Build-A-Bear is a horrific child's play-shop where your young ones can watch their new best friend being turned from an empty, lifeless skin into a fluffed and stuffed bear-shaped thing. You can even buy tiny bear clothes. It's quite the pitch, and one that was so successful that the company can usually be found in malls and shopping centres all over the place.
When Build-A-Bear announced their upcoming collaboration with Animal Crossing: New Horizons last month, people were understandably excited, and though the company didn't confirm which characters would be imminently plushified, rumours ran wild. Of course, Tom Nook and Isabelle would probably make it in, but would we see KK Slider? Stitches? Everyone's favourite businesscat, Raymond?
Unfortunately for some, when the sale went live today (and yes, we queued for over an hour to find this out), the only available plushies were Tom Nook (in his holiday outfit) and Isabelle (in a pink shirt). What's more, they come pre-stuffed and pre-dressed, so they're not customisable at all - except for being able to change the sound that comes out of them.
Build-A-Bear even released a video of the "first stuffing premiere" with the Merrell twins, two identical YouTubers with almost 6 million subscribers, which - if anything - makes the fact that we can't actually bring them to life ourselves all the sadder. The twins are taken around an empty Build-A-Bear shop with masks on while they stuff and name their bears, including the trademark "heart" insertion, which makes the bear real. How are we supposed to know if they have hearts if they come pre-stuffed?!
Customers have two options for the 15-inch-tall plushies: the "Animal Crossing: New Horizons Opening Theme" or a 5-in-1 sound chip, which is unique to both Tom Nook and Isabelle. The plush description says that these are "signature phrases", which is certainly interesting for a game where every character speaks gibberish. And yes, the 5 phrases included with each include the gibberish, along with emote noises, like the sparkly noise of a smile, or the doink of a star falling on their head.
Unlike other Build-A-Bear bears, you won't be able to record a message to go inside the bear - and that's probably something that Nintendo made sure of, or else we'd be seeing a lot of sweary, off-model Isabelles.
Needless to say, a lot of fans are disappointed in this selection, and though I don't doubt that the fluffy friends will be sold out in no time (although each one is limited to one per guest), it's certainly not what some were hoping for. The Build-A-Bear FAQ states that the collection "will return in the future", in case anyone couldn't grab one before they all sold out.
I know it's futile to hope for something a little more stylish, a little more exclusive, and a little less "the plushies you find in the £5 bin when you're in the queue at a game shop", but still - these plushies really aren't anything special for me. If I wanted a fluffy thing that occasionally garbled nonsense, I'd put the batteries back in my Furby.
But what are your thoughts? Have you been in the Build-A-Bear queue? Are you disappointed, or do the limited options not bother you at all? Perhaps you think that this is exactly what we should have expected, and we shouldn't have got our hopes up after years of Nook-and-Isabelle-themed merch?
Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Comments 47
It’s pretty disappointing yeah. I was gonna get my sister one for her birthday but I’m pretty sure she hates both Isabelle and Nook for different reasons.
what did people expect? They were going to make plushies of the mascot characters, due to recognizability. The actual villagers rarely ever get their own merch, as it's always been the iconic special characters. Not to mention that these are the series' mascots.
Man Nook and Isabelle really lost themselves during the pandemic
@HotGoomba At least Nook would make eating the rich tastier. There’s enough fat there to make some Tanooki crackling.
I don’t really know what anyone expected from the character choices... these are the 2 most logical options I see no difference between this and Pikachu and Eevee being the first Pokémon releases. They’re the 2 most recognizable mascots. An argument could be made for KK Slider but Isabelle garnered a lot of fandom from New Leaf. When the game released on the same day as Doom Eternal all the fan art was Isabelle and Doom Slayer.
I can get the disappoint ent with regards to the actual “build-a-bear” process but it’s all online currently so....
