Animal Crossing banned from Japanese school

by Ross Miller { Feb 1st 2007 at 5:45PM }

Vinnk from 4 color rebellion, when not covering Nintendo, spends time in his other life as an English teacher in Japan. From that life comes this quirky anecdote of his school outlawing Animal Crossing (Doubutsu no Mori, locally).

We understand outlawing gaming in school, but why specifically Animal Crossing? Turns out, some school officials have been checking the link history found in the computer lab and found that kids were spending a lot of time looking AC-related sites and not studying.

With what else those children could be looking at -- porn, flash games and Joystiq come to mind -- is Animal Crossing the premiere threat? Sure it promotes mass violence and filthy lifestyles, but couldn't officials just set up a firewall or turn the internet off? Leave Tom Nook out of it.

Tags: 4cr, animal crossing, AnimalCrossing, culture, japan, school, vinnk

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

silkylove @ Feb 1st 2007 5:50PM

Oh well I guess they'll go back to hentai now:/

Wiggydee @ Feb 1st 2007 6:06PM

I don't usually like doing these one word comments that don't contribute to the subject in any way shape or form, but the temptation is too great this one time...

SPROING!

Mr Khan @ Feb 1st 2007 6:07PM

This seems similar to the Japanese law that a Dragon Quest game cannot be released on a school day

ackmondual @ Feb 1st 2007 6:09PM

my workplace filters out GameSpot, GameFaqs, gaming sites, MySpace, social sites, and dating sites among other categories.

Now I'm forced to check out CNN, Cnet, Joystiq, YouTube, and Wikipedia to kill time :P

.

On another note, my friend who joined the US Navy got a Dell Axim (400MHz, Windows Mobile 2002) as part of his tech training. However, the instructor purposely gave them the non-wifi version for fear ppl woudl just IM each other or surf the web rather than paying attention.

ackmondual @ Feb 1st 2007 6:11PM

@ #3

LOLz, that's hilarious!!

Eric @ Feb 1st 2007 6:33PM

Nice Joystiq. Bring even more attention to a site that is already suffering server issues. :-\

Freddy @ Feb 1st 2007 7:59PM

They should bribe the lawmakers with 100,000,000 Bells.

Joshua @ Feb 1st 2007 8:34PM

They can't ban what the kids play at home, so their "banning" seems horribly misinformed, and if they were banning AC specifically (maybe on DS??), then why wouldn't they have already banned all games? =/

John Doe @ Feb 1st 2007 8:34PM

O yea? well, at my school, they block Joystiq!

Kevo @ Feb 1st 2007 9:11PM

Aww, bonerkill

yincrash @ Feb 1st 2007 9:15PM

I remember when my schools banned pokemon and tamagotchi. They keep kids from learning, when school time should be for learning. Or playing with other kids in school, rather than looking up AC stuff.

Paul Gale @ Feb 2nd 2007 2:00AM

Well that sure stinks for those kids. Who can blame 'em for digging for more Animal Crossing news? Sure, education is important, but come on...Nintendo is life!
Paul Gale
1up.com

Sarge @ Feb 2nd 2007 9:56AM

Pssh. Last time I checked, school was for learning, not playing games, or learning about playing games, or whatnot. And I'm sure porn and such is ALREADY against the rules.

Sarge out.