Fairy Tale Spotlight: Mother 2: Giygas Strikes Back [Book Review]

I sometimes feel like I was steadily traveling down the road of one dimension and then slipped into another. I wasn't looking for this. I didn't believe that such a thing could even exist. But it does. It does and I am still bowled over by the fact that I live in a world where this book is real and readable in my language.

"Mother 2: Giygas Strikes Back" is a novel written by Saori Kumi. It was published in 1994. It is the novelization of the Super Famicom game of the same name which we know in the States as "Earthbound." Yes, this is the actual full, complete novelization of "Earthbound," and it is wonderful.

I've always struggled to explain to people what makes Earthbound so charming. I can barely do it to myself. The best I've been able to do is this: It takes a serious situation but delivers it in as quirky a manner as possible. For most of the game, you are spending more time laughing and smiling until you realize that things are actually very serious. The writing of this book follows that same formula perfectly. It is like reading the experience of the game. But the question should probably be: Is it worth reading if I have already played the game? Yes, absolutely. If you haven't played it? Perhaps!

Saori Kumi was very familiar with the game, but she did not want to just rip the story of the game off. After all, that's what the game is for. This book should be looked at as a different perspective to the game. It follows the basic milestones and plot points of the game, but it explains how everything happens very differently. This is never accomplished in a bad way. The new content is more fleshed out and almost always interesting.

The story of Earthbound is about four children going out to save the world from an evil interdimensional demon creature called Giygas which has possessed a fat kid named Pokey. Ness is the main protagonist who is a baseball-loving boy. There is Paula who is a cute girl raised in a religious family. Jeff is a nerdy kid who comes from a boarding school for boys. There is also Prince Poo who comes from a far away land in the clouds.

All of these characters backstories are far more fleshed out than they were in the game. In particular, I'd say that Jeff's backstory was the most shocking. I don't want to spoil it, but the whole Jeff plotline made me feel as if someone had an "emotions gun" and was constantly shooting me with it. It's not a complaint! I was really impress with Saori's interpretation of him. He wasn't really all that well explained in the game.

As in the first book, Christianity is pretty well acknowledged with no negativity behind it.  The difference here is that it rather shares the room with a few other religions and beliefs. They all sort of just exist together, although it still sort of acknowledges that there is one overarching supreme being called God with a capital "G." This actually mostly matches up with the game, so I was not surprised. The only thing that annoyed me a little was the misunderstanding about humans turning into angels when they die. I'm always surprised when people make this mistake, but to be fair, there are probably twenty other things that happen in the story that are much weirder. I must have been reading a book about Earthbound or something.

Like I said before, if you've played the game, you're not going to really be able to predict anything in the book. It's just too different, and that's why it's worth picking it up and reading it from cover to cover. "Mother 2: Giygas Strikes Back" is worth your time, and I recommend it probably more than any book I have ever recommended.

You know... this book isn't perfect. I'm not sure I've ever read a perfect book before. There were even a couple places in there that I got a little frustrated (the opening to the Deep Darkness chapter mainly). But I don't know if I have ever had so much fun reading something. I spent so much time laughing or just giggling to myself as I shot through this incredibly long novel in about two weeks. It may be my favorite book to date. I'm always going to be looking back on it fondly for the experience and the memories that it left me. I am so happy to have been given the opportunity to read this book in my lifetime.

This blog was written on January 15, 2023.

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