Just four more days until the 2022 Mother Direct! I’ve been working hard for the past few months to get this done and so have all the projects that are a part of it this year. It’s premiering on June 12 at 12PM PT / 3PM ET / 7PM GMT / 9PM CET! Check out the trailer for a taste of what’s in store. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube Channel so you can watch it live, too! Once it ends, you can view all the featured projects on our Mother Direct page through this convenient URL: www.mother.direct

To celebrate this Direct, I wanted to post some translations I made a few years ago from a book by Shigesato Itoi that inspired me to start translating back then. Ever heard of Let’s Meet in a Dream? The book was best described by Starmen.net veteran and translator extraordinaire Lindsay Moore on Yomuka! as “a collection of short-short stories (or perhaps short-short-short stories) by Haruki Murakami and Shigesato Itoi, originally published in 1981. The stories range from one to five pages long, although according to Murakami, these are not quite ‘stories.’ Rather, the book is just a collection of random, aimless pieces of light-hearted writing that Murakami and Itoi clearly enjoyed making.”

Long story short, Lindsay’s translations of Let’s Meet in a Dream back in the day inspired me to try finding more of Itoi’s work outside of games when I was in high school. I got a second publication copy of the book back then just to collect, but I actually found a first publication copy signed by Itoi while I was studying abroad in Tokyo during 2019 because I decided that I wanted to translate it. I was still in school abroad and got to work translating stuff from it to create my first refined translations and compare some of my translations to Lindsay’s.

There’s one piece of writing from the book that I found such a strange beauty in, but it never had a translation. I felt compelled to translate it back then. Something about it really seemed to “get” what it meant to make art that feels alive, y’know? Even translating it felt powerful! It still makes me teary eyed when I read it… Maybe it might make more sense when I finish making something else that could better explain that feeling.

Anyways, you can find that specific translation below and you can read my other Let’s Meet in a Dream translations on our new page for them here. When I have some extra time, I hope I can keep adding to it. Let me know if they make you feel something special too. And again, remember to tune into the Mother Direct on June 12, see you there!

“haruki murakami” by Shigesato Itoi, translated by Kody NOKOLO

Usually, in a fine model railroad, an old couple on a bench waiting for a train or a porter carrying heavy-looking bags are more interesting than a train or a railway. Haruki Murakami, as a traveler, can be felt going somewhere in this kind of model. Perhaps that traveler – whose figure recolored the zinc of a pinky nail, and who’s on his way holding a pinky-sized business briefcase – must be there waiting for a train.

The contents of his case: things too small to understand. What business he has: maybe he’s going on a little trip. The inside of this panorama doesn’t disclose enough to know.

In my imagination, that figure, since he plans to go see this whole model many times over, only answers with “I guess you could call it that.”

“This model – you – you’re not just imaginary.

I feel that way, too. My pastimes are similar.

When I take a train, it seems like I won’t know when I’ll be back either.

After I get on, I never get bored.”

When he starts losing interest in the massive models of one panorama, before he knows it, he’s waiting for a train on another model’s platform.

“Really, you’re not imaginary.

It’s unpleasant; I moved somewhere else because that place was so perpetual.” Gently, I uncapped the mouth of a zinc bottle.

―　i