Another Update

Hi, everyone! Sorry for the insane delay on the next Encyclopedia MOTHER page. Just wanted to assure you all that I have been busy finishing up the last several entries. Sit tight!

Encyclopedia MOTHER: Goods How-To

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[1989: p. 117]

[2003: p. 121]

How-To:

So you can master the efficient use of items. ...

If you count the vehicles and all, there are about ninety different items. Here, we'll introduce the fundamentals of using two item groups, those that fall under weapons and those that fall under recovery.

When it comes to the items in the weapons group, these are crucial for attacking, so be sure to get your hands on the high-powered ones early on, even if you strain yourself a little on funds.

When you take into consideration the power of each and where you get them, it's best to upgrade your party's weapons along the way, as seen in the chart [below].

In the recovery group, make sure you give a central role to those items with a recovery power of more than half of your party members' current maximum HP. Also, during the early stages of the game when you're hard up for money, make frequent use of PSI, and be sure to keep recovery item-based expenses to the barest possible minimum.

- TO

What Weapons Do I Swap Out Over Time...?

Take it from us and have all your party members carry a Boomerang during the middle phase of the game. You're best off not using low-powered weapons, like the Frying Pan or the Knife.

Be Sure to Take Into Account How Much Your PSI has Grown When You Pick a Recovery Item!

For recovering HP, you have the option of using an item, but you also have the option of using PSI.

Once your party's nicely leveled up, change your way of thinking so that you use PSI for everyday recovery, with a store of high-powered recovery items for when push comes to shove. No matter how strong they get, you'll need to have on hand at least one item that will restore your friends' HP in full.

Weapon Item Power

This table shows the power the weapon items have. The ones that can be held by any party member have their power indicated with a red strip. This should give you an idea of not only how powerful but also how convenient of a weapon the Boomerang is.

Recovery Item Potency

This shows how potent each recovery item is, with PSI abilities as the frame of reference. From Magicant on you should make practical use of the four rightmost items.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to Comfort Food Video Games for providing these scans.

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Quick Update

Hey everyone! It's been a long while. I hope no one went crazy waiting for my next translation from the Encyclopedia MOTHER. Well, how's this: I've updated the Vehicles page; it now contains the full Goods Catalog!

Enjoy reading!

- kenisu

Encyclopedia MOTHER: Dimensional Slip 4 (Shin'ichi Nakazawa)

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[1989: p. 87]

[2003: p. 91]

DIMENSIONAL SLIP 4

MOTHER, the Game, Rescues Children from a Confrontation with the Imaginative Mother and the Societal Father

Shin'ichi Nakazawa

中沢新一

Assistant, Religious Studies,

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

Video games are a mirror of what we're doing in the realm of human imagination. The father, the mother and friends appear in said realm and build those relationships. That's why games aren't a projection of the real human world, but a projection of what's going on inside the human mind.

In there, the mother is the one who takes on the most important role. This is evident even if you see the histories of religion and psychoanalysis as a manifestation of what goes on in the realm of imagination.

The mother is a being who tolerates the self, and is also a nourishment-giving energy source. At the same time she is a destination that gives goals and morals to the world the self lives in. In other words, this mother of the imaginative world also does the father's job.

However, it isn't an imaginary relationship that the child playing the game and this mother of the imaginary realm within the game spring from, so it's narcissism. If narcissism thrives, the game will persist. In Japan's case, you might ask why our  video game industry is growing so much. It comes from that side of us where the way we fundamentally build a real-life mother-child relationship is imaginative. That has both weak points and strong points to it. Not that I'll simply end up denying that fact, but I think Shigesato Itoi is heading in the sort of direction where it just might be possible to draw good things from therein.

In the case of Europe and America, this method is not put into practice. Getting over this relationship to narcissism is a must. Enter the father in place of that thing we call society. Society begins to play the symbolic father role. His way of doing things is to put a stop to the narcissism of the child who is trying to shut himself up inside the realm of imagination, then drag him outside and make him build society. In fact our modern society was built that way. Therefore he continues to do things that keep the relationship with the narcissistic, imaginative mother in check. Modern artists oppose that check and, in their works, commit patricide against the societal symbol. Because the power of the father is incredibly strong in Europe in particular, the dialectical relationship known as opposition has a basis in reality. However, in Japan's case, the father's function as a symbolic being is weak. That's why there's no clear distinction between the imaginative world and the symbolic world. The sense that maybe it's the mother who holds up the entirety of the world is found within the whole of society.

