This week, Nintendo finally removed an infamous, adults only-themed island from Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Existing since 2020, the suggestive fan creation was almost as old as the game, and gained much attention from Japanese streamers for its distorted, humorous world view and huge level of detail. Despite years of work being deleted, the island’s creator expressed gratitude to both Nintendo and those who have visited over the years.
Literally named Adults’ Island (otonatachi no shima 大人たちの島), the suggestive location was crafted by a dedicated Animal Crossing player who goes by @churip_ccc on X. As spotted by Automaton, the island’s creator took to Twitter / X to comment on its removal from the game. “Nintendo, I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” they said in a tweet with 3.1 million views so far. “Rather, thank you for turning a blind eye these past five years. To everyone who visited Adults’ Island and all the streamers who featured it, thank you.”
The creator of Adults’ Island first publicized the location’s Dream Address in 2020, and it was quickly picked up and featured by streamers in Japan. Plastered with colorful Japanese signboards, vending machines, arcade cabinets and a lot of attention to detail, the island mimicked an entertainment and red-light district in the evening. While not explicit, the version of the characters that it presents turned Animal Crossings’ cute and wholesome image on its head.
As many Japanese streamers mentioned, the island had the atmosphere of a nostalgic entertainment district in Japan, with many details recalling the mid-to-late Showa period (1926-1989). Its vibe was also similar to the Wall Market area from the original Final Fantasy 7, with a sense of parody reminiscent of Lost Wages from 1987’s Leisure Suit Larry. The first place you came across on the island after getting off the plane was a “Free Information Center.” While this might sound innocent enough at first, such places are often found in real night life districts in Japan, and tell potential customers about adult-oriented establishments and services in the area, including bars, hostess clubs, and brothels. The inside of Adults’ Island’s Free Information Center was amusingly covered in glamorous posters of Animal Crossing characters, with advertisements for shops including a Hong Kong “massage” parlor. The island also had a smoking area with one villager dropping the bombshell that Animal Crossing character Isabelle smokes Seven Stars.
Places you could visit included a 24-hour sauna called “Love Attack,” a beach-front love hotel (complete with Michelangelo statues and strategically-placed palm trees), a cabaret, and a pachinko parlor. The interiors of the residences of popular Animal Crossing characters on the island often added a naughty twist to the character (for example, Blather’s room has pictures of Isabelle surrounding his bed and used tissues on the floor- likely a side of Blather that no-one wanted to think about). The overall tone was humorous, with an NPC even explaining to you that the island’s theme park (which could also be visited and seemed to be a parody of Disney’s “It’s a Small World”) had gone bust because “there are no children here.”
It also had a dark side as well, with the hut for new employees featuring a bunch of futons crammed together on a dirt floor, providing a sharp contrast to the colorful and comfortable interiors on the rest of the island. The island’s colorful Gorilla Magazine (perhaps run by Violet?) also parodies the real-life free magazines that encourage young women into nighttime work. Speaking of Violet, she is working as an oiran, a term for high ranking prostitutes in Japan’s Edo Era (1603-1868).
Considering that content creators in Japan had been streaming Adults’ Island since 2020, it seems likely that Nintendo was aware of the fan-created area’s existence for a while. However it’s not clear why it took until 2026 for the company to delete the kinky island’s Dream Address. Perhaps the recently released Animal Crossing: New Horizons Switch 2 update jolted Nintendo into action.
In response to the creator’s tweet, Japanese-speaking fans mourned the island’s demise. Former visitors reminisced about the first time they explored the location or saw it streamed. “The shock of ‘you can do something like THIS?!’, the points of interest that made me think ‘you’re recreating THAT?!’, the sense of style, the black humor… I really liked all of it. I’ll treasure my screenshots,” said one user, who first visited when the Dream Address system went live. Others made similar comments: “I’m sad that it’s gone,” “It’s such a miracle that it lasted that long,” and “From now on, I’ll enjoy it through the screenshots.”
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
