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.
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!
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. InJapan'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.
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!
[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.")
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.
[Note: there are a lot of references to Japanese celebrities in this one, most of whom are not well-known in the West. I provide a short bio for each, so be aware that these pieces of text (small, quote-formatted and in Italics) are in fact my remarks and not part of the original essay.]
[Side Tab:]
MOTHER Anthropology
THE CHARACTERS AND LINES OF DIALOGUE IN MOTHER
Playing Around with the Casting!
Asato Izumi
泉麻人 Born 1956 in Tokyo. Real name: Izumi Asai. 朝井泉 After graduating from Keio University, served as editor for Weekly TV Guide and Video Collection before going freelance. Popular author representing youth culture in such works as Casual Autism and The Structure of What's "In".
As of this writing, I still haven't finished MOTHER (playing it on the pre-release demo cassette I borrowed). I've climbed up to the area around the summit of Holy Loly Mountain, the finale (or so it seems), but can't move the boulders in front of the opening.¹
Oh, I'm sure I'll get them out of the way and get inside. I imagine that means, by the time this essay goes into the book, I'll be like the adult who finds, at the bottom of a desk drawer, that unsent love letter he wrote during his high school days. "Man," he thinks when he rereads it, "I was fretting about such a crazy dumb thing at the time. Look how young and naïve I was." I'll be in that kind of mental state. I'll be immersed in memories of being the Guy in Front of the Opening.
So in spite of myself, I'm writing about MOTHER, the game I haven't finished yet. The theme I've been commissioned to write on is the characters featured in the game, as well as the lines of dialogue they let loose with.
The Supporting Cast is So Skilled they All Play the Kinds of People You'd Bump into Anywhere.
It seems to me the basic concept behind MOTHER's cast of characters is something like "Oh! So that kinda guy's in here, huh?" The dialogue from the people we meet in each town is so calculated it reminds us, for example, of the taxi driver we have to share a cab with on our way from Shinbashi to Roppongi, or the middle-aged real estate agent in front of Higashi-Nakano Station (who we owe a debt to from when we were renting his apartment), or suchlike weirdos and oddballs on the street.
Out of everyone we meet in the early stages of the game, I think it's the Mother's Day mayor who sticks out as a real character.
"Well, you see... a child has strayed into the cemetery."
"I don't know, this task might be too much for you to handle, but I still have high hopes for you anyway."
He urges "Me" to go to the cemetery, and when I come marching back with the child I rescued (Pippi), the mayor not only takes the credit for my achievement, but then he has the audacity to come at me with:
"Say, since you're here and everything..."
"Won't you help with the zoo problem too?"
And then: "I'd go with you, but I'm, umm, not feeling well. ..."
We find these kinds of guys in every part of the world. What about in movies and TV dramas? Shirou Itou springs to mind, or maybe Masao Komatsu. (Oh, and by the way, I'd like to go with, say, Mami Yamase for Pippi.)
MOTHER'S DAY MAYOR:
Shirou Itou 伊東四郎
Shirou Itou: Actor/comedian who sometimes plays politicians. Was often in a comedy duo during the '70s with Masao Komatsu (see note below).
MOTHER'S DAY MAYOR (alternate):
Masao Komatsu 小松政夫
Masao Komatsu: Comedian who used his previous experience as a salesman (before he got his big break) as a cornerstone for many of his gags. Often paired with Shirou Itou in skits (see note above).
PIPPI:
Mami Yamase 山瀬まみ
Mami Yamase (Japanese link): Actress and singer who also happened to play the voice of the Princess in the 1986 animated film Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach!. One of her songs is titled "Kawaii Hito Yo", and though it's almost certainly a coincidence, it may be worth noting kawaii hito is also what Pippi calls Ninten when he answers her question about her socks.
Magicant Seems Packed with Comedians for Residents.
I think there's a point where these skilled supporting actors converge, and that point is — where else? — Magicant. The most appealing one here, say what you will, is the "Forest Guitarist".
"It's hard for me to focus with all this guitar music. Oh! Whoops! I didn't realize I was the one playing the guitar! How careless of me!"
Tell me this isn't Naoto "Nakatsugawa Jamboree" Takenaka (though it would be fine if Nobuyasu Okabayashi played it straight). All of a sudden I miss the guy. I'm going to end up breaking the game's progression and using the Agate Fish Hook.
