THE LIBRARY

Phil Sandhop coined Earth Bound for the cancelled 1990 version because Mother sounded too plain, and the sequel welded the two words into one.

A 170-page 1989 Wonder Life Special book that is part guide, part world bible: the character backstories Itoi could not fit into the game live here.

Japan gave the 1989 game a full shelf of guides within months, capture books and the Encyclopedia, and they remain the only complete guides ever made.

Shogakukan's 1994 Nintendo Official Guide Book for Mother 2 is the book the clay figures were made for, Japan's full companion to the game.

The 128-page travel guide to Eagleland packed inside every American EarthBound: clay figures, fake newspaper clippings, and six scratch-and-sniff cards.

Six scented cards tucked into the Player's Guide, one of them a mystery: guess pizza, mail it in, and Nintendo sent you a Mach Pizza air freshener.

Fangamer's unofficial 2009 companion to an untranslated game: 200 pages, $20 at launch, and 55 new clay models made in tribute to the 1994 guides.

Fangamer's 2016 travel guide to Eagleland, born from a 2014 Kickstarter that asked for $100,000 and raised over $230,000 for EarthBound in print.

Every line of all three games, system text included, in three slipcased volumes from Hobonichi: 1,008 pages of Itoi, sold December 2020 for ¥8,888.

Hobonichi's 2020 official tribute comic: 35 creators, one song for a title, and a comic in Japanese from Undertale's Toby Fox. ¥2,400 at release.

The 2021 second volume of Hobonichi's official Mother tribute comic: over 40 works, Toby Fox returned, OMOCAT and Taiyo Matsumoto aboard, Itoi in prose.

About 180 paper-clay figures sculpted in the 1990s for the games' guidebooks, warehoused for thirty years, and finally exhibited complete in 2024 and 2025.

Hobonichi's July 2025 Shibuya PARCO exhibition of all 180 original clay figures, and the five-figure recreation set scanned from them, about $170.

Hobonichi's summer 2024 Shibuya PARCO show for Mother 2's 30th anniversary: development materials, the clay figures out of storage, and a 320-page book.

The copywriter who wrote Totoro's poster line, pitched Nintendo an RPG on a business trip's confidence, and still runs the company that curates it.

Shigesato Itoi's Almost Daily newspaper became a company whose planner sells in the millions of loyal users, and which now publishes Mother's books and goods.

Launched April 30, 2020: Itoi's company took over his series' afterlife, books, exhibitions, pop-up shops and a permanent store, all from 1101.com.

Itoi's planner wears his games: an embroidered Franklin Badge, a lenticular Mr. Saturn spun from the original clay photo, and the Mother 2 title scene.

A badge that reflects lightning, named for Benjamin Franklin's kite, present in all three games, and sold as a real pin by Hobonichi and in the Deluxe Box.

Dosei-san: a round, bow-wearing species that speaks in scribbles, builds impossible things, and became the face of Mother merchandise under Hobonichi.

Hobonichi's Me and My Friends plush sets: the Chosen Four in May 2022 for ¥11,000, sold out and reissued, then Mother 3's party in April 2024.

Catherine Warwick sang I Believe in You over Keiichi Suzuki's theme in 1989, and the tune has opened every Mother world since, comic included.

Keiichi Suzuki, at 50 years a musician, re-recorded his own Mother score in 2021: ten self-covers, his own voice, Nippon Columbia, ¥3,300.

Shogo Sakai's two arranged albums for the untranslated game, issued on Itoi's own label in 2006 and 2007, then withdrawn from iTunes: a soundtrack story.

Two games, two different tunes, one structure: collect a song in eight pieces, from a doll, a canary, a dragon, and sing the world back into balance.