Well I’d rather have Isabelle or Tom Nook than Zipper or Pave... so there’s that 😆🤦🏻♀️
@VoidofLight plus the villager is very customizable what are they gonna do? A whole potato head situation where you can swap out facial features and hair?
@Grahamthecracker I meant animal villagers, like Raymond and the others.
Calling it a collection gave people hope. Collection sounds like more than two to a lot of people.
Yep, pretty disappointing. Since they were calling it a ‘collection’, I was expecting at least 4 or more characters (and was rooting for Celeste or one of the Able Sisters to be included). Just Tom Nook and Isabelle is simply...meh.
@Kiyata ... what ... is your problem... with PAVÉ!? Lol Feel the rhythm! Lose yourself... in FESTIVALE!
what bothers me the most is how many are now on ebay for ludicrous prices - surely build a bear abd ebay can stop this? it’s not like they aren’t being scalped? there is no excuse and ebay should refuse to see them more than cost
@VoidofLight ah yes them too. Even if they went with Raymond and Marshall being the most popular it would’ve fallen flat I think.
@Grahamthecracker it would also disappoint those who don't like the more popular villagers, or who get sick of the sight of Raymond due to how twitter ruined him. I think there probably should be more than just two dolls, but just dolls only for the special characters. My guess is though.. they won't do it, since a lot of the special characters effectively got excluded for good.
@Grahamthecracker I guess I’m just not festive enough 🤣
Somehow I've been really good at guessing whether an article was writing by Kate Gray or not, I haven't gotten one wrong yet
@Mijzelffan same
I was so ready to dish out fifty bucks for Brewster after an hour and a half in line. But Nook and Isabella? I think not. My hopes have been maliciously dashed.
tom nook looks strangely bloated
I mean, Build A Bear almost never releases more than a couple at a time unless it’s tied to a specific release. The Pokémon collection started with just Pikachu and they’ve added a new one every couple months or so since then and at this point have had stuff like Snubbull and Dragonite. I don’t expect this to be any different
Disappointing but understandable why the clothes come pre-stitched. It would be nice to put other non-canon outfits on them but I doubt Nintendo would be too happy about BABW selling naked Tom Nooks and Isabelles to children, lol.
@VoidofLight RIP Brewster (maybe lol)
This is sad there are so many great characters and personalitys in the animal crossing games yet they choose the most known wasted
@nessisonett If you wanna get her any Nintendo character, make it either a Pokemon that's available, or failing that, Yoshi. He's coming back this month. I just want a Yellow one to remind me of Cammiluna. She still hates me for drawing bad pics, so many years ago, when the Internet was young, and I was in High School, as a freshman to a sophomore. I almost tagged her on Twitter, but it would bring up bad memories, and unwarranted strikes on my Twitter account. She would've told me to "***** off."
I totally get if people are disappointed by this (I was hoping at least some of the new eight or new event characters would be represented) but those are still really cute plushies of Tom Nook and Isabelle. These will have no problem selling.
Overall I'm 50/50 on them. It's a shame that not more characters were available, but if you didn't think they were going to include Tom Nook and Isabelle from the get go, who did you think would be? I bought a Tom Nook. Partly because I thought he looked cool and partly because after waiting an hour and 43 minutes, I felt I needed something for my time that I was never getting back. I am excited for him to come though.
Yeah I expected them to be there, I did not expect them to be the only ones. 2 is not a collection. Hopefully BaB will reveal more AC chars soon.
Absolute expected trash. These are so bad. Build a bear has to be paying out the ass for this promo why would they make these lol
Like why wouldn’t you just get a much cheaper much more faithful looking Isabelle or Tom nook? Literally everywhere
Managed a build a bear for years. ***** company with a ***** philosophy. They did more than I expected to though by releasing more than one character
@Crockin I think they wanted a bigger Isabelle or Tom Nook at a better price than those imports you see at gaming retailers. I only pray that they just bring back Yoshi, and call it "Yoshi" on the foot, because it would go with that stupid "Mario is Dead" meme. I swear, Mario Golf: Super Rush will only trigger a "Mario's Come Back To Life!" Meme. Honestly, if Nintendo wanted to make anything, they should make Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong with the option to give them clothing to wear OVER their sewn on shirts!