FOREST GUITARIST:
Naoto Takenaka 竹中直人
Naoto Takenaka: Actor and comedian who made many appearances on variety shows during the '80s, sometimes dressed as a guitar-playing, hippie-like character named Nakatsugawa Jamboree-kun. The character got his name from an outdoor folk music festival (Japanese link) that was held for three consecutive years in the late '60s and early '70s, the first one actually beating Woodstock to the punch by nearly a week.
FOREST GUITARIST (alternate):
Nobuyasu Okabayashi 岡林信康
Nobuyasu Okabayashi (Japanese link): Folk singer/musician who actually took part in the Nakatsugawa Folk Jamboree (see note on Naoto Takenaka, above). Has a background in anti-war protest songs, hence Izumi's suggestion he could play the role of Forest Guitarist straight (in contrast to the parody angle Takenaka would bring).
One of his songs: Kimi Ni Sasageru LOVE SONG (A Love Song For You)
Some characters are easy to forget about by the latter half of the game, but the Flying Man Brothers, who make their nest behind Magicant Castle, are quite tough to dismiss.
"I AM Flying Man. I WILL BE YOUR STRENGTH. THAT IS WHY I WAS BORN."
"I HEARD MY BROTHER FELL HONORABLY IN COMBAT. IT'S MY TURN NEXT."
I want to see this portrayed by the former Hip-Up member, Toshirou Shimazaki, playing all five roles at once.
FLYING MAN:
Toshirou Shimazaki 島崎俊郎
Toshirou Shimazaki (Japanese link): Comedian known for energetic physical comedy. Was part of a sketch trio called (Japanese link) Hip-Up (the term for getting a natural fanny-lift through exercise, so it's pretty obvious there's comedy involved with these guys).
The Airplane Pilot in Advent Desert. I love this guy's vibe. I love what he says when you save up ten Ticket Stubs and finally get to ride the tank:
"Hahaha! You sure seem happy to hear that!"
I think "Tani Kei" would be perfect for the role.
AIRPLANE PILOT:
Tani Kei 谷啓
Tani Kei: Stage name of actor-comedian Yasuo Watanabe (which was a pun on the name of the American physical comedy actor Danny Kaye).
I want him singing and dancing for no reason, while he waits in the middle of the desert:
♬ Tāmūrē, Tāmūrē, I love you, Tāmūrē~ ²
It makes me picture the army of monkeys in the underground Desert Ruins being played by, say, the other Crazy Cats, plus Yasushi Ono and Giant Yoshida.
Crazy Cats: A comic-jazz band Tani Kei was a member of. They also helped Masao Komatsu (the alternate pick for Mother's Day Mayor; see note above) get into the entertainment industry.
Yasushi Ono and Giant Yoshida: Members of the Donkey Quartet(Japanese link), a comic band from the 1960s.
CRAZY CATS:
DONKEY QUARTET:
Even Among the Enemy Characters are a Lot of Familiar Faces.
Oh, I could go on and on like this, with my little "this actor could fit this character" game. Out of the characters in Battle Mode, the "Middle-Aged Man" has quite the presence. Looks-wise, Shigeru Yazaki would fit the role. I think someone like him would be perfect for the indifferent, actually timid personality when the character immediately "goes back to normal".
MIDDLE-AGED MAN:
Shigeru Yazaki 矢崎滋
Shigeru Yazaki (Japanese link): Actor with a knack for playing mild-mannered characters. Was a regular guest on the comedy variety show 志村けんのだいじょうぶだぁ; Ken Shimura's "I'm Okaaay!"(Japanese link).
In contrast to the "Middle-Aged Man", the persistent, ferocious "Middle-Aged Woman" would have to be Manami Fuji.
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN:
Manami Fuji 富士真奈美
Manami Fuji (Japanese link): Actress, essayist and haiku poet. In 1983 she starred in a short-lived TV drama called (Japanese link) エプロンおばさん (EPURON Obasan, "Auntie Apron"), one of many adaptations of a 1950s manga of the same name.
