Ahead of Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream’s April 16 release, Nintendo dropped a free demo last week, giving players a taste of the title’s extensive character creator and custom user input features. Given that the new entry in the Tomodachi Life series offers a lot more freedom than its predecessor, it didn’t take long for players to start Mii-fying various fictional characters and real-life celebrities in faithful detail, not to mention making them utter bizarre and often profane dialogues.
Amidst the shenanigans, an amusing piece of Tomodachi Life trivia has resurfaced among Japanese fans of the series. As shared by X user Ikio Hatoyama, an official manual for the original Nintendo 3DS game featured a Mii version of Japan’s late prime minister Shinzo Abe. While he is obviously not referred to by name, the facial resemblance is quite uncanny, and a tagline reading “The Prime Minister With Striking Eyes and Eyebrows” pretty much leaves no room for other interpretations.
Amusingly, the rest of the description reads “The Prime Minister, who is also known for the economic policies (?) bearing his name. He has puffy eyes and thick, bushy eyebrows. The large wrinkles around his mouth are another of his distinctive features.” The “economic policies (?)” mentioned here are most likely a reference to Abenomics, a strategy to revitalize Japan’s economy which Abe famously launched in 2012.
The pictured excerpt is from the “Tomodachi Collection New Life Nintendo Official Guide Book, published by Shogakukan in 2013. A large section of the book is dedicated to teaching players how to create Mii that look just like them (or the character they’ve envisioned) by capturing and stylizing key facial features. This probably explains the appearance of Shinzo Abe in the guide, as well as the detailed description of his face. Since there are very few people who don’t know what their own country’s prime minister looks like, it seems like a great example to use for demonstrating how to translate real-life features into a stylized character. As some eagle-eyed Japanese users have pointed out, the rest of the page seems to introduce a Mii version of celebrity Matsuko Deluxe. Players are instructed to give him the thickest possible body physique and a double chin for maximum likeness.
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is set to launch on April 16 for Nintendo Switch systems.
