As most of us know, Animal Crossing is a cute and relaxing life sim where you decorate your cute little house, befriend cute animal villagers, buy cute clothes, and do all manner of other cute things.  Being such a cute and adorable game, nothing ever weird or scary ever happens at all.  For example, there are definitely no creepy or otherwise unsettling villagers that will make you wish you had the ability to lock your front door.  Or that you could pop on down to Nook’s Cranny and buy yourself some pepper spray.  In assorted colors, of course.  There is also not a certain character related to a particular holiday that is extremely sketchy and could be absolutely anyone wearing a suit…because it’s totally not a suit and his real body, so why would you even say such a thing?

Okay, just between you and me (I don’t want to start any gossip, so keep this to yourselves, dear readers), but some of the villagers seem a bit…off.  I mean, take Coco.  She’s a rabbit…in theory, but she has the face of a gyroid.  And in the past, we established that gyroids might hold the souls of the deceased, and in the GameCube version, it’s possible for your character to take on the form of a life-sized gyroid in your image.  So…what does that mean for Coco?  Is she really a gyroid inhabited by the once-living Coco’s soul?  Do I really want an answer to that question?

And then we have Lucky, a dog who is fully wrapped in bandages.  I mean, what horrific accident did he even find himself in?  And maybe you’re thinking, hey Duck, Lucky isn’t creepy just because he clearly suffered extensive injuries in the recent past.  Have a little sympathy, gosh!  And I would agree with you if it wasn’t for that single, glowing eye peeking out of his bandages.  Is Lucky really just a very unlucky pooch or is he really an undead creature, a mummy perhaps, if the bandages are anything to go by?  What deep dark secrets are you hiding, Lucky?

And then there’s the villagers who may not even be alive…or undead, for that matter.  I can handle the robot villagers like Sprocket the mechanical ostrich and Ribbot the robot frog.  But what’s the deal with Hopkins?  Sure, from the front, he just looks like a friendly blue rabbit.  But on the back of his head, there’s this…plug, as if he’s actually inflatable in a manner not so different from Banjo-Tooie’s Mr. Patch.  What dark forces are at work in this world for an inflatable rabbit to come to life and gain sentience?  And if you were to open up this plug, and he were to lose all of his air, would he…die?  Or would he just shrivel up, forced to slink bonelessly about as a sad lump of thin plastic until someone were to inflate him again?

Pietro is a sheep dressed like a clown.  I have nothing to add here.

And then there’s someone who’s not a villager, but who sorely deserves to be mentioned, nonetheless.  The infamous Zipper T. Bunny.  Now…*gazes nervously about* there’s something veeeeery suspicious about our ol’ pal Zipper, wouldn’t you say?  He plays the role of the Easter bunny and wears…ahem, is a bright yellow bunny who dances around and speaks in rhyme.  But his whole happy demeanor seems to be a façade, not unlike his…I mean, he’s definitely a real bunny.  Even though he has…a zipper in the back.  And he gets angry if you acknowledge it.  And he really doesn’t seem to enjoy his job as much as he pretends.  And…if you watch him from a distance, you can catch him just…standing there.  Until you approach, at which point he’ll return to dancing like the jolly Easter rabbit he clearly is (not).

Who really is Zipper T. Bunny?  Is he even a bunny at all?  Does he have some sinister reason for hiding his face or is someone forcing him to do this job against his will, as he’s clearly not very enthusiastic about it?  For all we know, Zipper really isn’t a bad guy deserving of the contempt and suspicion that many fans have aimed his way.  Perhaps the dead, vacant eyes hold a weariness rather than the cold, calculating gaze of a serial killer.  If anyone is responsible for poor Zipper’s suffering, I think we all know that there is a certain tanooki who is the most likely culprit.

O-of course, you didn’t hear it from me!