Nothing much, but I should mention I added a little bit to this older entry about MOTHER 4: here
Basically, just put up another snippet from an older interview where he says no MOTHER 4. No new news, really.
The topic’s come up a few times recently, so I figure I’ll translate this one snippet of an Itoi interview, which can be seen here. Note that this is also the same interview where he talks about the inspiration for Giygas.
In any case, here’s the tiny excerpt. I’ll translate the entireeeeeee thing someday. A few parts are already available on my blog, though.
Itoi: Well, for example, there’s a gay person in MOTHER 2. A really passionate friend who lives in an England-like place. I designed him to be a gay child. In a normal, real-life society, there are gay children, and I have many gay friends as well. So I thought it would be nice to add one in the game, too.
Also, the Mr. Saturns are symbols of innocence. In any normal society, there are those who don’t really fit in well with ordinary people, but actually have skills that surpass those of ordinary people. I personally love that sort of “power of innocence” in things. It’s a part of “Passionate Penguin Rice”, even. (note: that’s a book Itoi wrote around 1990) Oh, and things like Forrest Gump have it, too. I wanted people to love innocent characters like that too, which is why I added them into the game. They weren’t called Mr. Saturn at first, but they gained that name during development.
So there you go. Someday I’ll have the whole huge thing translated, but at least for now there’ll be this page to refer to whenever these questions come up!
Saw this on YouTube just now and really liked it. So now I’m spreading it across the land! The video is called “I Tore Up the Letter from You”. Here’s what’s in the video.
Okay, finally got time to sit down and read some parts of this book. For those just joining us, in the 2002 novel The Three Natagiri Women (what is natagiri? anyone know? I see some possible definitions, but they don’t make sense), the very first chapter is about three women who randomly play MOTHER 2 one day and get addicted.
Anyway, I’d like to translate this chapter someday, but won’t be able to for a while, obviously. The chapter is called “Mr. Baseball Cap” and is about 50 pages long. In it, we’re introduced to three women, all around 40 years old or so. They like to chit-chat and hang out at one of the women’s houses. One day, one of them brings over a Super Famicom they got from a used game shop. None of them have really ever played video games before, so this video game stuff is like all new to them. The lady who bought the Super Famicom also just happened to see MOTHER 2 in the store and bought it too. She was originally going to buy a boring Mahjong game (there are zillions of these in Japan btw).
A quick update to this. The book arrived today, and I took a quick look at it. And I do mean quick, because the very first chapter is titled “Mr. Baseball Cap” 
Did a very quick skim of it, it looks like it’s going to be about three women in their 20s, one of them happens to bring over a Super Famicom and then another one who’s never been interested in games will fall in love with MOTHER 2 and get obsessed with it. At least that’s how it seems at the moment.
I’d like to translate it sometime, but no way I’m gonna have the time for that until at least the end of the year. I’ll give a good summary of it though, so keep your eyes peeled for future updates here 
I saw this in one of Itoi’s recent entries and thought it was interesting. By itself, it’s nothing special, but if you apply it to the gaming industry, and especially Nintendo’s somewhat recent stance of only focusing on the really big titles and over-relying on its main brands, it becomes even more interesting. If only someone like him were pulling the strings at Nintendo, I’m sure we’d have more EB/Mother love here 
…The same holds true in the workplace. “Profit” is important, but if you truly make that your #1 priority, you’ll wind up sacrificing all sorts of other important things. That’s why, “We’re here to profit off of you!” isn’t mentioned in corporate mottos or anything like that.
Even so, in the real world, when you include shareholders and other such people, the idea that “profit” *must* be the #1 priority above all else is very strong. But that could be asking for nothing but trouble. Making it the #1 priority above all else is a bad idea, I’m almost certain of it. Your stock might go up temporarily, but I think you’ll wind up losing many other things in the process. Really. This is likely the case for anything, actually.
He sounds like the anti-Nintendo every time I read it, heh.
Wow, been a long time since I posted here. So busy with work and that Mother 3 translation. Why won’t those stupid guys hurry up already, god!
