Bunny Day is an event in Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. I think it is somewhat different from the one in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The Pocket Camp version involves catching strange little egg fish for a “Fishing Tourney”.
Zipper the bunny makes me uncomfortable in so many ways!
Yes, my character is wearing a mask. It felt appropriate since I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp a lot during the “stay at home” order that my state has been under (which has been extended through most of May).
Most of the dialogue from Zipper feels icky. It’s hard to explain. One example is in the above screenshot. Zipper is using “regular font” for most of what he says. But then, this tiny font reveals something darker.
After trying to hype Bunny Day, he tells the player “… you can clap now.” It reminds me of when Jeb Bush was running for president, and he pleaded to a silent audience “Please clap.”
Zipper talks in rhymes, and does little dances. He can be overly loud sometimes. Based on the font size of the words, he is screaming his name at the player.
The Fishing Tourney required players to fish for eggler fish. They come in three colors: aqua, pink, and yellow. Bring them to Zipper, and he will measure the total amount of eggler fish you caught.
I enjoy fishing in Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, so catching these strange looking eggler fish was fun. Sometimes, you can catch two of them at once. In the screenshot above, I caught two (very small) yellow eggler fish.
In the screenshot above, I caught two big pink eggler fish. If you get two at a time, they are always of the same color.
Zipper gives the player a Tourney Throw Net that can be used to catch many eggler fish at once.
It was fun to use, and increased my ability to earn rewards from the tournament.
Turning the eggler fish in to Zipper was kind of awful. Everything he says makes him seem like he is a human dressed up as a bunny. This is completely bizarre in Pocket Camp where there are tons of animal people all over the place. No one would have questioned him if he was able to just … avoid being creepy.
If the player tries to turn in eggler fish, and is behind Zipper, he yells at them. He yells that talking to his back is not polite, and insists there’s “nothing to see” there. But, it’s very clear that there is a huge zipper on the back of his bunny outfit.
The rest of his dialogue feels like he is trying to hard. Zipper feels like someone who hates their job as an entertainer of children. There’s some similarities here to Krusty the Clown that I was not expecting in a lighthearted Nintendo game.
One of the rewards I got from the Fishing Tourney was a Zipper Hat.
Here is my character wearing the Zipper Hat while enjoying smoked fish with Bam. I am amused by Bam, who calls me “Brosephine”.
It wasn’t until after I stopped playing and looked at this screenshot that I noticed Zipper in the background, waiting to be invited to eat smoked fish. While I realize that the reason Zipper is in the background was because of where Bam happened to be standing… it still feels creepy that Zipper behind us.
“Watching you catch so many fish makes me very HOPPY!”, Zipper says. Why is Zipper so fixated on watching me catch fish? Zipper clearly lacks some social skills.
Usually, I enjoy puns, but substituting “happy” for “HOPPY” just isn’t good enough. Zipper has this false cheerfulness that makes me wonder what is wrong with him. It wasn’t long before I stopped wearing the Zipper hat around Zipper.
I earned the wood fish trophy.
Later, I earned the bronze fish trophy.
The highest trophy I earned was the silver fish trophy. The game puts the highest one you earn into your mailbox when the Fishing Tourney is over. I found a place for it at my campsite.
I also received some Fishing Tourney/Bunny Day items that I probably will never use. Patches of egg-shaped flowers, and a Bunny Day Arch Egg feel too “Easter” for me.
Overall, I enjoyed the fishing part of Bunny Day, but Zipper creeps me out.
#Blapril2020
Animal Crossing Pocket Camp: Bunny Day is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.
I also found Zipper a bit “off” but I can’t say I found him as creepy as that. He definitely did have something of a Simpsons feel to him, though, and he was quite obviously (and, I thought, deliberately) out of keeping with the rest of the environment.
I can’t say I gave it any great consideration but I do remember it crossing my mind that his sensitivity over his zipper was possibly due to it representing some form of disfigurement about which he was uncomfortable. It literally never occurred to me that it was a suit he was wearing – I thought he had a zipper in his skin.
If he is wearing a suit there’s no reason the person inside should be a human. It could be another animal.
Thank you for your comment, Bhagpuss!
It did not occur to me that the zipper could be some form of disfigurement. I think I figured Zipper was in a suit in part because of the zipper on his back, and the comments he made that sounded like a disgruntled entertainer of children.
I also didn’t consider that the person inside the bunny suit could be another animal. That’s a good point, though.
There’s definitely something “off” about Zipper. It was enough for me to find him creepy, but maybe that’s just me.