Animal Crossing: New Horizons: 10 best villagers to have on your island

With Animal Crossing: New Horizons allowing 10 villagers on your island, here are my picks for the best to have around — excluding everyone’s favorite, Raymond.

Let me preface this article by stating that, aesthetically, I do appreciate Raymond. He looks cool. But he gets love all the time and I want to talk about 10 Animal Crossing: New Horizons villagers that don’t get enough love. Here are my 10 favorite, which you should strongly consider having on your island.

Reneigh

Big Sister

Animal:

Horse

Reneigh is a new character designed for Animal Crossing: New Horizons and gives off big Rihanna energy. Part of this is because she was inspired by her. Her Japanese name even uses the exact same katakana for their names.

She’s protective, confident and often wants to teach you fighting moves. Combined with her love for darker furniture and a love of synth music, she’s a very cool addition to any island.

Drago

Lazy

Animal: Gator

(but is straight up a dragon)

Drago is one of Animal Crossing‘s gator characters but with some more pieces coming off him, he is absolutely a dragon. He even says “burn” after most of his statements.

He’s not the prettiest character but the chance to have an actual dragon on your island is pretty cool.

Bonbon

Peppy

Animal:

Rabbit

Bonbon is a true, unsung legend of Animal Crossing. Her design is wonderful, she’s visually charming and expressive and she is kind and bubbly.

To put a ribbon on all of this, she looks like she has murdered and is totally down for killing again. Seriously, look at that face she makes by default. That’s resting murder face.

Cashmere

Snooty

Animal:

Sheep

I love Cashmere for all the wrong reasons. She has a terrible personality. She’s full of herself. She’s overly self-confident. And she is what Post Malone would probably look like if he was a sheep.

I genuinely can’t listen to her sass without just picturing that famous video of Post Malone looking like a sloth as he hands out giant stacks of cash to random people. It makes me laugh every time.

Ankha

Snooty

Animal:

Cat

Ankha is one of the few villagers with a snooty personality who I think has just absolutely earned it. I mean, look at her.

She was one of the first times I had ever seen a villager in Animal Crossing with a different model from the rest of their animal buds. She has an asp that protrudes from her forehead as if wearing a headdress and I love it. It clashes with almost any outfit you can give her but it’s worth it just to have this royalty wondering your island.

Static

Cranky

Animal:

Squirrel

Static is just kind of cool aesthetically. He’s got a cool color scheme and a lightning bolt on his head. His house is a warehouse of guitars and he’s got a temper. This is the exact checklist of things I want in a squirrel.

One thing I noticed too is that if you place a guitar anywhere in your town near a music player this little guy can not go past it without playing a little. He’s drawn to it and that’s fantastic.

Bella

Peppy

Animal:

Mouse

When I finally unlocked Amiibo support in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the very first card I had to scan was Bella’s. She’s incredibly friendly and talks about being a star. But she looks impossibly insane and her home is a black and white mesh of metal and stone.

Another thing I love about her is that when she gets excited, her eyes turn bright red like the eyes on an albino rat.

Tybalt

Jock

Animal:

Tiger

Tybalt is a weird one because I don’t like him but I want him on my island. I believe no story is complete without an antagonist and Tybalt is that antagonist I want.

Also, he got a REALLY solid makeover for his Animal Crossing: New Horizons appearance. He used to look like Tony the Tiger and I love this more.

Also, from a literature nerd standpoint the name is wonderful. You may recognize Tybalt as Romeo’s rival in the famous “Romeo and Juliet”. But what you may have forgotten is that in that story, Tybalt is also known as “The Prince of Cats,” and that is a wonderfully literary pun. Bless.

Kyle

Smug

Animal:

Fox (but designed after an African Wild Dog)

Kyle is awesome and it’s a shame he doesn’t get more love than he does. Kyle is technically a fox villager but the model is only used to make him look like an African Wild Dog. If you’re not familiar with African Wild Dogs, take a second and look up a video of these things fighting hyena. They’re amazing.

So not only does Kyle earn his smug nature but he just looks really unique.

Kabuki

Cranky

Animal:

Cat

Remember how I said Bella was the first character I Amiibo invited? Kabuki was my second. Look at this dude. Sure, he’s cranky and almost never interacts well with others but that’s a perfect trade-off for having one of the most expressive characters in the game.

Not only that but the interior of his home is a wealth of bamboo items and if you missed out on the event, this is a really good way to get that stuff.