Memos from Mamemura: Week 16 – “Rocky comes out of the closet”

Welcome back to another installment in my never-ending Animal Crossing: New Leaf adventures! This week started with an unexpected surprise…

An Animal Crossing: New Leaf StreetPass, in the wilds of Brisbane?! I couldn’t believe my eyes! To be more exact, I brought my 3DS in to the University of Queensland with me one day and I picked this up somewhere along the way. Who could it be?

It’s Tirana of Elf Village! Considering I don’t live in Japan, I think it’s pretty amazing to have even gotten an Animal Crossing: New Leaf StreetPass in the first place. Given her name, I assume she’s a westerner who imported the game, rather than a Japanese resident visiting/studying in Australia. The above player card tells me she just started playing on February 25th and… has the same birthday as me?! That’s one uncanny coincidence!

Let’s take a look at her house:

Since she just started playing a couple weeks prior, it makes sense that she’s only done one house renovation and is pretty sparse with her furniture. I’ll admit, I’m a little embarrassed at the state my own abode is currently in… (I pretty much use it as a dump – one day I’ll decorate with a cohesive theme in mind!)

  

Just like last week, I had another entirely new interaction with one of my villagers. This week, Layla asked me to to sell her one of my shirts, but I actually had the option to give it to her for free! And give it to her for free I did. She was quite happy, even going so far as to call me a “saint”!

That’s one happy penguin!

The White Rabbit outfit I picked up in the Alice in Wonderland-themed village I visited last week was a hit with the townsfolk. According to Doremi, there’re rumors going around that I’m quite the fashionista!

Sometimes I can’t help but laugh at the goofy situations that play out. Here I just dug up a fossil, but Marilyn got her big noggin in the way of me showing it off.

I love this screenshot – Doremi’s got an the audience waiting for her to spill the beans!

This isn’t the first time I’ve walked in on two villagers hanging out, but upon talking to Rocky, I learned something very interesting about his relationship with Bunjirou…

Translation: “Sexy girl! Bunjirou’s visiting… (And just when we were finally alone…)”) 
Why Rocky, I never knew you swung that way! If I did, I certainly wouldn’t have made your catch phrase “sexy girl”! I know this very well could not be an intentional gay innuendo, but with the immense attention to detail spent on every other aspect of the game, I’d find it hard to believe that the developers didn’t think of the implications of this dialogue choice for a male villager referring to another male villager. Well, in Mamemura canon, Bunjirou and Rocky are officially an item! 
Finally, I decided to make a trip to the Pokémon Red/Blue-inspired town that was recently featured on Tiny Cartridge. Here are a few shots I took while there: 


Cute flag! Also, what an odd town hall design… 

I grabbed the pattern for this one on my way out! It’s too cute!
  

This Exeggutor looks right at home in a lemon grove! For some reason I really like how the lemons mirror their big yellow faces.

A sleeping Pokémon blocks your path! What a great touch.

And finally, the iconic bicycle shop! 
That’s it for this week, but stay tuned for future updates! As always, I’m always open to answering any questions you may have about the game, so ask away in the comments. 
 

About Anne

Also known as apricotsushi. Anne can be written with the kanji for apricot (杏), and sushi was the most quintessentially Japanese thing I could think of when I was 13, resulting in my goofy, albeit memorable, nickname.

7 thoughts on “Memos from Mamemura: Week 16 – “Rocky comes out of the closet””

  1. I love it! The question is: will they still be an item when the game leaves Japan? I sure hope so 🙂

    Also, I love the Pokemon village–especially the first sign with the, er, I can’t remember that pink Pokemon’s name. Anyway, it’s awesome 🙂

  2. I couldn’t say! I’ll be honest, my gut reaction is that the team didn’t realize that that line could be interpreted this way. Rocky’s character hasn’t said anything to imply that they purposefully made him gay… That said, both Sahara and Gracie are male in the Japanese Animal Crossing games, but they were made female for the English versions, presumably because Nintendo didn’t think it would fly to have male characters involved in fashion or home decor-related professions, so I wouldn’t put it past them to remove any innuendo present in the Japanese dialogue from English version altogether. BUT on the other hand, the Animal Crossing characters do say a lot of weird stuff, so maybe they’ll run with it and make Rocky really colorful? I certainly hope it turns out to be the latter!

    Do tell me you think I’m reading too much into this! Of course, one of the great things about Animal Crossing is the narrative you as a player make about your villagers and town, but perhaps I’m going a bit too far with the “omg they made a reference to homosexuality in Animal Crossing!!”

    As for the pink Pokemon, that’s Chansey! It’s a bit hard to tell since the face is cut out. The sign is really adorable, isn’t it? I’m definitely going to put it in my town, so expect a picture of that in the near future 🙂

  3. Yeah, I have a feeling the team behind the game didn’t intend to make Rocky gay. If they did, I’m willing to bet they’d make him more stereotypically gay–like Gracie. Is Gracie as flamboyant and he/she is in North American versions of the game, by the way? I’ve always been curious about that.

    Anyway, I can’t say if you’re reading too much into this or if you have a point, sadly. I don’t know/understand enough about Japanese culture to know if this is something Nintendo would finally consider doing in one of its games or if that’s still out of reach for a number of reasons.

    As for the Pokemon in the cut-out sign: yes, that’s it–Chansey! I’ve always liked that one, for various reasons. How cool that you can now put that sign in your own town??

  4. Oh my god you’re from BRISBANE?? YOU GO TO UQ?? I’m at QUT myself but I’m just mindblown that theres someone else who’s into AC! And can I just say that I’m extremely jelly of your AC 3DS XL? 🙂 love your blog!

  5. Hi C! Thanks for the comment, and it’s awesome to know there’s someone with similar interets in Brisbane 🙂 If you own a 3DS, you should come to the monthly StreetPass meetups I organize! You can view the page on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/StPassBrisbane We just had our April meetup on Saturday, but we’ll be announcing our May meetup time soon!

  6. I LIVE IN BRISBANE!!! I GO TO GRIFFITH!! i used streetpass for the first time today and i met someone too

  7. Awesome! If you ever want to come to the monthly StreetPass meetups I organize, you’re more than welcome! Our Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/StPassBrisbane

    Now that Animal Crossing is out, everyone’s been spending our meetups visiting each other’s villages and trading items. It’s a lot of fun!

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