“I'm a cat. Chillin' is in my blood, man.”
― Picture quote, Wild World
Bob (ニコバン,Nikoban?) is a lazycatvillager who has appeared in every game of the Animal Crossing series. His name is most likely based off the bobcat. His initial phrase, "pthhpth", may be a reference to the sound a cat makes when coughing up a hairball (this is further supported by the information on the e-Card which indicates he tends to spit often while speaking). His picture phrase in New Leaf is a feline spin on the memetic phrase, "You only live once." He has the play hobby. He appears on the cover for K.K. Lovers.
Bob was long speculated to be the first villager designed due to appearing in every game, his simplicity, name, January 1st birthday, and having the first villager e-Card and amiibo card. This was later confirmed in a conference by series director Hisashi Nogami.[1]
Bob is a lavender cat with darker purple spots all over his body and face. He also has no visible nose. His eyes are half-closed, making him appear sleepy and reflecting his lazy personality. The inside of his ears are various shades of pink, and his tail has two darker purple spots on it. He and Olivia have the same style of eyes: light yellow almond shapes with a solid black rectangle for pupils. He initially wears the blossom tee, and he carries the gelato umbrella when it rains.
Personality
Below is a brief description of the lazy personality. For more information, click here.
As a lazy villager, Bob will be friendly and easy to get along with due to his laid back lifestyle. Like all lazy villagers, he has a love of food and relaxing. He will enjoy partaking in the usual hobbies, usually for relaxing reasons or for food, like when fishing. Bob will get along well with other villagers, but may offend or confuse jock villagers, who have a lifestyle of exercise and fitness, which conflicts with the lazy lifestyle of relaxing and food. He will get along with other lazy villagers with whom he will talk about food, comics, or superheroes. He will also get along well with normal, peppy, smug, and sisterly villagers, and occasionally cranky villagers, but may from time to time annoy snooty villagers, who disagree with the lazy lifestyle.
Everyone loves Bob's laid-back attitude, in spite of his nasty habit of spitting whenever he speaks. Ever wonder why he sleeps so late? It's because he's up all night playing video games. Can you blame him?
Bob's Chinese phrase "猫猫/貓貓" literally means "cat".
Despite being the first villager created in the series, Bob does not debut in initial releases of every game, as he didn't appear in the initial release of Pocket Camp (which was released on November 2017).
He is known for being a popular meme on the internet, especially because of an animated image of him dancing.[4]
This was also the inspiration for the "Peace and Tranquility" video from the video game A Hat in Time.[5]
His fellow villager, Roald the jock penguin, is also usable meme fodder because people tend to edit him into non-Animal Crossing universes for the purpose of it being purely funny.[citation needed]