There needed to be alot more I mean why wasn't that raymond dude a plush?
It’s Build-a-Bear. How can you not be disappointed?
@VoidofLight
Raymond plushie in Maid outfits was already available from Ebay. 🤭
@Snatcher
"why wasn't that raymond dude a plush?"
Oh, here you go.
Yeah, this is exactly what I expected.
@Anti-Matter Thats what I'm talking about.
"There aren't enough video game items for me to choose from" is peak entitled millennial.
Because I believe Animal Crossing is an elaborate satire on capitalism, today's disappointment feels oddly on point. It's just like the Nook Miles program--it's something we want but it's just not what we want.
I don't see why people are complaining. It was obvious it would only be one or two choices to start with. The Pokémon Collection was just Pikachu to start with. As for who the choices are, Tom Nook is a character that has appeared in every game, so is well known and Isabelle is in Smash, so they make sense. I see people asking "Why wasn't [insert villager name here] included?" and the answer is pretty obvious, they know that choosing two well known characters will mean they get sales. With the amount of villagers there are, it's almost as difficult as picking Pokémon for the range. If you pick one, you'll get people who love that villager, but you'll also get people who hate that villager and will be much more vocally opposed to the choices made than the ones who are happy and will spend the money. Yes, there are villagers who are mostly universally loved, but when starting a collection of plushes, it's better for business to go for choices that you know are popular, well known, and appear to be loved by the internet. I'll remind you that before Isabelle was announced for Smash, her and Tom Nook were the two characters from Animal Crossing that people wanted in the game, so you can't really ignore the fact that people love these characters. If you aren't happy, just don't buy them. Your money is yours to choose where to spend. Just go support some indie plush maker somewhere like Etsy. You'll have something more lovingly made than from Build-A-Bear and you may even make someone smile by ordering from them. You're also more likely to get a better job done too, because whilst the Build-A-Bear online orders I've made this past year have come out ok (I had the Halloween Unicorn and recently got the Peacock because it looked like Pavé from Animal Crossing), there are lots of cases where what you receive is understuffed, and normally you could go to the store and they may add more stuffing for you, but that's not a luxury available these days. At least with Etsy creators, they aren't just underpaid warehouse workers sat at a machine stuffing thousands of the same plush constantly.
Y'all want RAYMOND?! Ha!
I will not fathom what atrocity would befall such a plush!
Smart to play it safe for now, but they are missing out on a boatload cause no Museum owl.
Personally I would really only care if they had a koala villager. Ozzie or Eugene would be great..
@VoidofLight they expected to be able to actually build and customize them like other Build a Bear offerings. And there are plenty of other AC characters that get merch. KK Slider and Timmy and Tommy would have been welcome. And given the proximity to Easter/Bunny Day, they could have cashed in on a limited release Zipper. Blathers, Celeste, Resetti... and we haven't even touched on fan favorites.
@Tsusasi Resetti and other fan favorites would’ve been off brand as it’s a new horizons collection, and they don’t exist anymore. Nintendo is also strict with how they handle stuff, so that’s why you can’t customize them.
@VoidofLight Resetti maybe, but the rest are front and center and feature PROMINENTLY in New Horizons. Who runs the museum? Who runs the store? Who gives you Astrological recipes, Star Wand recipes, etc... and tells you when there's a major meteor shower?
And Nintendo would still be in control, as they could limit the features and ways in which you could modify them. But coming pre stuffed with ZERO options is just stupid and limiting.
That is so expensive lol. And yeah I always thought the charm was that kids got to make their own plushie animal! What is the point of this again?
I only pray that if they make King K. Rool, this will jack up demand, because he's THICC! Hail to the King of the Kremling Krew!
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