The very Japanese modernism has, up until now, only been able to present the rallying cry: "Let's head toward the father!" without being able to reach the mentality of our Japanese society. And yet you could say the brilliant literary scholars from the Taisho era to early Showa¹ were producing fantasy that came directly from within the imaginative mother.

This is precisely what Kenji Miyazawa's² dream was. Japan's current technological developments are making possible a direct dialogue between machine and the imaginary realm. The power of the imaginative mother is being laid bare in a computer-society. Shigesato Itoi's game, MOTHER, is doing a marvelous job of unleashing the high-quality tradition of Miyazawa-tied Japanese literature in that computer-society.

And it's through this that Itoi will save children who are finding themselves in a quandary, both cultural and societal, of having to confront the father and the mother.

¹ Taisho era to early Showa: The former period spanned 1912–1926 and the latter picked up from there and lasted clear until 1989.

² Kenji Miyazawa: Writer and poet active during the time period mentioned in the previous paragraph. Miyazawa created a particularly large bibliography of children's fairy tales. His fame mostly came posthumously.

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Still at it!

To readers waiting eagerly for the next Encyclopedia MOTHER post:

My apologies for a delay that's gone on for way longer than I thought it would. Life has suddenly decided to pile a number of other things on me. Also, the next few entries contain some pretty esoteric passages, which, as I've found, can slow things down to a snail's pace. But even if it's admittedly a crawl, I'm getting there. Thank you, everyone, for your extreme patience, and I only ask you sit tight a little longer!

- kenisu

 

Encyclopedia MOTHER: Mother's Day Times (Japanese Edition)

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[1989: p. 152]

[2003: p. 156]

Mother's Day Times:

Japanese Edition

[The inside front of the book is a gatefold, which on the front features a charming recreation of a Mother's Day Times newspaper front page — and it's actually entirely in English, so theoretically I could just include a transcription here, but something you might not notice at first glance is that it's quite clearly written by a non-native speaker, though it seems to me this person would still qualify as fluent (or close to it). The spelling is typically perfect, and the wording, while not quite as perfect ("phenomenon" where they should have used "phenomena" is one example), is still a grand sight better than what you usually get with these kinds of things. It's mainly that the grammar and punctuation can be wanting.

As there's a page toward the end of the book that reprints the material in Japanese ("For those who have a hard time with English", the byline reads), I'm choosing both to translate it anew from that and to include a transcription of the gatefold, side by side.

In other words, I assume everything for the gatefold was originally written in Japanese then handed over to someone with a quite impressive grasp of the English language. Still, there's a fair amount of interesting nuance that got lost in the gatefold's wording, and judging by a few things it's possible the translator might not have even been familiar with the game and its mechanics.

On the left is a transcription of the gatefold (presented as written). On the right is my translation from the Japanese-language edition.]

Mother's Day Times

No. 11035

FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1988

75¢ (tax included)

