Tom Nook is a fictional character in the Animal Crossing series who operates the village store. He first appeared in the Nintendo 64 game Dōbutsu no Mori, released in Europe and North America on the GameCube as Animal Crossing. Tom Nook is based on the tanuki, the raccoon dog. He is not an American raccoon, as some people may have thought. In the western versions of the game, he is termed a raccoon. Therefore, Tom Nook is not an animal that exists in the real world, but rather a fictional character based on a raccoon dog.