The crazy "Young Man" [read: the Hippie enemy], who appears to an R & R melody, would be Hayashiya Shinpei (another possibility would be the manga artist "Jun Miura"³). I suppose this is the sort of thing where, if Shinpei loses the audition for the role of Bla-Bla Gang Boss (the protagonist's secondary friend), he fits the part of the Young Man.
YOUNG MAN (HIPPIE):
Hayashiya Shinpei 林家しん平
Hayashiya Shinpei (Japanese link): Famous performer of rakugo, the art of telling comical stories using minimal props (such as a paper fan), while sitting in the seiza position. Went on to become a director of Kaiju films. When Izumi said Shinpei could be in the lineup for the role of BB Gang Boss, it was probably a nod to his role as Hiko in the 1981 film Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, in which he plays a biker-turned-Yakuza henchman.
Oh, and the gang boss would have to be Youichi Miura.
TEDDY:
Youichi Miura 三浦洋一
Youichi Miura (Japanese link): Actor. Sported a pompadour and, though he often played detectives, his big break came when he played Hide, the cold rival cameraman to the main character Genta in the TV drama (Japanese link) 池中玄太80キロ(Ikenaka Genta 80kg).
The timid, glasses-wearing "Friend" would be Senri Ooe,
LLOYD:
Senri Ooe 大江千里
Senri Ooe: Jazz pianist and singer-songwriter who was a big pop music star in the '80s and '90s. Izumi probably sees him as a good pick for Lloyd because of his skinny frame and large, almost-round glasses.
and as for the wondrous girl proficient with PSI, I think I'm going to have to go with Rie Miyazawa.
ANA:
Rie Miyazawa 宮沢りえ
Rie Miyazawa: Actress and (at the time) teen idol. Did a number of commercials during the '80s for KitKat, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Coca-Cola, etc.
Mary, the Queen of Magicant: Yuki Saitou;
QUEEN MARY:
Yuki Saitou 斉藤由貴
Yuki Saitou: Actress and singer. In 1987 she starred in the short-lived TV drama (Japanese link) あまえないでョ!Amaenai De Yo! ("Act Your Age!"), which may have contributed to Izumi's image of her as a young motherly figure.
the Bear (or Grizzly): Shoufukutei Tsurube;
GRIZZLY:
Shoufukutei Tsurube 笑福亭鶴瓶
Shoufukutei Tsurube: Actor and rakugo comedian (see Shinpei Hayashiya, above). Izumi is clearly being facetious with this one, but at face value, this actor would probably be a good match for the Grizzly enemy because of his gravelly voice. In recent years he's been the Japanese voice of Gru from the Despicable Me series.
the Starmen: Masahiro Takashima;
STARMAN:
Masahiro Takashima 高島政宏
Masahiro Takashima: Actor and singer. Was also alongside Yuki Saitou and Youichi Miura (see both above) in the 1987 Tetsuko Kuroyanagi biographical movie, Totto Channel (Japanese link). Izumi casting him as a Starman could simply be a joke reference to the actor's nickname, Starless Takashima (named so due to his love of the progressive rock band King Crimson), but since he didn't do his cover of their song "Starless" until four years after this writing, he may not have had the nickname yet. It's difficult to pin down. He may simply fit the role of Starman due to his height (6'1", unusually tall for a Japanese person).
So, that's my own take on the casting, and taking my time enjoying the bits of dialogue (and thinking things like, if I were there, I'd snap back at them with such-and-such). MOTHER is not the kind of game where you should simply beat up bad guys in short order.
¹ Considering this was the original release of MOTHER, he must have overlooked getting the seventh melody from EVE, an event that in that version triggers a direct warp to Queen Mary and the final melody, which in turn triggers the disappearance of the boulders. He later mentions wanting to visit the Guitarist again, so yes, Magicant must have still been around when he wrote this. Perhaps he even overlooked the lake event entirely, and as I'm pretty sure EVE's presence is what triggers the battle with R-7038XX, he could have just went straight past that part and seen the boulders in front of the final cave. Of course, he does say he was playing a demo version, so who knows.
³ As repeated from note 8 in the Valentine section: Jun Miura (Japanese link) みうらじゅん: Manga artist who had help from Shigesato Itoi breaking into the industry.
A few of the actors' photos come from the Encyclopedia MOTHER itself; thanks to Comfort Food Video Games for providing these scans.
