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.
- Marcus
- On another note, in Japanese, the antagonist is called “Gyiyg.”
I knew people wouldn’t know how to pronounce that.
His name was initially suggested as Geek, but that means nerd,
and I didn’t really like that.
- Itoi
- Oh, I see. No, that’s not what it meant.
- Marcus
- So I changed it to Giygas in EarthBound because it sounded powerful to me.
Almost like a Roman name.
- Itoi
- Yeah, that’s better.
Giegue was more based on the designer H.R. Gieger
since he designed aliens, and I liked the sound of his name.
- Marcus
- Fans aren’t totally clear on how to pronounce the localized version Giygas,
though. Some people say “Guy-gus” and others say “Gee-gus”.
I’d intended “Gee-gus” for it to sound similar to Giegue, except scarier.
- Itoi
- Oh, I didn’t realize that. But that confusion might be a good thing,
since you can’t quite grasp his true form anyway.
- Marcus
- Yeah.
- Itoi
- I wasn’t very confident coming up with names that weren’t Japanese.
- Marcus
- The other name that I did was Pokey.
There are two spellings: “Pokey” in EarthBound,
and “Porky” in Super Smash Brothers and MOTHER 3.
- Itoi
- Ah, so there are two spellings now.
- Marcus
- There are a couple reasons I didn’t make him Porky.
First, there was the famous cartoon character Porky Pig and
I wanted to avoid legal trouble there,
and second—perhaps it was because I was having a child,
and was sensitive to bullying—
I wanted to avoid a name that sounded like bullying.
- Itoi
- Oh, because it had an association with pigs in English.
- Marcus
- Yeah. I was worried about naming a child something that
sounded like we were calling him a pig.
- Itoi
- Yeah, in Japan there wasn’t a direct association with “pork”
when we heard his name.
- Marcus
- There’s a strong association in English,
so I decided to change the spelling to Pokey for EarthBound.
- Itoi
- The name Porky actually came from the next door neighbor
in the old American TV series Lassie,
which aired in Japan and was quite popular.
It’s a story about a boy who had a Collie dog.
His neighbor was this sloppy boy named Porky.
- Marcus
- Oh, so it really was the Porky character.
- Itoi
- Yeah. The name Borges, from the bar,
came from Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
I borrowed names from all kinds of things.
- Marcus
- That reminds me of the melting clock enemy from Moonside.
- Itoi
- Yeah, yeah.
- Marcus
- It’s called Lost Memories in Japanese,
but we changed it to something more spot-on with Dali’s Clock in English.
- Itoi
- Oh, I see. (Laughs)
- Marcus
- Another name we had a lot of fun with was that hippie guy.
- Itoi
- Yeah, the hippie’s called Inconsiderate Guy.
- Marcus
- We made his name really long.
- Itoi
- What did you call him?
- Marcus
- We named him New Age Retro Hippie.
- Itoi
- Hahaha! Now that you mention it,
the octopus eraser machine in MOTHER 2 turned into
a pencil for the localization, right?
- Marcus
- Right.
- Itoi
- Why was that changed?
People in America know about octopuses, right?
- Marcus
- The octopus was fine,
but after you erase the octopus, you have to erase a blockade that
looks like a kokeshi doll with the Kokeshi-keshi Machine.
- Itoi
- Yeah, it was a play on words so the Tako-keshi Machine with
the octopus was followed by the Kokeshi-keshi Machine.
- Marcus
- There aren’t kokeshi dolls in the U.S., so we needed to localize that one.
- Itoi
- Ohh, I see. That makes sense.
- Marcus
- So we changed the Kokeshi-keshi Machine to the Eraser-Eraser.
It would have been strange to pair an octopus with an eraser,
so we paired a pencil and an eraser to make the Pencil-Eraser and
the Eraser-Eraser.
- Itoi
- I see, so you erase a pencil, and then you erase an eraser.
- Marcus
- Yup. (Laughs)
（To be continued）
2025-04-03-THU
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©SHIGESATO ITOI / Nintendo