Itoi’s Penguinism Album & Mystery of MOTHER 2 Opening Solved

Did you know Shigesato Itoi collaborated with Keiichi Suzuki and a bunch of other musical artists on more than just MOTHER and MOTHER 2? Introducing Penguinism, an album written by Itoi, and I managed to scan all parts of the album in high quality for the first time! And, following up from new MOTHER 2 concept art discovered a few weeks ago in Nintendo Dream Vol. 89, a caption with an image from page 18 seems to solve the mystery of the location depicted in the “War on Giygas” part of MOTHER 2‘s opening.

If you’ve never heard of Penguinism, now’s your chance to see and listen to all it has to offer! My full scans of its inserts and a video of all its music can be found below. I also translated its track listing below so you at least can read the names of each song. And again, all songs were written by Itoi. No lyrics have been translated from the songs online yet as far as I can find, but I’d love to work on that sometime this year. Keep up to date with the album through our new Penguinism page!

“The UFO scene from the opening of MOTHER 2. This image is a drawing by Art Director Kouichi Ooyama, as seen on page 23.”

As for solving the “War of Giygas” location mystery, like I said above, this caption from page 18 of Nintendo Dream 89 seems to solve it. My translation of it is: “The UFO scene from the opening of MOTHER 2. This image is a drawing by Art Director Kouichi Ooyama, as seen on page 23.” So, in the end, it seems like it was never related to an actual place or even a photograph of a place. It has always been exactly what it has been in the game: a drawing.

The following are scans of Shigesato Itoi’s album: Penguinism. Those scans and the Penguinism song title translations are all by Kody NOKOLO. Please credit Mother Forever and Kody NOKOLO if you report or repost these scans and translations.

Penguinism Album

Track Listing (and translations below each Japanese title)

  • バイバイ・コロン by Keiichi Suzuki
    • BYE BYE COLON
  • 孤独のローチ・ハント by Haruomi Hosono
    • LONELY ROACH HUNT
  • HI-LITE by Keiichi Suzuki
  • SLEEPING DUCK by Akiko Yano
  • SUPER FOLK SONG by Akiko Yano
  • 2匹のなにかのように by Shigeru Umebayashi
    • SOMETHING LIKE 2 ANIMALS
  • 悲しみのレインボー男 by Shigeru Umebayashi
    • THE SORROWFUL RAINBOW MAN
  • I BELONG TO YOU by Kunihiko Kase
  • 今夜はララバイ by Kunihiko Kase
    • TONIGHT’S LULLABY
  • I LOVE YOU, TOO – Kenji Sawada

Listen to it in the video below!