Raymond, yes. Every player has heard of this elusive cat. In Nintendo’s eyes, every villager is equal. They were obviously wrong. For many players in the ACNH community, Raymond is more equal than others.
Who is Raymond?
No, he’s not your forty-year-old second uncle who loves to eat Wanton Noodles. He’s also nothing much more than that:
Why is Raymond so hard to get?
Raymond was introduced only in New Horizons. Previous games in the Animal Crossing franchise did not feature this cat. This novelty, coupled with the lack of amiibo cards, have limited the supply of Raymond in the game. A quick guesstimate tells me that at least 10 players own Raymond. That’s how rare he is.
The only way to legitimately hunt for villagers (i.e. without reliving Groundhog Day by casually changing the time) is to go on mystery island tours. They’re not so much a mystery anymore, but that is not the point of this post. On these tours, there will be a chance of meeting a villager. When such an event occurs, the Animal Crossing algorithm will first spin for the species you will get. And as you may have figured out, Raymond is a cat.
And cats are the most common villagers in the game. 35 of them to be exact. This means that after the game decides that it wants to give you a cat, it again spins for which particular cat it is that you will get. If there was only hypothetically supposedly 1 cat in the game, then you’d get Raymond immediately when the game decides that you deserve a cat.
But no. The game designers are themselves neko lovers and introduced thirty-five cat variants you can get. What this means is that cat lovers have only made it harder to earn themselves a beloved Raymond cat.
Why is Raymond so popular?
All cats are equally rare, so why Raymond in particular? Ladies and gentlemen, because looks do matter. Do you really want to have this cranky Kabuki in your town more than you want Raymond?
You can love Kabuki, but most people want Raymond over Kabuki. Raymond himself has a pleasant (smug) personality, and looks decent. His house is decked out like an office, making him a representative for many office workers slugging away at the game. He’s a spirit animal. This makes 10% of the players want him.
Raymond was born on the 1st of October (year unspecified), which makes 0.3% of the players who share the same birthday as him reallllyyy want him.
However, Raymond is so hard to get (as explained above), which makes 80% of the players want to get him so that they can sell Raymond to the 1% of players who really love him.
The last 9.7% are players who don’t really know what they want and just get Raymond to show off a good island.
How can I get Raymond?
Desperate players often buy Raymond, again feeding the Raymond market.
trigger warning: time travelling, weeds, overgrown flowers
However, there are known ways to get Raymond for absolutely free. If you want to travel time, break your principles and get the cat, go ahead. (I’m kidding, do what you want!)