Anyway, I’ve been considering it for a while, but just now I decided to order this one slightly older Japanese book. It’s nothing too spectacular or anything, though. Supposedly, it’s a fictional account about the daily life of three women… sounds kind of boring and something I wouldn’t bother with. Except apparently one of the girls discovers MOTHER 2 and gets fascinated by it. She winds up playing the game, talking about the game, and thinking about the game constantly. Which is kind of neat, I guess.
I don’t expect too much from the book, and I get the feeling the MOTHER 2 stuff won’t be very abundant… but then again it’s almost become my job to seek out and pass this bizarre knowledge along. I should create my own EarthBound University, and people can major in various different things, like Mr. Saturn Fine Cuisine or Space-Time Transit Technology or Drugstore Operations.
Another interesting post from Itoi’s blog that I saved a few weeks ago. At the very end of his daily post was a short, but intriguing message.
When I do things that “I absolutely need to do” in order, things that are harder to find the time to get to slowly get pushed further and further back. It’s not that I don’t think they’re important. It’s something that I definitely want to do, it’s just that I haven’t been able to start on it yet, so… yeah.
The above paragraph is my personal message to a certain someone, but I suppose it’s also pressure for myself, and an attempt to garner sympathy from my faithful readers.
The “certain person” could of course be anyone, but as most Starmen.Net followers know, we sent Itoi a huge package of stuff a while back, and he received it about two months ago. We watched the box move around his desk every few days for a while, too. It disappeared from his desk around the time he posted this message. Included in the package was a letter from me, too, so there’s always that ever-so-slight chance he was referring to us/me, though I think that’s probably not the case. But the timing and his “excuse” and his shout out to a vague someone seemed interesting to me, so I saved the post for an update like this. I leave any assumptions to you, my faithful reader
In any case, I hope he found the time to look through some of the stuff all the fans made, that’s some kickass stuff we sent
I was browsing some of my really old files and came across this. July 27, 1999 was the 10th anniversary of MOTHER’s release in Japan, and fans at the biggest Japanese MOTHER fan site were celebrating. Even Shigesato Itoi himself dropped by to say a real quick something. Sadly, it looks like the site (MOTHER Nippooon) no longer exists anymore 
Anyway, here is what he said, translated into English.
Writer:darling
DATE:99/07/27 04:24
Title:This may be breaking the rules, but…
URL:http://www.1101.comComing to this board like this may be breaking the rules in a sense, but please let me say something just this once.
Not even I, myself, was aware that July 27th was MOTHER’s birthday. I just happened to learn that this site was celebrating its anniversary, so I’ve come here with feelings of gratefulness.
MOTHER 3 is also coming along nicely now. Just like every other time, it’s taking a long time to come out. This one has quite a different “taste” than MOTHER 1 and 2, so it might not go over well with long-time fans. But I think it may be the very best one in terms of sheer excitement. But, I’m always worried, of course.
A playable version of the game is planned for an August game expo, whose name escapes me at the moment. It’s a bit of a dilemma, because a lot of time will be spent focusing on the demo and not the game. But I think it will show how things are.
I’m considering possibly releasing screenshots, sound clips, and the like little by little at some point in time on Hobonichi. I humbly ask for your patience and understanding, even if you’re not fond of how things are turning out.
I don’t have proof, but this has been Shigesato Itoi.
It’s interesting how he did wind up releasing stuff little by little 7 years later. Luckily, I think most old fans of the series liked the GBA version of 3 a lot too. I can understand why he would say that, though. It’s definitely different from the other two in many ways.
This video isn’t really a video, it’s a 1982 Japanese song. The lyrics were written by Shigesato Itoi.
Whenever someone asks what it is he does for a living, where do you start? Writing slogans, writing lyrics to music (including techno enka music), gold mining, writing books/novels, designing video games, running his own Internet company, making music albums of his own, being a TV personality, being president of the Japan Monopoly Association (as in the board game), voicing characters in internationally-famous classic anime, being non-executive director of a pachinko/slot machine corporation, and the list keeps going. And he still does all this at 60. Damn.
