#giygas

the maelstrom

I spent some time looking for a publication that might feature an illustrated rendition of EarthBound Beginnings (Mother “1”) main antagonist ギーグ Giygas (called Giegue in the American localization) to see whether Game Freak might’ve taken inspiration from it, turns out Giygas has rarely been drawn except for his sprite.
Along with EarthBound Cafè, we found his only pre-1995 illustrations in a couple of 1991 4koma books ファミコン4コマまんが王国(Famicom 4koma Manga Kingdom). The first two come from the first issue and are illustrated by Masami Kobayashi, while the last one was published in the second issue and its author is Satomi Nakamura.

While Giygas’ sprite appearance may have inspired Mewtwo’s design. We still don’t know whether a Mewtwo-ish rendition of him has ever crossed Sugimori’s path…