Many players have no doubt collected the typewriter item in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The typewriter has a chance of popping up as a furniture piece for sale at Nook’s Cranny, and has a short animation attached of the typewriter writing something on the piece of paper. But for many, what exactly was written on the typewriter was entirely a mystery.
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Since Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s release, new functionality has been added, including the ability to look around the world in first-person perspective with the game’s camera. This functionality allowed YouTuber Komugi Neko to fully inspect the typewriter up close, revealing what the text said. While many players have probably already peeked at the item, simply looking at it wouldn’t be enough to decipher it, as it’s written in Japanese, with the exception of a ‘Hello’ at the top of the page.
Strangely enough, the text is written in romaji, or in other words, the Japanese language written with Latin/Roman alphabet instead of kanji, katakana, or hiragana, the normal writing systems used in Japan. Komugi Neko kindly writes out the script and translates it for viewers. In essence, the letter is being written to a friend or family member, giving them an update on how the writer is doing. They note that they’re well, and are enjoying the sunshine, even though it’s hot everyday.
It’s a charming hidden feature of an Animal Crossing: New Horizons item that could have just as easily had garbled text or nothing at all written on it. Presumably, in the context of the game, whoever activates the typewriter is the one creating the letter, even though no matching animation for the player character or villager is shown. While it’s unclear who exactly they’re writing the letter to, villagers on the island mention friends and family members from elsewhere, and the player themselves receives letters from their family from time to time. As such, it’s probably meant as a reply to one of them.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is full of secrets and other little details that players may have missed after plenty of playtime. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that the developers would go through the trouble of creating this charming letter long before the ability to zoom in on objects was possible. Although New Horizons’ 2.0 update has been out for a while now, there’s likely still some interesting details that have yet to be uncovered by players.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
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