Black Clouds Linger Over Holy Loly Mountain	Black Cloud Still Lingers Over Holy Loly Mountain
Gatefold	My translation
Forty-eight hours after Hurricane Dorothy hit Holy Loly Mountain, it remains covered with the dark, thick clouds.	It's been forty-eight hours since Dorothy, the large-scale hurricane, blew through, but Holy Loly Mountain remains covered in thick black cloud.
Orange lightning was seen several times in the cloud's central part late last night.	Additionally, on several occasions at earliest light this morning¹, flashes of orange lightning were sighted in the heart of the cloud.
Despite the efforts of the State Meteorological Observatory in clearing up the cause of this mysterious phenomenon, no sufficient explanation has been made so far.	The State Meteorological Agency is hurrying to investigate the cause of this mysterious natural phenomenon, but so far they offer no noteworthy explanation.
The State Police cautioned the residents on cable television not to follow false conjectures or groundless rumors concerning the clouds.	State law enforcement has also initiated an appeal via cable television, urging nearby residents not to be swayed by the many varied speculations and false alarms concerning the cloud.
This is not the first time that Holy Loly Mountain, which is extremely calm and sometimes called "a mountain virgin of rain and fog", showed such unusual phenomenon.	Holy Loly Mountain is normally so calm it's referred to as a "mountain virgin of rain and fog", but this is not the first time it's been seen to go through an unusual phase.
The last dark-cloud phenomenon similar to the present one occurred about ninety years ago.	Approximately ninety years ago, a black-cloud phenomenon of exactly the same nature occurred.
No disastrous accidents happened at that time, but seven people disappeared in Mother's day, Snowman, Valentine, and other neighboring towns while the dark clouds remained there for a month.	At the time there were no direct disasters, but during the month-long period the cloud was settled there, there was an outbreak of no less than seven disappearances across such towns as Mother's Day, Snowman and Valentine.
At that time, the police officially announced that they had found no evidence suggesting a relation between the clouds and the disappearances.	Law enforcement at the time stated their view that the cloud and the disappearances were entirely unconnected.
But it is already rumored that more than ten people have disappeared in Easter.	However, since the latest incident, rumors have already come in that at least ten people have disappeared from Easter.

Little Pippi Missing	Little Pippi Missing
Gatefold	My translation
A seven-year-old girl, Pippi, living in the suburb of Mother's day, has not returned home since last Wednesday², and her parents have asked police to search for her.	Pippi, a seven-year-old girl who lives on the outskirts of Mother's Day, has not returned home since the day before yesterday. A request has been made for a police search.
According to her mother, Lindgren³, Little Pippi was wearing a pink one-piece dress and yellow socks and tying her hair with a yellow ribbon when she left her house.	According to her mother Lindgren, when Pippi left home she was wearing a pink one-piece dress with yellow socks, and was tying yellow ribbons in her hair.
The investigation has been progressing slowly partly because Mrs. Lindgren has been quite upset, repeating "What shall we do?" two hundred fifty-six times in response to the police inquiry.	Lindgren was quite flustered, and responded to officers' questions in such ways as repeating "What do I do?!" a total of 256 times. Owing to this, the investigation appears to have seen very little progress.
The only helpful clue so far is the report by a man who "saw a little girl like Pippi at a South Cemetery."	The only potential lead so far is a report from a man saying he saw a girl similar to Pippi in the South Cemetery.
Yellow socks found near the Chou Cream Zoo yesterday were not long and have since proved not to be hers.	Moreover, yellow socks found near Choux Cream Zoo yesterday have proven, by not being long enough, not to belong to her.

Calls Rise Against Strip Theater in Thanksgiving	Calls Rise Against Strip Theater in Thanksgiving
Gatefold	My translation
The construction in Thanksgiving of "Number 1" building, a strip-show theater planned by investor Goldrich⁴ Duncan, has been facing strong opposition, including a petition drive and a demonstration parade by local residents. As a result, Duncan has temporarily suspended the project.	The construction of "Number 1", a strip theater planned and funded by Mr. Duncan, has been forced to suspend operations owing to opposition, including a petition drive and demonstration marches from the residents of Thanksgiving.
Duncan, now staying in Tokyo, has avoided comment on the issue.	Mr. Duncan is currently staying in Tokyo and has taken a no-comment stance on the matter.
He is not scheduled to be back until mother's day.	He is not due back until Mother's Day.

TOPICS:Flu Spreads Fiercely in Snowman	Flu Spreads Fiercely in Snowman Region⁵
Gatefold	My translation
The flu that has no incubation period is raging in the Snowman region.	A new species of cold virus with virtually no known incubation period is raging in the Snowman region.
One of the characteristic symptoms of this flu is an exhausting fever in addition to violent coughs and sneezes.	Symptoms of this flu include violent coughing and sneezing, in addition to a high fever that saps energy at an alarming rate.

