Way back in November, the Japanese Club Nintendo store introduced a new reward item that was particularly relevant to my interests: an Animal Crossing: New Leaf “pocket diary,” or planner for us foreigners. While I can’t profess to having very many Japanese Club Nintendo points, luckily they were holding a campaign where those who purchased the download version of Animal Crossing: New Leaf could snag the adorable planner above for a mere 80 points! And snag that planner I did, with the help of my very accommodating host mother who shipped it to me here in Australia.
I’ve had the planner for a while now, but I’d been holding off sharing pictures of it until I finally picked up a proper scanner… and I’m happy to say that day has finally come! Not only will I be able to share good-quality scans of this limited-run planner, but I hope to publish posts that include many more scanned items in the future. Just think of the possibilities! Please be aware that I haven’t fully gained my scanning legs yet, so please excuse some shadows and weirdness in today’s post.
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| Not sure why this one kept coming out so wavy. Argh! |
The above images are of the alternate covers included. The last one is clearly a rehash of the game’s cover art, but the other two are unique to the planner. I love the little owl peaking out of the zero in the first one! The second is a particularly lovely color… If I weren’t just saving the planner as a collector’s item, I’d probably use that second cover (before you come at me with pitchforks for not actually using it, I already had a planner by the time I got this one!).
I’ll be completely honest: I was a little disappointed by how sparse the pages are. There are so many cute touches that could’ve been added, but the decision to leave so much white space has left me a little lukewarm on the whole thing (I think I prefer the monthly layout style used in the Korean version). I do think it’s a nice touch how they themed each month differently, and that the colors from the game textures used ties into the color theme bars at the bottom of the page. Pascal and his little phrases are a nice touch, as well. I suppose Nintendo decided to go for a more “refined” approach to fit with the minimalistic pattern used on both the planner’s cover and the limited edition 3DS XL…
At the back of the book are a number of extras, including some blank pages for notes that are decorated with different items from the game. The fish and bug pages are my favorites!
Now this is interesting! They’ve included some helpful phrases and terms and their translations into English… which only further reinforces the idea that international versions of the game will be compatible with one another! By the way, players from the Korean and Japanese versions are able to visit each other’s towns, so chances are high that will be the case for the rest of the world, as well.
The last page is for filling out your personal data, but I’m more interested in the exclusive Pascal design they included! I’m definitely going to scan that into my game.
I have to say, however, that the stickers are the true highlight of the package. I don’t think I’ll ever dare use them, but they are truly adorable! I’m quite partial to the coffee cup sticker and the Doremi sticker (Doremi being one of my favorite villagers and a new character to New Leaf; she’s the brown doe on the far left). I wonder how they decided which villagers to include?
The planner does come with the extra mini address book pictured in the first image, but it’s completely plain and unrelated to Animal Crossing aside from the house icon on the front cover, so I didn’t bother scanning it. Speaking of which, please do let me know what you think of the scans in the comments. If you have any tips/suggestions, they’d be greatly appreciated!
Oh wow, I love this so much! I am so sad this is a Japanese only item, I want it so badly :O
I know they released a slightly different version in Korea as a preorder bonus for the game (pics http://animal-xing-3ds.livejournal.com/28498.html and http://animal-xing-3ds.livejournal.com/29036.html) so I guess it’s possible it’d come out elsewhere… But since the game’s coming out in western countries mid-year I doubt they’d sell the planner then 🙁
Sigh. Why does Nintendo of America have to suck so much when it comes to stuff like this? I hold out no hope that it’ll be released here in any capacity 😐
Anyway, it still looks great and I’m really glad you shared these scans here. I like the stickers especially. I wouldn’t be able to use them on anything either, I’m sure.
BTW, I’ve just saved the image of the translations page to my desktop and I’m going to refer to it as I continue my Japanese studies 🙂
The nice things about scans are that you could technically save the image and print out your own stickers! Then you’d have infinite adorable Animal Crossing stickers.
I thought that translations page would be helpful for you! Do let me know if you want me to write out the furigana so you can read the kanji.
Oh! I didn’t even think about making my own stickers. What a good idea 🙂
Also, I’ll definitely let you know if I’d like you to write out the furigana. I hadn’t even noticed kanji was included in the scan 🙂