Fangamer, a company full of many original MOTHER community members from the legendary Starmen.net, took a trip to Japan in 2016, where they met Hobonichi at their office! There’s even some video of it out there, courtesy of StephenVlog. Fangamer’s reactions to that trip are pretty well-documented in that video and beyond, but there hasn’t been anything (as far as we know, at least) posted online about it from Hobonichi’s perspective. Luckily, one of those Starmen.net veterans, Mrtenda, found Hobonichi’s reaction in a 2017 Hobonichi Guidebook from the good ol’ days and sent the book over to be scanned and translated!

The book also includes one short interview with Itoi about MOTHER 2 as a segue into talking about new MOTHER 2 Techo products for 2017! I didn’t have the time to translate this yet, but hopefully we can in the future.

In what I translated today, Hobonichi gives their brief thoughts on meeting with Fangamer, and they even acknowledge Fangamer’s connection to Starmen.net and their MOTHER 3 Handbook.

This translation and scan are by Kody NOKOLO. Please credit Mother Forever and Kody NOKOLO if you report or repost this translation or scan.

“Fangamer Visited the Hobonichi Office!”

Inspired by MOTHER 3, they learned about the Hobonichi Techo!

They’ve sold video game merchandise and accessories, they’ve hosted events, and they’ve ran a fan website…

From their office in Tuscon, Arizona, Fangamer was established in 2007 for people that love games. What a fun company! At Fangamer, there are a lot of people who use a Hobonichi Techo.

Games from Japan are what they all grew up with, and those are the root of their passion for games. Fangamer even released their own MOTHER 3 Handbook in 2008, which we have here at Hobonichi. Not long after that, people from the company started using a Hobonichi Techo.

In spring of 2016, they visited the Hobonichi office during a trip to Japan. That’s the main reason they came to Japan, which we learned from Lindsay, who’s fluent in Japanese.

“Since everyone loves Japan, we took an employee trip there in 2014. Even if we’re employees, we’re all friends anyways, so we aren’t strict about things [laughs]. Most people weren’t able to go in 2014, but since we noticed that airplane ticket prices happened to be low, we quickly let everyone know again, then we came here together. We’ve loved coming here so far, it’s like a dream!”

(Translator’s note on the end: From here, the section continues with five of the same questions for the ten people from Fangamer that had a Techo and their answers to those questions. The questions are all just about the Techo and the trip to Japan without any other commentary from Hobonichi.)