No More Songs in Canary Village	Canary Village Forgets its Song
Gatefold	My translation
"Canary Village" used to enjoy a good turnout for bird-watching or picnicking.	Normally, Canary Village bustles with picnickers and birdwatchers on the weekend.
But now it has fewer visitors.	But lately, visitor traffic has slowed to a crawl.
The main cause is the disappearance of "Laura", the best singer in this Canary paradise. In addition, the rest of the canaries have suddenly stopped singing.	The disappearance of Laura, who had the best singing voice in this paradise and often proved it, as well as the fact that the other canaries have stopped singing entirely, appear to be the critical factor.
The village manager says, "If only Laura comes back...... I guess she's missin' her baby and that's why she sings no more."	The Canary Man has commented, saying, "Oh, if only Laura'd come back... Y'see, she misses her baby chick. Y'can bet that's why she doesn't sing anymore."

"The Live House" Wants Bands To Play	The LIVE HOUSE Now Recruiting for Band Gigs
Gatefold	My translation
Good news to young musicians who dream of becoming a rock 'n' roll star!	Great news for young musicians who dream of becoming a rock 'n' roll star!
"THE LIVE HOUSE", Valentine, a popular live House among teenagers, has started auditions for bands to perform at their nightspot.	The Live House in Valentine, which is a hit with teenagers, is holding auditions for band performances.
Explaining his policy the manager exclaimed, "Music that is not rock 'n' roll is just noise." If your response is "Yeahh!", call 117-2553.	The manager's take on things? "Any music that isn't rock 'n' roll is just noise!" If your band says "Oooh yeah!" to that, why wait? Call 177-2553!
The auditions are held on every Wednesday night.	Auditions are held every Wednesday.

[The "advertisements" around the page:]

---------------------------------

Have a Nice Trip

with

Paradise Express

---------------------------------

Choux Cream

ZOO

---------------------------------

RANDOM HOUSE

English–Japanese

DICTIONARY

SHOGAKUKAN

--------------------------------

Your Life is

Worth Dying for⁶

Cheap, Fast and Handsome

Big Ben Casey's Hospital

---------------------------------

For Your

Eyes Only

The Ultimate Weapon: $1,048

Time Machine: $2,775

Sticky Machine: $3,200

Rocket (the Real Thing): $3,485

A Science Teacher at

Tinkle Elementary School

---------------------------------

Fly and See!

Advent Air Service

Course A: $5; B: $10; C: $15

---------------------------------

[On the backside of the gatefold is a map of the world of MOTHER, made to look like a road map (the 1980s Rand McNally road trip kind). It looks kind of sparse, and not much is here that isn't on other maps of the game, but there are a few things worth mentioning:

• The sea to the north of the entire landmass is, according to this map, the Pacific Ocean. So maybe the game's north is actually our west...?

• The legend header says (in English): "HOLY LOLY NATIONAL PARK". Apparently the map covers an area expanding far outside the park (Unless the entire game map is somehow supposed to be one big park).

• Speaking of the legend, there's a distance ratio at the bottom, not that I think it's meant to be taken seriously.

• There are five instances of the "st." abbreviation (seen as "Reindeer st.", "Halloween st.", "Snowman st.", etc.). Native English readers might be inclined to interpret this as "street", but here it's meant to stand for "station".]

[The map legend:]

HOLY LOLY NATIONAL PARK

Main Road and National Highways

Railway and Stations

Town Areas

Points of Interest

¹ The gatefold says "late last night", while here I use "at earliest light this morning". The terminology in the Japanese edition is 昨夜未明, which is apparently a newscasting term that taken literally, kind of means "last night but so late it was actually this morning, just before dawn".

² "Last Wednesday": The literal translation is "the day before yesterday", but since this is the Friday edition (see the top), the meaning is the same... or would be, but unfortunately, the original translator must not have understood that "last Wednesday" refers to the Wednesday of last week. Simply going with "Wednesday" would have served them better.

³ Pippi's mom is named Lindgren in homage to Astrid Lindgren, the creator of Pippi Longstocking. It's not clear whether Lindgren is the first or last name of the mother of MOTHER's Pippi.

⁴ Mr. Duncan's first name, Goldrich, appears on the gatefold, but not in the Japanese-language edition. It is in the body of the book, however.

