Late last summer, Shigesato Itoi traveled to
Los Angeles to watch Shohei Otani play at
Dodger Stadium at the invitation of a friend.
But he had one more plan on that trip.
That was to meet with the EarthBound
localizer Marcus Lindblom, who helped bring MOTHER 2 to
English-speaking audiences 30 years ago.
Shigesato Itoi and Marcus Lindblom met for
the first time and talked about all kinds of things.
There were some things we hadn’t even realized!
Marcus Lindblom
Marcus began his 30+ year career in the video game industry at Nintendo, where his localization work on EarthBound is most well-known. He worked as a producer at a mix of publishers and developers. He co-owned a game consulting company named Partly Cloudy Games for 10 years, and is now considering his next gaming adventure.
- Itoi
- Is this our first time meeting?
I remember meeting someone in Japan a long time ago.
- Marcus
- We’ve never met. (Laughs)
- Itoi
- Oh, pardon me!
I remember meeting someone who was localizing my game back then.
- Marcus
- You may have met the person who did the localization for the first game,
MOTHER. He was in Japan longer than I was.
- Itoi
- Oh, I see.
Were you an employee of Nintendo when you worked on the localization?
- Marcus
- Yes, I worked for Nintendo of America.
- Itoi
- And you traveled to Japan to work on the project, right?
How much Japanese do you know?
- Marcus
- I lived in Japan from 1986 to 1990.
I studied Japanese briefly in college in the U.S.
and then got a job as an English tutor in Japan.
My Japanese is extremely conversational though,
as I never quite mastered grammar or keigo.
- Itoi
- Ah, I see.
The script in MOTHER is basically all conversational text,
so that might have been enough.
- Marcus
- Maybe. (Laughs)
I’d lived in Japan long enough to get used to everything and
learn Japanese to a certain extent.
Then I returned to the U.S. and started working for Nintendo.
That’s when Nintendo started
the project to translate MOTHER 2 into English,
and I was sent to APE in Japan.
- Itoi
- APE? I was the president of APE. (Laughs)
- Marcus
- I was only there for one week.
The rest of the localization happened in the States.
- Itoi
- Oh, I see.
- Marcus
- Can I tell you a story about when I was there?
- Itoi
- Sure!
- Marcus
- My hotel was near Akihabara.
I had jet lag because I’d arrived the night before,
so I woke up early and went to Shibuya for a bit.
APE had told me to come to the office at 10 or 11 o’clock,
and by the time I went to take the Chiyoda subway line,
it wasn’t running. I’d lived in Japan before,
so I knew that it was strange to close completely.
Can you guess why?
- Itoi
- Was it under construction?
- Marcus
- No, that was the subway sarin gas attack by Aum Shinrikyo.
I had only just missed it!
- Itoi
- Oh, that was the day?!
- Marcus
- Yes, I was heading to APE for the first time that day,
and couldn’t use the subway.
- Itoi
- I was out fishing on Lake Biwa that day. (Laughs)
- Marcus
- I see, so that’s why we never ended up meeting.
- Itoi
- That makes sense—then I guess we haven’t met after all.
Was that in March?
- Marcus
- Yeah, eventually I made it to the APE office after
hopping on the Yamanote train line,
but at first I had no idea what was going on.
I was shocked when I heard about it afterwards.
- Itoi
- I was in Kyoto for work, so I wasn’t in Tokyo at the time.
I guess you’d gone back to America by the time I got back to Tokyo.
- Marcus
- Yeah, that must be it.
- Itoi
- So you worked on the English translation in America.
- Marcus
- Right. But my Japanese wasn’t perfect,
so Masayuki Miura came to help.
- Itoi
- Masayuki Miura?
- Marcus
- Yeah, he stayed in Seattle for about two months.
- Itoi
- Two months! I had no idea.
- Marcus
- Miura was so important for the script of EarthBound as we know it.
The translation is a result of Miura and I working together.
- Itoi
- That’s incredible! Everything just fell into place. (Laughs)
I couldn’t figure out how the English localization of MOTHER 2
still managed to keep the original humor of the Japanese.
But now I know that Masayuki Miura was behind it.
- Marcus
- Yeah.
- Itoi
- When I created the script for MOTHER 2,
he’s the one I sat next to as I dictated for him to type everything out.
We wrote the entire script that way,
so he understands the nuance of
every line in the original more than anyone else.
If I said something weird, he wouldn’t just type it as-is.
He’d stop and ask me to clarify.
And I wanted him to understand,
so I’d explain it. Having gone through that entire process,
he was able to pass all that knowledge directly to you.
- Marcus
- Ah, so that’s why he was so good at explaining everything.
He actually did the same thing, typing for me as I dictated!
I asked about something I didn’t understand,
and he explained that some lines were even hard for
Japanese people to get.
- Itoi
- Ah, yeah, there was a bit of that in there.
Some parts would go over some peoples’ heads.
- Marcus
- Like the jokes.
- Itoi
- Yes, the jokes. (Laughs)
- Marcus
- Miura told me to have fun with the humor and jokes in the game,
and not worry about whether or not everyone would get it.
He said it was okay to make it quirky in English.
- Itoi
- I’m glad he did. Miura was in a position where he was able to say that.
I never knew you worked together to make the script for EarthBound.
（To be continued）
2025-03-31-MON
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©SHIGESATO ITOI / Nintendo