My partner and I spent August 10th through August 24th in Japan. Despite both of our insistence on trying to avoid things we deem “too touristy”, we figured it would be a huge missed opportunity to fly across the world and not do the Shibuya Scramble (before stopping to pay our respects to Hachiko at his statue nearby). You could make a rough comparison of Shibuya to Times Square in Manhattan, but even this doesn’t really work – much like the rest of Tokyo, it’s quieter than you expect (even with the constant patter of human activity and advertisements over loudspeakers). Though there’s no shortage of tourists like me taking photos of everything, there’s a palpable sense that this place still functions in a mostly practical manner when compared to Times Square, which to visit feels distinctly removed from any original purpose around the time you encounter your sixth slightly aggressive unofficial Spider-Man.
We planned a few shopping stops along our way, including RECOFan, the MEGA Don Quijote, and enough room for unscheduled places that caught our eye. I also found that the CAPCOM Store was nearby, and as a long time fan of the company, I figured checking out their official store might be fun (I learned that this, along with basically every other official gaming popup in Japan, is almost guaranteed to be a misfire). It was only our second day in the country, and for new visitors, navigating Tokyo without staring crooked necked at a map app can be a bit difficult – many street names are not visible and the vertical density of the city means that many shops, bars, and businesses that loom large in the mind are either tucked away in an alley or crammed in any of multiple floors of an otherwise unassuming gray building. We found ourselves outside the Shibuya PARCO, which people in the know may recognize as a massive shopping and event space in Shibuya, but myself having already circled the building once trying to find some sort of exterior entrance to the CAPCOM store, I missed their many advertisements on events currently going on and was completely oblivious to the nature of the space.
My partner and I agreed to split up here, as she could not care less about CAPCOM merchandise and I do not blame her. From here I made my way up to the 6th floor – briefly distracted by the SEGA store, I made my way to the CAPCOM location before noticing that, in a small spot nearby, was the Hobonichi MOTHER store popup. I had, by pure coincidence, picked up a copy of the MOTHER 2 strategy guide from BEEP in Akihabara the previous day, so seeing a pop-up space dedicated to the series felt cosmically aligned. To my delight, it was completely packed with people of multiple generations. Fans of MOTHER with their children, people my age, and people nearing twice my age picking up (admittedly overpriced) merchandise and sharing and chuckling with their family and friends. An employee wearing a headband with Mr. Saturn’s trademark single-thread hair and bow leaned down to let a small child rock it back and forth. They laughed together. I later looked up the event information and was surprised at how close the official banner for the store was to the actual space (though I would say the space itself was smaller). I bought a MOTHER 2 shirt and took my photo with the Starman statue, and nearly continued on my way until I noticed a poster, off to the side, with the MOTHER 2/Earthbound main cast on an escalator stating: “HOLD ON NOW, YOUNGSTER! Exhibit! 8th floor!”. I was beginning to worry I was keeping my partner waiting but considering the crowds I figured that it would have taken much longer to descend to the ground floor and let her know I wanted to see this than to just get up to the 8th floor and check out whatever small, silly thing this probably was before heading out.
I ascended the two floors by escalator and saw the opening to the exhibit featuring the clay models of the MOTHER characters. I didn’t think much of it for two reasons: first, these were constantly used in materials throughout MOTHER and MOTHER 2’s original launch and promotional period. In the late 80s and early 90s, Nintendo often used clay models to promote its games and for use as reference when designing toys, merch, etc. While there’s tons of character in 8-bit and later, 16-bit, pixel art, it is still difficult to capture the designer and artist’s full intention. Mother is perhaps unique in that every single character in the first two games, from the main cast to enemies to minor joke characters, had a model made of it. A lot of graphical styling of this era encouraged the player to use their imagination alongside the game, but having a promotional shot in Nintendo Power or on the official guide could go a long way in gently guiding the player’s vision in the direction the designer originally intended. Most American gamers of a certain age will probably recall a particularly impactful cover of Nintendo Power first, but I would hazard a guess that second one that comes to mind would be the figures used to promote Earthbound in the states. The second reason being that, on previous floors where I found myself packed in with fans of all ages (I was really practicing my sumimasen) this floor was almost entirely empty. A small line formed at a fried food stand down the hall.
