Tom Nook

Tom Nook
Animal Crossing character
Tom Nook as he appears in Animal Crossing: City Folk
First game	Animal Crossing (2001)
Created by	Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development
Designed by	Noriko Ikegawa Yoshihisa Morimoto
Voiced by	Naoki Tatsuta (film)

Tom Nook, known in Japan as Tanukichi (たぬきち^?), is a fictional character in the Animal Crossing series who operates the village store. He first appears in the Nintendo 64 game Dōbutsu no Mori, released in Europe and North America on the Nintendo GameCube as Animal Crossing. Nook sells a house to players at the beginning of each title in the series, giving them a set mortgage for them to pay and allowing them to upgrade it over time after the mortgage is paid off. He has made several appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series as well. Nintendo's Treehouse localization members Rich Amtower and Reiko Ninomiya argued that, in spite of his perceived greed, he is a nice person due to taking the risk of hiring someone who was new to the town.

Tom Nook is based on the Japanese raccoon dog (also known as a tanuki). While Tom Nook is considered to be greedy by 1UP.com, Rich Amtower and Reiko Ninomiya, members of Nintendo's Treehouse localization team disagreed, describing him as a nice person. Amtower described him as "that first boss you ever had", adding that despite being all business and sometimes not having time for pleasantries, he is not a bad person. He adds that Nook's hiring of someone new to town involved risk, which shows generosity. Ninomiya agreed, and both felt that Nook's greed is diminished by the city's price index compared to that of his shop. Amtower jokingly alludes to an "anti-Nook bias" several times throughout the interview with 1UP.com.

Tom Nook first appears in the Nintendo 64 title Dōbutsu no Mori (ported to the Nintendo GameCube as Animal Crossing in non-Japanese regions) as the town's main shop owner and continues his job in the next two installments. Nook's role in the series remained virtually unchanged from 2001 until 2012 with the release of Animal Crossing: New Leaf. In addition to being the main shop owner, Nook will also sell the player a house at the beginning of the game for around 19,800 bells (in game currency). Because the player will only have 1000 bells in his or her pocket, Nook will request that the player work in his shop for a bit to pay off some of the debt. The chores Nook assigns you to do are meant for the player to get used to the controls of the game. After planting flowers, writing letters, and talking to villagers the player is sent off to do whatever they want, but have to pay the remaining amount of their mortgage on their own. Each time a mortgage payment is completed Nook will upgrade or add on to the players house, each time putting the player more and more into debt to Nook, with the last addition being the most costly.