Chapter Five Excerpt: Belch, star of the empty orchestra
“Haaack! That’s enough!” Belch stuck out a small edge of his goopy body and, as if snapping a finger, began to click it—snap, snap—and establish a rhythm. “♪ Perse is Worverse, says the human…Oh, gutter gunk, bloodstain, gangrene… Gahagaha, soundin’ good, soundin’ good! I’m gettin’ my groove back, this song is hot! Burrrurrghrup!”
“…Wow, is he… some kind of poet?”
“Ness! Don’t talk like that nasty thing is some kinda person!”
“I ain’t no lousy poet! I’m Belch the Great, galaxy-renowned Karaoke King! I plan to globe-trot all over the vast universe—well, I don’t have legs, so, I’ll—sashay—and make my glorious debut as a singer-songwriter!” Belch stuck out his chest—no, the general center area of his sticky body—puffed it up like a roasted marshmallow and smirked proudly. “How ‘bout it? Wanna hear my ballad?! I’ll give you a show in a special arena!”
Ness, Paula and Jeff’s eyes widened, their mouths turned into tildes, and as they shook their heads as quickly as they could they pushed their arms in front of them, hands opened and waving, like No—no—! We’re good, we’re good!
Nintendo of America plans to market his debut release as This Album Stinks!! in the states; we’ll see how it goes. In general EarthBound the game tries to elicit its emotional response from the player, with the characters acting as his surrogate, but one place it can’t quite get visceral enough is in its 16 bit depiction of a boss disgusting enough to make even the ever-polite Messrs. Saturn suggest Ness + co. wash up.
In that sense the novel has an easier job; Kumi makes it clear that Paula, who loooooves the Saturns—
“Oh they are all so cute~!♡” Paula’s eyes glistened as she stared in a trance. “I want one! Maybe I’ll snatch one.”
—can’t deal with Belch, whose entrancing voice and chiseled body leaves her “whimpering and on the verge of tears.” But after all is said and done, she turns back into an Innocent Japanese Heroine in time to wonder whether there wasn’t something hauntingly beautiful in his song after all:
“I… feel kinda bad for him.” Paula hesitantly removed her nose plug and let out a deep breath. “His appearance and his stench, and his singing tune were all awful, but I can’t help but feel like he had a certain innocence somewhere inside him.”
What. A. Pushover.
Ha ha, Paula’s a back-pedaler.
Where can I find the whole novel? Are you just posting excerpts on this site? Do you have some links to the complete chapters?
Thanks!
Susan, we’re just posting excerpts; the rights to the novel itself are split so many ways that it’s difficult to figure out how an authorized translation could be put out.
I’m a composer from Texas, and I was so in love with Earthbound growing up, that I was elated when I found this novel translation of it.
Congratulations and well done on your effort. (: I wanted to comment and say that I loved the phrase, “star of the empty orchestra” so much that I named my band after it and we are “star of an empty orchestra”
Thanks for all you’ve done! I hope to see this novel in print in someday.