I went to the entrance of the exhibit where I asked a woman in pitiful Japanese if paying by card was OK, where she said it was and charged me ¥1800 (approximately $12) and handed me a ticket, a cardstock booklet, and a sheet of paper and gestured towards the “no photos” sign. I smiled, understanding none of it other than the “please don’t take pictures” part, and went on my way. The initial hallway leading into the exhibit was unassuming – imagine any pop up art gallery only this one had themed wallpaper over its temporary divisions, alongside iPads installed within the “walls” showing gameplay footage of both MOTHER and MOTHER 2. I turned the corner and gasped.
The room was full of displays of clay figures. The clay figures. I figured I must have been mistaken, that there was no way these were the originals tucked away on the 8th floor of a nearly empty pop-up museum exhibit with minimal sign-posting for $12 a few blocks from the heart of Shibuya. I glanced at the sheet of paper I was handed. “Collected, for the first time, all 180 original figures from the development of MOTHER and MOTHER 2” was written in English underneath what I assumed was Japanese of the same information. I felt the blood drain out of my face.
Every character, from Ninten to Teddy to The Crow to Belch to Frankystein Mark II presented pristinely in paper mache and clay, separated from me by only a few inches of display glass. The vast majority of the figures were immaculate. Had there not been minor signs of wear (a slight chip in the paint here, a place where a brush stroke had been worn away to reveal a mistake that had been painted over at some point there) I would have been unable to believe that these were indeed original. I stood as close as I could without physically touching my nose to the display case. I could hardly breathe – to see the brushstrokes on Ness’ shirt, a small fingernail mark in the paint of the Coil Snake some 30-35 years later, here, by coincidence. So much of game production of that era is obscured, especially so considering the famously tight-lipped Nintendo. Theirs is a company that is much happier for their audience to see games only as a complete product, perfect and fully formed, and never anything else. Here was the proof of the hands that made MOTHER. Inches away from me. Lovingly preserved and all together. I stared at a line up of Plain Crocodile, Mad Duck, Worthless Protoplasm, Gruff Goat, and Cave Boy for what felt like at least ten minutes. “I must burn this into my memory”, I told myself. I did the same with a model of the Ramblin’ Evil Mushroom. I was not supposed to have taken photos, but I snapped a couple of quick ones out of fear that I might forget. I wish I had not done this. I fear I have cheapened it. The photographs do not do the level of detail justice, and I fear looking at them will replace the image in my mind. I spent approximately 45 minutes in this small exhibit, revisiting sections hoping to capture more detail in my mind that I may have missed before. Every time I got close, I felt tears welling up. It makes me emotional to think of it now.
Thinking of my partner wondering where I was and the difficulty of explaining that I had been crying over clay models in a shopping mall, I decided to leave. At the exit, another small shop sold merch that was not available in the popup, but I opted not to buy any. The event space offered a small table with sticky notes and pens, and suggested that guests draw the theme of the next exhibit, which I do not remember. Instead, what I would estimate to be about eighty previous visitors had decided to draw their own interpretations of the character Teddy, an optional party member from the original Mother, and, if the Hobonichi poll of the top 100 Mother characters is to be believed, not even a top-20 character. A wall full of Teddy sketches stared back at me with corny, 50s American greaser by way of late 80s pastiche grin. I smiled back.
I met my partner outside and tried through gasping breath to explain what I had just seen. “Oh yeah,” she said, “I saw that signage about it and almost pointed it out since I recognized it from the book you got yesterday.” There it was, on a digital display that I had probably stumbled by three times trying to find an entrance: “The Shape of MOTHER”.
Later that night, when we returned to our hotel room, I pulled the MOTHER 2 official guide out of my suitcase and out of the protective plastic. I flipped through and stared at its several photographs of the very models I had just seen earlier that day. These photographs, likely taken somewhere between late 1993 and early 1994 (the game was completed in May of 1994), when I was in my first year of life, now looking back at me, as perfect as they will have been mere hours before. In a video review of Cyberpunk 2077, critic Tim Rogers remarks that “there are two things about old stuff: one is that there’s a lot more of it than there is of new stuff, and there always will be. The other is that, a lot of that old stuff doesn’t go away. You can just walk up to it and say ‘hello’”. I cherish that I got to say “hello” to MOTHER. I cherish that it happened by complete accident. I cherish that I was guided by a series of coincidental circumstances to look out across time and stare, mere inches removed.
