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None foundFebruary 23rd, 2009 | Itoi
This week, Shigesato Itoi and his company of 40+ people are all on vacation in Bali. I think this is the second time he’s done this. It’s crazy that he can afford to fly that many people out there and have them all stay there for a week, then send them all back. But he’s Itoi.
Anyway, today, on his site, he left this message before leaving. It reminded me of stuff in MOTHER 3 somewhat 😛
Each time I went to Bali (Mato Note: with his wife, not the company) before, I always did this one thing, almost out of custom: I watched ants.
While reading a book or lounging around or yawning while I sat with my legs in the pool, I would observe ants.
Finding and carrying food, fights over territory, invisible boundaries, incidents and annoying onlookers, hard workers, slackers… For someone observing them, I would watch them all quite seriously.
My observation of ants in Bali has proven quite useful ever since then. It’s hard to explain, though.
He continues:
But when I take the entire company with me, it’s not the same. It becomes “do, do, talk, talk, eat, eat, look, look”. There’s the fact that everyone is younger than me, but I don’t think I’ll have time this time to watch ants. That’s how it was last time.
But maybe I will try to mix in some ant observation this time too…
I wonder if his mention about his ant observation being useful later on had to do with MOTHER 3. There were a lot of ant-related things in the game where ants did actual ant things. Anyway, I thought that’d be interesting for people.


So the rule of thumb is: to be like Itoi, just watch ants!
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19 Comments to Shigesato Itoi, Ant Watcher
![]() | Poe said on Feb. 23, 2009 |
I can’t watch ants, they make me feel itchy. I like watching other bugs though. Caterpillars are pretty cool.
![]() | Darien said on Feb. 23, 2009 |
I’m fond of spiders. Especially when they’re actually building webs — that’s really neat to watch. And I like to watch bees buzzing around things.
I think it’s a mixture of Itoi and the frog thing.
You never notice ants, but they are everywhere and you wouldn’t step on one.
Like frogs a bit. Plus Mother is all about noticing the normal in an odd way.
invisible barriers???
oh, i know how he gets his whole company to Bali and back. PSI Teleport (Omega, by the way, he has that much skill xD)
Haha, man, it’s always fun watching bugs and stuff. I remember when I was a kid “bug catching” was a really big craze and we made them have silly fights and stuff.
I actually just got off the TV playing the part with Duster where the ant explains about combos and hypnosis…weird!
![]() | Viewtiful_Justin said on Feb. 23, 2009 |
I used to watch ants whilst hanging from a swing in my backyard. I have pages and pages of journal entries about this one colony that used to get wiped out by rain and work furiously the next day to put everything right.
Yay! I been watching ants for years! And building death traps for them!
![]() | Feykie said on Feb. 24, 2009 |
Ugh, I can’t stand ants. The ants near my house aren’t even interesting; they just appear on my food magically. I’m more interested in this one spider that has built a gigantic web.
@ NessRules: Those are the best ones! xP
I used to be curious of ants, but I rarely watch them anymore.
i always watch and feed ants. it’s a big pasttime of mine.
I used to watch ants when I was a kid. I was really into the anthills that would spawn on the cracks in the pavement.
Now that I’m not a kid, I don’t watch them so much. Mainly because having them in my house drives me crazy. 😮