Hello, this is Nagata from Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun. Three years after the production of MOTHER 3 was restarted, I interviewed MOTHER 3 creator Shigesato Itoi. This wasn’t a conventional interview, with a third party lobbing questions, because I accompanied Itoi on most of his visits to the team during development. As a result I feel that we were able to set aside the usual pleasantries and atmosphere-building and reach the genuine core of the matter without embellishment. Consider these the liner notes for a new work, released after a twelve-year hiatus.

This article is available in Japanese, English. ＞ Japanese（日本語）

Part 9

A Story About Family

One of the main themes of MOTHER 3 is “family.” Was this part of the original plot you thought of near the end of development for MOTHER 2?

Itoi
No, it just kind of happened.

Oh, really?

Itoi
Yeah. Once it was all over, I could have gone back and offered all these explanations for everything, but I don’t think I actually needed to make any of those particular decisions.

So you could explain why you included something, but you weren’t adamant about including it.

Itoi
Basically. There’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately when it comes to creativity. With every creation, something comes out in it that the creator hasn’t necessarily been intending. You’ll see something in it that you don’t remember ever putting in. It just kind of happens. For MOTHER 3, I hadn’t consciously included those stories about family, and parents, and brothers.

But in the end, it’s a pretty prominent part of the story.

Itoi
Yeah. Even so, family doesn’t necessarily mean a story focused on relationships bound by blood ties.

Ah, yeah.

Itoi
There have been many stories that revolve around blood ties. MOTHER 3 may be a story about family, but it’s more than just the idea of relatives by blood. That gives it a sort of touch of the future.

MOTHER and MOTHER 2 didn’t have the quintessential image of family where everyone is happily together. But they still had family ties. Did those also end up that way subconsciously?

Itoi
Absolutely. I think the concept of blood ties is an ideological construct devised to make people think that familial structure is a natural thing from ancient times. People have been completely engulfed in that idea for a long time, but it could be that it wasn’t always that way. It’s not impossible that a time will come when people raise their children collectively, no matter how some people may hate the idea. The current family structure is already breaking down, anyway. I’m not saying it’s good or bad one way or the other, though.

Yeah.

Itoi
More simply, it’s clear that the line between marriage and cohabitation is blurring. Even just the time people spend around the dinner table is dwindling as fathers and mothers are out working. Once that’s gone, people get upset about family structures not fitting into the standard mold and get mad at each other. But at that point, I don’t think you can blame anyone who doesn’t fit in. They’re in whatever situation they’ve found themselves in, because everyone’s just trying to find what makes them happy. That concept is already part of MOTHER and MOTHER 2.

I can see that.

Itoi
But that secret ingredient might have a much stronger flavor in MOTHER 3.

It does.

Itoi
I can’t talk too much about the story, but the Magypsies that appear in MOTHER 3 are a symbol of family that you’re not related to by blood.

Ah, I see.

Itoi
Also, there’s one more strong element of “family” I hadn’t really planned on that happened to end up in MOTHER 3. One of the members of the team working on the scenario had just had a baby.

Ahh.

Itoi
That had a big influence on it. I have a child, too, but she’s long since grown up and moved out. If I’d just had a baby while working on this project, I still don’t think I would have thought to include the line; I’d have just written as usual. But this team member had a child who was just starting to walk, a small child that was an extension of his very heart. And that shows up. He read some lines I’d written without much thought and seemed pretty taken aback. That reminded me of how I’d felt back then as a new parent, and I realized that I wasn’t actually going for that, so I reconsidered it.

I see.

Itoi
I’m someone who can say something that hurts someone, and then add a joke to kind of laugh it off like it’s no big deal. (Laughs)

(Laughs)

Itoi
So that had a huge effect on me. I especially remember one thing, with a line that shows up in the graveyard scene. There’s a brief line about the father, and I wrote something that, even at the time, might have felt a little off. If I were that father, I wouldn’t have done it, but I wrote it anyway. And that’s what the team member with the baby was struck by. He said he understood where the father was coming from in that scenario, and could imagine doing the same. That surprised me, and I got flustered. I thought about it a lot, and realized I liked his mindset better. That was a turning point for me, and I based the tone of the game on that. The second half of the story started to change. There were characters no one was meant to like, but I ended up wanting people to like all of them. Those feelings come out in kind of a slow drip. That’s not a creative process you can use or an aspect you can come up with when you’re writing a novel by yourself.

(To be continued)

2006-04-28-FRI