Photo: Kyle Bray/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) —The New England Aquarium stepped into Tom Nook’s desert island as part of the Animal Crossing: New Horizon Aquarium Tour.
Nintendo, the game’s developer, began partnering with various aquariums around to the world to feature activities and decorations based on the popular game in 2021, starting in Japan. The tour expanded to North America last year debuting in the Seattle Aquarium.
Now, the tour arrived at the New England Aquarium in Boston on Sept. 21, allowing visitors to explore aquatic life with the help of some popular characters from the game.
“I was really jealous when Japan had theirs, so I was really hoping that it’d come to the U.S. and it did,” Jasmin, a fan of Animal Crossing, told WBZ NewsRadio at the New England Aquarium on the opening day of the event.
There were hundreds of fans and marine animal enthusiasts, just like Jasmin, welcoming the special exhibition.
“You’ll see, throughout the aquarium, signs where you can connect an animal crossing character to one of the animals we have,” Suzanne Liola Matus, VP of Marketing, Sales, and Visitor Experience at the New England Aquarium, told WBZ NewsRadio while at the shark and stingray touch tank that features the character Ray.
For Carly, she loved seeing two of her favorite things coming together in one place, and “to see the little Blathers signs everywhere is so cute. I took so many pictures.” Blathers is an owl and director of the Museum inside the Animal Crossing universe.
Liola Matus added that the aquarium hopes to bring fans of the game and of ocean life together for a fun learning experience.
“Bringing people to the aquarium is all about getting them to see the animals that they might not see in real life and understand how important the ocean is to us,” she continued. “And hopefully make them fall in love with it so they’ll want to help us protect it.”
The Animal Crossing: New Horizon Aquarium Tour will be at the New England Aquarium through Dec. 14.
Future exhibitions will also be held at the Sea Life Arizona in Tempe and the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.
WBZ NewsRadio's Kyle Bray (@KyleBrayWBZ) reports.
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