adventure or a misadventure of the villager. as told by Ben Carswell in the 2014 year end review of the studio seen here.

Casting

Unlike past Twisted4kStudios movies, this film had a ton of guest cast voicing the characters. Sam Zamora being one of the more well known cast. while other guest voice actors like Trelis Skeem and Tommy Dreher where not big actors but where also well known across the social communities. While Ben Carswell had voiced many characters in past movies.

Music

The original composer for the Animal Crossing series, Kazumi Totaka (戸高 一生) didn't have an onboard role in the films production or music production but did inspire many song including "Wake Up World!" Which is the Animal Crossing Tale version of the Animal Crossing theme for the first game. Overall, Ben Carswell did most of the music composing and producing. The songs in the film are Digitally Mastered for Dolby 5.1 Surround for TV broadcast which is then added to the credits of the film when being broadcasted on The Retro Network as seen here

Release

Marketing

Upon original release on September 23, 2014 the film was not really advertised nor was anything going to be sold for it. However when the rights where giving to Nintendo for the Japan release, A lot more things came for marketing including Promo codes, Flyers, Posters (which can be found on IMDb), and even plush toys that were not released and have not been found. When the film was being advertised in Japan in 2020, some people handed out 1 version of 3 flyers that featured codes for 3 different in-game shirts you could wear. The service was discontinued on August 22, 2021 due to the Nintendo Switch Online service for the creators got cut off. one side of the "Bob" flyer can be found here.

Critical response

When first launched, the film was received with very satisfied and positive feedback on the film saying how the animation was revolutionary for a small company and how smooth and accurate the voice acting was. On IMDb the film has a 9.5 /10 rating as of July 2021 which means it is near a 10 Star rating. The film on YouTube has 130K Likes to 2.9K Dislikes. The video has over 5,000,000 views as of August 2021.

Villagers

Animal Town

Many villagers appear in Animal Town with some with major roles. Here is the list with all the villagers featured in the film. Antonio did not appear in Animal Crossing for the GameCube which makes the film based on Dōbutsu no Mori e+ which is a Japanese-exclusive Nintendo GameCube game.

• Ben (Main Character)
• Antonio (Cameo)
• Bob (Major Role)
• Mitzi (Cameo)
• Paolo (Semi-Major Role)
• Boots (Cameo)
• Pierce (Mentioned/Cameo)
• Peanut (Cameo)
• Wolfgang (Cameo)
• Rollo (Major Role)

Special Characters

Not many special characters appear in the film but Blathers makes a cameo appearance while Tom Nook and copper talk in the film, Tom Nook who also previously appeared in Dōbutsu no Mori (2006) once again talks in this film but Copper who didn't appear in the other film makes his speaking debut. Tom Nook's voice actor is also not credited in the film.

• Blathers (Cameo)
• Copper (Major Role)
• Tom Nook (Major Role)

Television Broadcast

Television Broadcast (VHS)

On November 19, 2020 Nintendo of Japan acquired the rights to the film to be broadcast in Japan for the Japanese Audience. Upon doing so the film would also get to be aired on United States broadcasting on November 30, 2020 and December 13, 2020 in Japan. For the films Television premiere, the film would air on The lol's Channel, However the channel was not really set up for broadcasting well and neither was the film itself which later added an extra Nintendo logo and Twisted4kStudios logo after the credits which was first seen upon broadcast on December 16, 2020 which also happens to be the exact day the movie Dōbutsu no Mori released on December 16, 2006 in Japan. The film was later moved to The Retro Network, Originally named "The Right Network" on April 14, 2021 to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Animal Crossing franchise. For Japan, the film would be first broadcasted on December 13, 2020 on TV Tokyo along with the 2006 film being broadcasted later. In the United States the film got a TV-PG Rating. The edited version for TV broadcast with the extra logos has been uploaded on YouTube.

Technical Specs

The Films original release has 1.85:1 and a 1.78:1 (16:9) Aspect Ratio.

• The lol's channel, United States (16:9 1080i Widescreen / 4:3 480i Letterbox) NTSC
• The Retro Network United States (16:9 1080i Widescreen / 4:3 480i Letterbox) NTSC
• TV Tokyo Japan (16:9 720p Widescreen / 4:3 480i Letterbox) NTSC-J