⁵ You'll notice a couple of nuances that got lost here. The first is that the cold virus is identified as a new species, the second is that the fever, which in the gatefold is described as "exhausting", saps energy "at an alarming rate". In other words, it's a reference to the game mechanic. The fever is what causes the HP loss as you walk. I imagine these nuances were taken out so that they could whittle down the text to a short, two-sentence caption that could fit beneath a large photo.

⁶ The original English here says: "Your Life is Worth Dying". I added the "for". Either way, it's clearly a reference to what the sign outside Big Ben Casey's Hospital says:

いのちは　しんでもまもりたいもの

A literal translation might be "Life is something you want to protect, even if you die [doing so]." But I think "your life is worth dying for" is perfect, and gets across the Japanese intent very nicely. It's like some twisted version of catch-copy, like it was written by Shigesato Itoi's evil twin or something.

(If you want to know, Clyde Mandelin translates this sign: "Protect your life... to the death!" In EarthBound Beginnings the sign reads: "Whether dead or alive, protect your life.")

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Encyclopedia MOTHER: Dimensional Slip 6 (Kiminobu Mouri, Famicom Master)

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[1989: p. 145]

[2003: p. 149]

DIMENSIONAL SLIP 6

The Battle Ends and the Sun Comes Up...¹

Kiminobu Mouri

毛利公信

Famicom Master²

It's said that video game fans play about thirty games a year. Last year I played sixty software titles, give or take. But to tell the truth, only two of them — Dragon Quest III and Tetris — were any fun.

That's not to say all the others made me go, "What a dungpile of a game..." but they weren't 100% satisfactory either. I'd finish one game, then say to myself, "Let's see if there's anything fun for my next playthrough", grab a gaming magazine and turn to the new releases page... Nothing jumps out at me... Nothing looks fun even at the arcade... Yeah, but I want something I can play for several dozen minutes a day... Oh, to heck with it. I'll play an old Dragon Quest. ... And I've been having days like this since around '87.

Then came a day, after several of being so frustrated I was sick of games, when I heard the news that Nintendo was coming out with an RPG. I couldn't help but get my hopes up. Getting burned by each game I bought, time after time, made my anticipation all the stronger.

Four months later, I was unexpectedly brought onto the staff of MOTHER's developer, APE. And what made me happier than anything was being able to take on the challenge of the MOTHER prototype before anyone else.

What I noticed right away on my first try was, even in battle with the enemy characters, for some reason I wasn't feeling all that ferociously competitive. Somehow I couldn't bring myself to hate these guys, they were all kinda cute. This is a little troubling for a gamer.

Another big surprise was the diagonal scrolling. The rush it gave me was nearly as comfy as trading in a Corolla for a Ferrari. I thought, now here's a game that can give me that F1³ sensation I love so much, and that hunch stayed true to the end. The first time I took the diesel from Santa Claus Station offered me this exhilarating feeling like I'd just come out of a tough hairpin turn and an S-curve, then emerged heading for the home stretch and blew past several cars. When I rode the plane in the desert, I was in such awe I seriously considered trading in my collection of F1 miniatures for an airplane collection.

But the final clincher, whatever else I've said, was when I learned Teleportation in Easter. At the time I forgot about my characteristics as a game master, and did something embarrassing: I went back to all the towns I could and reexamined all the events I'd passed by. But even when he does something shameful, a master is still a master: During these side trips, if you can believe it, I ended up discovering two secret tricks I can never tell you about that use Teleportation.

And now, if you'll indulge me, let me tell you about two or three more things I got a kick out of. The dialogue sometimes made me howl with laughter. One of my favorites in particular was "Look me in the eye!"⁴

I also like the Flying Men. In attempting to find a way to bring one with me to the Earthly plane, I tried Teleportation with him in my party, but each time I did that it killed him. Sorry!

You see, while one could say the difficulty level is kind of low for a speed-runner, on the other hand, the many events I found myself caught up in taught me that games are not all about speed, and I wound up getting sucked into the game's other enjoyments.

So I guess you could say, what it was about MOTHER that kept me playing till the sun came up, wasn't so much the battles as it was the side trips.