February 13th, 2014 | EarthBound, Images | 10 Comments

The other day I stumbled upon a Japanese MOTHER 2 site that had a gigantic town map of Onett made out of those art bead things: Man, that’d be cool to have on my wall! For some more MOTHER 2 bead pics, including in-progress pictures of it being put together, check out Maasan’s site here! ...Read More »

January 3rd, 2014 | EarthBound, Images, Merchandise | 17 Comments

A reader named Eric sent me this the other day: Yo, great site man. I’m active duty military stationed up in northern Japan. Took some vacation during this past week and spent a few days down south in Tokyo (31DEC-2JAN). Saw you post about the new Mother 2 straps being released so I figured I’d keep my eyes peeled for them. While in Akihabara, I saw the straps at two different loca...Read More »

December 24th, 2013 | Images, Merchandise | 20 Comments

Yesterday I received an e-mail from a Japanese reader – which, looking back, is the first all-Japanese e-mail I’ve gotten at this site! Anyway, the e-mail’s from a fan named Koala – here’s a simple translation: You mentioned that it’s okay to e-mail you in Japanese, so I hope you don’t mind that I do. Hello, I’m Koala, a MOTHER (EarthBound) merchandi...Read More »

October 30th, 2013 | Audio Stuff, MOTHER 3, Videos | 22 Comments

I somehow stumbled upon this bizarre Japanese video with the NK Cyborg boss battle music and couldn’t NOT share it: I have no idea what’s going on. And that’s why I like it! (Although if anyone CAN explain, please enlighten me!) ...Read More »

May 10th, 2013 | MOTHER 3, Videos | 23 Comments

Here’s a look at a MOTHER 3 song and video put together by a Japanese fan: I’ll just leave it at that! ...Read More »

May 9th, 2013 | EarthBound, Misc. | 10 Comments

Josh recently sent me this e-mail about visiting Japan: Hello, Mato! I am a long-time fan and reader of your work (over a decade now), and my friend and I will be taking a trip to Japan this summer. We are both big Earthbound fans. I know that you have some experience with Japan and Earthbound, so I was wondering if you might recommend anything Earthbound-related for us to see while we’re ...Read More »

May 2nd, 2013 | Audio Stuff, EarthBound, MOTHER 1, MOTHER 3 | 7 Comments

A fan by the name of G reminded me that a bunch of the MOTHER series soundtracks are still available on Japanese iTunes: Mother 1 soundtrack Mother 2 soundtrack Mother 3+ soundtrack Mother 3i soundtrack Even if you don’t live in Japan, you can still buy from Japanese iTunes if you jump through a few hoops. You’ll probably need to create a new account just for Japanese iTunes. You mi...Read More »

April 29th, 2013 | MOTHER 3 | 123 Comments

A while back I posted briefly on how MOTHER 3 is viewed by Japanese fans (see here). When my MOTHER 3 offer to Nintendo got posted on a big Japanese gaming site the other day, I decided to check out the comment section to see what fans thought about it all. Some of them were interesting, so I thought I might share them here! Again, these are comments by Japanese MOTHER fans: I played 2 after 3, bo...Read More »

April 15th, 2013 | EarthBound | 5 Comments

Back in Feb. 2011 or so, a Japanese TV show called “Tokyo Encount”, which featured lots of game-related stuff, had a little game in one episode that featured a Mr. Saturn! Basically, these two guys on the show had to guess what was inside a mystery box just by feeling what was inside: #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-t...Read More »

March 23rd, 2013 | EarthBound, Images | 19 Comments

I saw this image on a YouTube thumbnail earlier today but didn’t know where the image actually came from: It appears to be an actual ad for MOTHER 2 on the Japanese Wii U Virtual Console, but it seems kind of like overkill to advertise something like that. Does anyone know if this is real, and if so, where it was located? I’d love to know more! ...Read More »