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Edits
Edit: COMPLETE REDO of the history section, with more detail.
Edit: Removed external links per yodakiller3000's request, reordered categories.
Edit: Added more categories to separate some specific text, added TLDR section of an extremely shortened version of the history section."""
About
Kaeru:Tomo is a project that is being developed by the Kaeru Team. It is a replacement service for the now defunct Miitomo app, Nintendo's first mobile app. Most if not all updates regarding Kaeru:Tomo, along with their other services (Kaeru:Gallery, and Kaeru:WFC) come straight from the official Kaeru Discord server. The server link is not provided.
Miitomo was a social app by nintendo for iOS and Android respectively. It was released on 16th May 2016. You could create/edit miis, make/edit miifotos, answer questions, customize your mii's clothing, and more. Miitomo shut down on 9th May, 2018.
Important information
Note: All of this information was pulled from the official Kaeru Discord Server.
WARNING: If you distribute the assets for Miitomo and Kaeru:Tomo without permission, you would be violating copyright laws left and right. We do not recommend you do so. Kaeru is not held responsible for any damage done to your Miitomo app, your phone/PC, and more.
History
Kaeru:Tomo can be traced back to 11th July of 2018, specifically on the official Kaeru Discord server, and possibly even further than that. On January 24th, 2018, Nintendo announced that they would be shutting down their first mobile app "Miitomo", on 9th May 2018. The Kaeru team started a project called Kaeru:Tomo. For a while it was a "closed beta", which simply means that only the developers and some very trusted people are able to have access. The project relied on Nintendo's asset server.
On 12th July 2018, Kaeru Developer JoshuaDoes on discord announced that he has rewritten Kaeru Developer jaames's Miitomo asset scraper.
Finally, on 22nd of July, 2018, Kaeru Developer shutterbug2000 announced "something related to Kaeru:Tomo". His announcement states: "If you apply this patch to your Miitomo APK (instructions in the .zip, only for android for now), you'll be able to make Miifotos in Miitomo (only thing that will work, consider this a beta test of sorts)." In the same message, he credited the user Visual Brian for the idea of releasing a Kaeru:Tomo beta. Unfortunately it was android only. (and still publicly is, though iOS would confirmed to be in development later on.)
Surprisingly on 23rd July 2018, Kaeru Developer shutterbug2000 announced a statement related to the clothing store. His announcement states: "Since people seem to want this (and I just figured out the issue about a minute ago).... The clothing store will be making a return to Kaeru:Tomo's Miifoto beta!!" Simply put, this means that they have successfully brought back the clothing store, with limitations of course.
The very next day on 24th July 2018, shutterbug2000 teased the QR Code selection functioning correctly when creating your Mii. And yet after all this, there are no signs of iOS Support.
And then, it happened. on 16 of September, 2018, with the help of Discord user Korfi, shutterbug2000 announced that iOS support on its way. his announcement states: "iOS users! The wait is almost over! We have iOS miitomo now connecting to the Kaeru:Tomo server. Instructions will be coming once we have everything verified to be working. (Thank you so, so much to Korfi for being my guinea pig with their iOS device :p)"
Unfortunately, on the 29th November 2018, jaames released an announcement. The announcement reads: "It looks like Nintendo finally shut down Miitomo's asset server, which was responsible for providing all of the content (audio, graphics, language data, etc) used by the app. Miitomo still uses this server even when the Kaeru:Tomo patch is applied, we couldn't set up our own content server because that content is under copyright. … This means that the initial data download for new users will no longer work. Some content which is downloaded as-needed will no longer work either, and this may affect the shop and other parts of the app even for our current users. … We haven't had time to fully investigate yet, so please be patient while we figure out how to move forward from here. :)" Simply put, Nintendo has shut down the asset server Kaeru:Tomo was depending on. This means, that new users cannot access the service any longer, and the shop was heavily affected as well for current users.
It took a long time for the Kaeru Team to find a substitute for the old asset server. Luckily, archive.org was a choice. shutterbug2000 settled on that choice.
Long after the last main announcement, on 23rd March 2019, shutterbug2000 announced that he has successfully used archive.org as a substitute. His announcement reads: "As long as nothing else goes wrong, kaeru:tomo will be available to new users once again! New users will need an additional patch to allow downloading the Miitomo assets from archive.org." However, a new patch WILL be required in order to drag the assets from the new asset server substitute.
On the 22nd of May 2019, shutterbug2000 released another announcement related to the project. His announcement reads: "Hi kaeru:tomo users! Today, kaeru:tomo's rewritten server has officially reached the Miitomo initial setup. … I never really expected there would be as many people interested in Miitomo as there are. So, what I was expecting to be a few hundred users at most has grown into over 4000 users in our database (pretty crazy!) As such, we have been trying to get a new, better written server running. … This will allow us to better provide new features, so stay tuned for more updates!" Simply put, they are rewriting the main Kaeru:Tomo server.
Shortly after, shutterbug2000 showed off progress related to the rewrite every now and then, involving questions, wallpapers, floorings, and more.
The latest big announcement was from shutterbug2000 on 4th June 2019, announcing that they are starting a new Miitomo beta, exclusive to donators, possibly to limit the server activity. The minimum donation required is $5 USD, through PayPal. He also states that "Sharing ANY of the beta files without permission will result in the revocation of your beta access"
TLDR
If the history section is too long, here is a shortened version.
Jan. 24 2018: Nintendo announces Miitomo's closure on May 9th.
May 9 2018: Miitomo shuts down.
Jul. 12 2018: JoshuaDoes released a rewrite of jaames' Miitomo Asset Scraper.
Jul. 22 2018: shutterbug2000 releases a miifoto beta of the project, only for android.
Jul. 23 2018: shutterbug2000 announces that the miitomo shop is functional for the miifoto beta.
Jul. 24 2018: QR Code functionality is teased by shutterbug2000.
Sep. 16 2018: With the help of Korfi, shutterbug2000 announced that a very early beta of Kaeru:Tomo for iOS is successfully connecting to the server. (DISCLAIMER: Korfi has said that in the official iOS 13 developer beta, Kaeru:Tomo for iOS does not connect properly.)
Nov. 29 2018: jaames announces that Kaeru:Tomo was affected severely by the Miitomo asset server shutdown.
Mar. 23 2019: shutterbug2000 announces that Kaeru:Tomo will be available to new users once again.
May 22 2019: shutterbug2000 announced his thoughts on how big the original server was getting and also announced that the rewritten server has reached the initial setup.
Past May 22 2019: shutterbug has teased multiple times regarding the progress, including wallpaper, flooring, questions, and more.
External Links
If you would like to support the project, feel free to donate here (don't worry, jaames was cool with me linking it here): https://www.paypal.me/projectkaeru