Tom Nook's Contest History

Who is Tom Nook?
Tom Nook is, in essence, the perfect villain. He's evil, maniacal, and cunning, all while putting on a happy face and pretending to be your pal.

From the first moment of Animal Crossing, you are led to believe that Nook is nice. Despite having little money, and no references, he let's you pick out your own house, with a free Gyroid included. What he doesn't do is mention the details of this debt you're going to owe him. No big deal, you can work it off, right?

First he forces you to do odd jobs. You can't just go out and earn the money yourself, you have to do tedious, boring work. Which isn't so bad, if the pay wasn't worth almost nothing. 350 Bell for all that work? I could take a crap, call it unique field fertilizer, and sell it for more than that. He even makes you wear a uniform while doing it. And that, when you're finished, he leaves you with these words:

"You'd better pay off 1000 Bell a week, or I'm calling the raccoon goons on you! Heh, just kidding."

Or was he? With fear in your heart you scramble to pay off the debt, all while trying to furnish your house at the same time. Now, your main source of income is, ironically, selling things to Tom Nook. Now how much he gives you for each item? 25% of what it's worth.

You: Hey, I just traded for this 4000 Bell Table, and since I don't need it, I'll sell it to you. Tom Nook: Okay, here's your 1000 Bell.

Of course, guess how you get 70% of the items you get in the game? Buying them from Tom Nook. The fishing rod, which you use to catch fish (you're biggest source of income) and sell to Nook, is bought from Nook. So are the shovel, bug-catching net, furniture, and other things which you use to collect items to sell for money. All this, while you're paying off your debt. From the first step you took in the town, you were caught in Tom Nook's web, and you can never escape.

And, on top of all this, after finally paying off your debt, Tom Nook offers to upgrade your house, making it bigger! You know you shouldn't, but it is getting kind cramped, so you agree. You can do this multiple times, and each debt is exponentially higher than the last, keeping you dancing to Tom Nook's puppet strings for months. Then, when you finally pay off the last, 980,000 Bell debt, you can rest easy. Or can you? You aren't the only one upgrading! Nook makes his store bigger and better, with a bigger variety of items to choose from, and even a second floor (run by raccoons far below what the labor law would suggest, even). And so you continue to buy stuff for you're big, fancy house, and continue to pay Nook through the nose even without a debt.

Tom Nook doesn't have a giant plan to destroy or enslave the world, or to usurp the king, or become all-powerful. He's content wringing the poor citizens of a town dry, all while staying in the (mostly) legal range. but who knows? Maybe the raccoon will set his sights higher one day, and when that happens, I pray for us all...

"They are...unique, but variety is the spice of life." - Tom Nook

(Writeup courtesy of Brett with Atreyu)

Tom Nook's Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 0-2

Summer 2003 Contest - South Division - 13 Seed
 * Southern Round 1 --- Lost to (4) Crono, 14631 [14.19%] - 88469 [85.81%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 61st Place [10.82%]

Though Tom Nook's one and only contest match was in a match in which he was guaranteed to get blown out, most AC fans were simply happy with Nook's making the field. Nook was expectedly blown out by Crono, and he hasn't made the field since.

That said, there are two bright sides: one, Animal Crossing's taking down Final Fantasy 7 in Ngamer64's Great Game Contest was easily the highlight for Animal Crossing in the Summer of '03, to the point where no one cared about Nook getting killed; and two, Animal Crossing: Wild World might get Nook back into the field in 2006.

Summer 2007 Contest - Division 2 - First Group
 * Division 2 Round 1 --- 3rd place, 22614 [18.69%] - Marcus Fenix, 44524 [36.79%] - Kefka, 38712 [31.99%] - Zelos Wilder, 15164 [12.53%]

I'm not sure what in the world caused Tom Nook to get back into the field, but he didn't do half bad. He owned the mess out of Zelos and scored respectably for third place.