MOTHER
MOTHER 2
MOTHER 3 N64
MOTHER 3
MOTHERLIKES
ITOI
Light Mode
The Hobonichi MOTHER Project has smaaashed the headlines with some exciting news going into the holidays! Teaming up with PARCO, Hobonichi will be hosting a “MOTHER Museum” throughout the year end until new year. At this event, the previously limited time replica screens will be available for purchase, along with many pieces of merchandise both new and old!
One of the most celebrated type of community projects in the MOTHER fandom has always been fanzines. If you aren’t familiar with what they are, a fanzine is a fan produced magazine featuring art and written work from a variety of artists over a shared cultural interest. Over the last two decades, there have been several for the MOTHER series, from the EarthBound Anthology to PK Zine. Most recently, a new one called “Your Name, Please!” was announced — the first one in nearly a whole decade!
We wanted to take a closer look at how Your Name, Please! came to be, so we decided to bring the project’s leader, AYBT (previously helmed “YuGi-Oh!” fanzines “Sideline Stars” and “A Tie that Binds.”) Please check out their work, and enjoy the interview!
Breaking news, MOTHER fanatics! For the first time in what feels like a good while, a goldmine of new MOTHER 64 media has been uncovered.
Graciously provided by a source who would like to remain anonymous, this collection of concept art from Benimaru “Ashura” Itoh comes from an October 1997 issue of 64 Dream. The hardcore legion of fans overseas had been searching for this particular issue for over a year, as an old Japanese MOTHER 3 fansite (a great resource of info that’s helped us track down magazines previously) documented descriptions of the art seen in this issue.
Nyaasu Strikes Back! If you’re not already familiar, earlier this year Nyaasu Nekoban, an artist and translator published the first complete English translation of Saori Kumi‘s MOTHER novels. You can read those here, but that’s not all! On October 14th, 2022, she updated her site with the next project – a translation of the interactive “adventure game book”, MOTHER: Invasion of the Unknown by Akio Higuchi!
Last weekend MOTHER series creator Shigesato Itoi was invited as a guest on Nakamura Shichinosuke‘s radio talk show. If you aren’t familiar with him, Shichinosuke-san is an international star from Tokyo. He had humble beginnings playing both male and female roles in Kabuki theatre back in 1986. Overseas, you may recall seeing him in the 2003 period drama The Last Samurai as Emperor Meiji, or perhaps heard his voice in the 2013 Studio Ghibli film The Tale of the Princess Kaguya! However, within Japan Shinchinosuke is most well known for his radio show where he talks openly about his private life and hobbies. Often, they invite guests, and this time Itoi-san himself happened to be the one invited!
As of earlier this year you may have noticed a great new addition to the site – the inclusion of fully translated MOTHER novels from Saori Kumi! First and foremost, if you’d like to read them for yourself, we have a handy page on the site right here that also goes more depth into their history.
To briefly summarize it, these novels remained a curiosity among avid fans of the MOTHER series. Myths and legends spoke of Porky’s hot Ferrari, but very few were ever educated on what details were exactly in the novel, due to its limited translation work. Previously, the biggest glimpse English-speaking audiences ever got was during the 2013 EarthBound Bash, where Lindsay Moore (Chewy) read some excerpts from the novels to the audience. That was nearly 10 years ago now!
Ever since MOTHER 3 released on the Game Boy Advance in 2006, fans have sought ways to lessen the soundtrack’s heavy audio compression. The earliest attempts at restoring the music date all the way back to 2012, with a user named Tanks providing basic MIDI conversions that were used in many YouTube uploads at the time. Most recently, we at Mother Forever uploaded our own rip of the soundtrack; but what the fans often seek are those lossless, studio quality versions only heard behind closed doors.
Enter Irikachana – an aspiring composer and friend to many in the MOTHER community. They’re attached to several MOTHER-related projects you might know, such as EB Recast and the most recent MOTHER 4 fan project. Over the past couple of years, they have took it upon themselves to completely reconstruct the music of MOTHER 3 as it originally sounded. You can hear one of their most recent restorations below!
In case you haven’t read it yet, we’ve updated our Hobonichi Interviews section to include a full translation of the site’s coverage of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. These were originally published in the months leading up to the game’s release, and were translated by GlitterBerri. You can learn a lot of interesting development tidbits, like how Link could originally breathe underwater for longer?! Man, that would’ve saved us a lot of childhood stress in navigating the Water Temple, huh?
Read more about it here!
Since the release of both EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound on Nintendo Switch’s online service, there’s been a lot of discussion surrounding the game. Although most of it’s positive, there is a spark of debate among some of EarthBound‘s more cumbersome design choices, from people first experiencing the games.
On March 8th at 11 AM (JST), the Hobonichi launched its newest line of merchandise, MOTHER 2 screen replicas! These are large, professional printed replicas of classic MOTHER 2 areas, framed in wood ready to be hung in your home! They are made in collaboration with Toppan Graphics Communications Co, who previously helped with a line of MOTHER 1 screen replicas. Since these are made of the highest quality materials, they are custom made by request – so once the ordering period closes on March 31st at 11 AM JST, they’re gone forever!
