Alright, so... I made a mistake in the Enemy Characters translation, and (whoops) it's a pretty big error that's thrown some folks in the MOTHER/EarthBound fandom into a state of confusion. I should address it here, as its own post, so consider this something of a press conference (or a public apology, take your pick).
At the very end of the section is a short bio for Tottori, the man who created the clay figures for the game. Yes, clay figures, not papier-mâché as I mistranslated. Cat Blackard of the MOTHER, She Wrote podcast had been speaking to Camille Young (known for her incredible clay sculpture work), who was reportedly confused when the former mentioned the official figures as made of papier-mâché, quoting my translation. Apparently it's impossible to get papier-mâché to look that smooth (I wondered about that too, but as this isn't my area of art, I'd just assumed a professional could work wonders with such material).
It gets even more embarrassing. The kanji used here in the Encyclopedia (紙粘土) is pronounced kami-nendo, and speaking as one who played MOTHER 3 in Japanese at release (long before the fan translation even came out), I should have remembered -- nendo means "clay". Specifically, 紙粘土 is paper clay. How it escaped me to look this up on the Japanese Wikipedia in the first place boggles the mind.
I won't make any excuses. I knew how important this information would be to the MOTHER community, and I distinctly remember looking up the word's definition more than once just to be sure... but oddly enough I must not have Googled it or anything.
So... yeah. Sorry for all the confusion, everyone!
(This is what I get for not branching out into other forms of art than drawing.)
Hi, Kenisu. I'm doing a full MOTHER series playthrough and literary analysis, and I used your Encyclopedia MOTHER translation for a huge bulk of my analysis on the first game; I'll be starting the second game tomorrow. Without your translation work on this book, my analysis would not have been able to be anywhere near as mind-blowing and in-depth as it was, so thank you very, very much for your work on this. It is valuable beyond words. It has allowed me to grasp this series in ways I never knew possible, because there is so much immensely important information in this book which lays the groundwork to understanding the entire story. Being able to grasp this series in such deep new ways has allowed me to provide the most comprehensive narrative analysis of the first game anywhere online thus far, and I believe I will be able to continue providing this level of quality analysis throughout the second and third games. If playthroughs or literary analysis of the MOTHER series interest you, I hope you will please check it out.
ReplyDeleteMy format is, I stream a chunk of the game and then review the important things from that stream's section of the game at the beginning of the next stream, then play another chunk and review the important things from that stream's section of the game at the beginning of the next, and so on, wrapping up with a final full-game analysis at the very end reviewing all the hundreds of little breadcrumb details that had been tying everything together and showing how it all connects now that we've finished the game and know all the information of the story. Here's my playlist of all the streams so far. Be warned that I am not G-rated. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-hFsfJ1444MuTJf1rCWgQSppeFEJLaNb
Please translate Osamu Hashimoto's "Dimensional Slip 1" and Fumihiro Nonomura's "Another Little Story that Crosses Over with MOTHER" as soon as possible. They may yield yet more important revelations that could aid my analysis, and I would love to be able to review them and share any important revelations they provide with my audience before I finish the trilogy. Thank you so very much for your work thus far, and please keep it coming sooner than later. Thank you again.
Hey! I'm glad you get so much out of the Encyclopedia, and glad my translation has helped! I'm afraid, though, that we're all going to have to put up with the lack of new translation updates for at least a little bit longer. I have a book I need to finish illustrating post haste, in addition to working an 8-to-5 job, and a whole host of other things demanding my time. I appreciate your understanding.
DeleteHi again! I'm now looking to hire a translator to translate a lot of Japanese MOTHER series material. I know you said you're too busy to focus much on the free work of translating the rest of the Encyclopedia, but would your schedule open up more for officially hired/paid freelance work? Please let me know ASAP! Thank you.
DeleteWell, it's really not that kind of situation, but... out of curiosity, what materials would these be exactly?
DeleteI'm working on and cooking up a lot of big MOTHER series projects right now that could really change things for the better in the Western fandom, most of which I don't want to publicize here yet because I haven't announced them all at this point, but the one that is currently announced is that I'm completely relocalizing MOTHER 2 with an EarthBound modification patch I'm making. By complete relocalization, I mean that I'm making the localization the West always deserved and never got: one that conveys Itoi's original creative intent with absolutely meticulous accuracy to ensure Western audiences miss out on none of the nuance, tone, charm, and plot details Itoi intended, while also making better localization choices than Nintendo's team was able to make when possible and retaining their localization choices when they can't be improved upon. I'm talking about relocalizing details which were originally poorly localized, such as the names of certain characters, items, and enemies, redrawing specific map and sprite graphics, overhauling the entire script, and so on. It's genuinely shaping up to be the perfect blend of accurately honoring Itoi's original intent while also changing necessary things for Western players to properly pick up on everything as Itoi intended in MOTHER 2, so much of which was lost for Western players in EarthBound.
DeleteThe problem is that I'm excellent at localization but I don't know Japanese, so I need to work in tandem with a translator who's as meticulous and detail-oriented as I am on the localization side of the work. So far I've been using Clyde Mandelin's Legends of Localization translations and exhibits of differences between the two official versions as the basis of my relocalization, but he didn't cover everything in the game, so I need accurate translations of virtually everything else in the game that Clyde didn't cover in his site and book. I need someone who has a deep and comprehensive understanding not just of Japanese, but also of the MOTHER series and Itoi's unique creative voice, in order to ensure no nuance or detail is missed, and after reading your work on Encyclopedia MOTHER, you're the man I want for the job. Once I know how everything was in Japanese, I can then work my localization magic on all of it, as I've been able to do so far with the things I know about thanks to Legends of Localization. I'm a creative writer, editor, and obsessively detail-oriented MOTHER series fan, so I'm perfectly suited for this, and I can confidently say that what work I've done on the game already is professional-grade and better than the official localization due to not being constrained by localization industry standards, censorship, deadlines, etc. The few people I've shown some of my work on the game to so far have been blown away by it; it really has the potential to be the definitive localization of MOTHER 2 in English. If you work with me on this, you can help elevate the project from very impressive to genuinely legendary.
I'd love to tell you about the other MOTHER series stuff I'm working on and setting up, because I have a lot of exciting plans, but since my other plans aren't public yet, I'd like to talk with you privately so we can start digging into the details of what I'm doing. What this means is that working with me on this project would ensure you a good amount more guaranteed work on MOTHER translation projects alongside and after this one. I'm open to email, Discord DMs, Facebook DMs, whatever you like. If you're interested, please let me know what avenue you'd prefer for speaking privately. For now, my email is LeeTag@hotmail.com, but if you like another avenue better, I'm open to it. However, if for whatever reason you're not able to collaborate with me on this, I would love a recommendation for someone else I could work with on it, because these projects mean the world to me, I want them to have the absolute best quality work going into them, and I trust your judgment on who would be as good at this kind of thing as you are.
Lee,
DeleteI just sent you an email.