5 months, 4 weeks ago by Chewy
Last week, I had the honor of guest-starring on the Fangamer Podcast for the episode about Earthbound. I had an opportunity to talk with the crew about my experiences living in Japan and working for Itoi; last time I edited this blog, I had to throw in a quick note about projects pulling me away from the novel editing. Well, one of those projects is completed and on sale! I’ll have more detailed information on the product after I receive my copy and can show it off, so get excited to have the successful flagship product from Itoi’s office in your own hands and in English for the first time!
Anonymous time-consuming project #2, on the other hand, is on hold, which means that I can officially make my 2013 New Year’s Resolution MOTHER 2 novel-centric.
Click here to download/listen to the Fangamer Podcast’s Earthbound episode.
You can download every episode directly to your iPod from iTunes or subscribe to the RSS Feed.
1 year, 3 months ago by Chewy
Just popping in to announce that the novel translation project is not dead, especially since it took so much hard work to reach the end! So yes, the translation is finished, it’s only a matter of editing. The problem, which is not a problem because in reality it is great news, is that I had another two projects come in and won’t have time to work on the novel translation edit until these are finished. Luckily, both of these projects (unrelated to the novel) are things that will be available for release for MOTHER fans to enjoy. 
2 years, 2 months ago by LiarXAgerate
Faithful (and doting!) assistant LiarXAgerate here, with a long-awaited chapter excerpt. Warning: I’m about to screw with your mental image of EarthBound’s shyest characters something fierce. On a scale of one to ten, with one being “Harry Potter’s chapter illustrations made Snape look a little more like a pirate than I thought he would”, five being “I just watched Sorcerer’s Stone and I could have sworn her name was pronounced Her-me-own”, and ten being, hypothetically, “Wait, Harry Potter chain-smokes and is also an unrepentant racist?”, this is a fifteen.
the creepiness combo pack, by fangamer
You know the Tenda—about yay tall, green, sticks for arms, hate talking. Saori Kumi, on the other hand, saw them as an opportunity to anticipate that weird Japanese hyper-real-videogame-character meme by about ten years.
Because while you may think of Tenda as a race whose existence is predicated on firing Chekhov’s Library and looking like plushies before Fangamer even got to them—a race so cute that their name, in Japan, evokes gummy bears, fruit snacks, and other things you might find packed next to the note in your elementary-school lunchbox—Saori Kumi has different ideas.
Saori Kumi thinks they look like tiny, creepy men.
Take a trip with me to the area just past Tenda Village, nestled deep within the Uncanny Valley.
The hallways finally opened up into a remarkably large room. Poo was already inside with a group of small people with heads sharpened into a point like a chestnut. Both men and women were garbed in simple, primitive fabrics woven from tree bark. Their black hair, dangling down to their shoulders, looked wet and shiny and was pulled together in the back. None of the people had any facial hair, but their feet looked strong and muscular.
Wet hair, muscular feet, sharpened heads, shut up shut up shut up!!!!!
Read the rest of this entry »
2 years, 3 months ago by Chewy
Just letting everyone know that editing is still in the works. Luckily it’s proving to be infinitely easier on my brain cells than translating was, heh. I’ll be re-updating the Table of Contents chapter statuses as the drafts of each chapter are finalized, but in the meantime post some fanart!
My faithful assistant LiarX will be back soon with a final excerpt from chapter eight before we move on to the mighty story climax. Doo doo doo doo doo!
2 years, 5 months ago by Chewy
Quick note: I added a book image to the last excerpt, so check it out!
Winters brings us to Jeff, who we already established in an earlier blog post as, well, this:
Jeff pushed his covers aside and placed his feet flat on the cold floor with a clang. Peeking out from the bottom of his pajama pants was a support harness made of aluminum, steel, and leather, wrapped around each of his shins. The noise echoed horribly in the depth of the darkness, and just as he always did, Jeff scorned his own unpleasant body—Frankenstein’s modern-day monster. An unshapely, pitiful monster dragging around a ball and chain the weight of a bowling ball around his ankles.
And upon leaving on his journey, he had to deal with, well, this:
By the time Jeff climbed the gray carpeted staircase of the abandoned dormitory, down another staircase, walked through the long hallway, and climbed another staircase to finally reach the entrance hall, he was already panting for breath and out of energy. The iron around his legs made them nearly impossible to bend, and he couldn’t lift them up very far, so he struggled when he didn’t have a handrail to walk against. His joints creaked like an unoiled robot, and his calf muscles were swollen and throbbing in pain.
He realized how Tony had always been by his side, casually supporting him for everything. At the time, he was annoyed with how Tony would meddle into every little thing he did, but now Jeff realized that he had been totally reliant on Tony. It even stopped him from getting proper exercise on a daily basis.
How is a guy like me supposed to make it over fields of snow? Jeff worried. I’ve got to cross the ocean all by myself to go save these people I don’t even know.
–Leading to Maxwell handing over the school’s greatest treasure. But not before Tony gets to him.
Read the rest of this entry »
2 years, 6 months ago by Chewy
Part four is still part of chapter three, but now that Paula is safe and sound, we come to Threed to check out the area. Let’s get right to business.
The band continued playing an endless medley of music as the bus rolled on. Ness remembered a night long, long ago when he awoke in the middle of the night. He could recall hearing the radio playing some of this from his parent’s bedroom. Paula recognized a few songs she had heard while lying on her dad’s back. The music continued to blast, so everyone in the bus was so caught up with the tunes—not to mention the bus windows completely blocked by costumes and instrument cases—that they didn’t even notice they had already passed through the ghost-ridden tunnel.
The seemingly endless inner-bus gig casually changed to the closing song of auld sang lyne. They took turns with solos; the trumpet, then bass, followed by harmonica, each playing with master technique. Before they knew it, the bus had come to a stop.
“Alriiiiight, we made it to Threed!”
Read the rest of this entry »
2 years, 6 months ago by Chewy
Our next excerpt takes us to Chapter Three, to one of the sections in the game that translates powerfully into novel form: Happy Happy Village. Fittingly, we find ourselves in a temple that basically resembles a school gym, and in this gym-like stadium we have a stage with a zushi–essentially, a small buddhist shrine shaped like a cupboard that holds a statue of Buddha. This time, though, the doors are housing none other than a small statue of Mani-Mani–there is a mini version of the statue that appears in the book, and here it is.
Carpainter and the Happy-Happyists (a fantastic band name) have just completed their Outstanding Believer Awards Show, wherein believers win awards for outstanding acts of innovation and courage in demonstrating unparalleled faith such as setting free 300 blue coral snakes in a neighborhood area, striking down 50 people–pitiful, unknowing sheep astray from the ways of Blue Blue–with loving smacks until they were covered with so many bruises their skin turned black and blue, and, most Japanesely of all, rewiring every single traffic light in town so that all of them would always display that lovely color of blue-green at all times.
It’s always bizarre when this game novelization, which takes place in the very epitome of America, throws out strictly Japanese cultural cues. I’m not even talking about the Buddhist props being used by Happy-Happyists. I’m talking about the fact that Japanese people, to the chagrin of all non-native Japanese speakers, call the green light of traffic lights “blue”, not green. And now I’m trapped having to convince people that a traffic light has even a vague tint of blue to it.
Read the rest of this entry »
2 years, 6 months ago by LiarXAgerate
[Lowly Co-Editor's note: Chewy, our heroic translator, has finished her marathon translation and is now resting in one of those rooms where they quarantine astronauts. Her vital signs are being monitored as we speak; if it turns out she regains the ability to speak English, she will do some editing and blogging of her own. If she doesn't regain the ability to speak English—well, it's been a good run.]
One of the great things about EarthBound is how much it leaves unexplained, and how indifferent it is about showing you it’s not explaining anything. A lesser game might run into the ground the fact that we never see Ness’s dad, that he appears to actually be an incredibly rich series of pay telephones, but EarthBound just accepts it as a fact of Ness’s universe.
This is the novel, though, and Kumi has turned up the volume in a way we can’t even begin to evoke on this blog. So I knew going into this lowly-co-editor gig that Ness would eventually be reunited with his dad. But I had no idea it would be… so anticlimactic.
Scene: The Chosen Four at a reception in their honor, for that is what’s done when four children slay a vicious kraken off the coast of a certain resort town. Ness sees a guy who looks kind of familiar, and is excited about it for a minute:
When evening came, the best hotel in town, the Great Southern Hotel, passionately welcomed the crew with a dinner party.
Oh—but when they went to the grand hall, it was a standing-room dinner party, packed with people and banquets. In true southern country fashion, the speech was not long, the toasts were toasted, and, without formality, everyone began their pleasant chatting. But people from every-which-way came and sought out the captain and the kids. They couldn’t quite get the opportunity to have dinner.
“We can’t hold back at a time like this, we’ve got to eat as much as we can!”
Paula took Ness’s hand and knocked everyone around as they made their way to the buffet line along the wall. “Sushi, curry, tempura… Oh, I can’t decide! Hey, Ness! Look! There’s a burger stand!”
“Huh? …Ahhh~!”
“Ah? …? …Aahhhh!!”
In your best faux-Japanese: Ehhhhhhhhh????
Read the rest of this entry »
2 years, 7 months ago by Chewy
Editor Dan Moore, crew of Fangamer, my fellow Earthbound fans: Major combat operations in the official MOTHER 2 novelization have ended. In the battle against the Japanese language, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing this novel.
In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for peace in a world dominated by Japanese-only gaming merchandise. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment — yet it is you, the loyal readers of this novelization blog, who have helped me achieve it. Your patience — your willingness to face dangerously long periods of time between updates — made this day possible. Because of you, our nation has one more piece of history. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Earthbound: The Novel is in English.
Read the rest of this entry »
2 years, 7 months ago by Chewy
We’ve gotten no fanart since the last illustration excerpt update! Come on, let’s get some awesome artwork together for this baby, we’ve got to celebrate!
Excerpts have been scarce lately, but rest assured–this is because I’ve had my hands full with actual translating. Chapter 9 is done, leaving the final–and the very shortest–chapter all that’s left! I’m forecasting a finished translation draft by the end of the week!
Editing is going to take another long time, but in the meantime we’ll keep posting excerpts and continue to share the book.
Now go back to the illustration excerpt and SEND AWESOME PICTURES!