Pearl

## Appearance

### Normal

Pearl is an Inkling with short, shoulder length cream hair that has pink tips. She also wears a cream-colored crown on her head that's pink at the tips. Her eyes are connected like most Inklings, and they are a golden color. She wears black finger-less gloves and has a white sleeveless dress with a high collar and golden zipper that is pulled all the way up. Pearl also has pink tights and white boots that have golden zippers that are pulled up, like her dress. She also holds a microphone while singing. Pearl resembles a "pop princess" stereotype.

### Octo Expansion

In “Octo Expansion”, Pearl, also known as **M.C. Princess** (or in the chat logs, MC.Princess) wears a more hip hop attire than her pop stage outfit, resembles rapper The Notorious B.I.G. She wears a golden, jeweled crown on her head, a long, golden chain necklace with a plus symbol pendant (similar to her zippers on her stage outfit) around her neck, multiple golden rings on her fingers on both of her hands, a pastel pink, baggy hoodie with yellow sleeves, and rainbow metallic platform shoes.

## History

### Early Life

Pearl was born into an exceedingly rich family, something that came across in a lot of stories about her childhood, such as being able to easily afford top of the range musical equipment and receiving a ship identical to the Manta Maria for her sixth birthday. Pearl was interested in music from an early age, taking part in an Inkopolis Youth Folk-Singing Contest and causing some destruction with the power of her voice. Pearl later attempted to start a musical career of her own, and despite having little to no idea how to write music, she insisted her heart was in the right place. She eventually became known as a death metal singer, demonstrating a notably more vulgar side with her song #$@%\* Dudes Be #$@%\* Sleepin, which garnered some fans but never went beyond that.

While practicing her potentially dangerous voice on Mt. Nantai less than two years before the events of Splatoon 2, Pearl met Marina Ida, a newly-defected Octoling, and the two quickly bonded. Pearl never learnt of Marina's past, believing her to be a "country bumpkin", and taught Marina the ways of Inkling society. After meeting each other again, the two eventually became friends, with Marina demonstrating her musical abilities with a demo of Ebb & Flow. After hearing this, Pearl agreed to form a band with her, which led to her fully establishing herself in the public consciousness upon the formation of Off the Hook. They released Ebb & Flow as their first single, and it was a hit. By the time of their fourth single, around nine months after the events of Splatoon, they had become popular enough to take over hosting Inkopolis News from the Squid Sisters.

### Splatoon 2

By the time of Splatoon 2, Off the Hook had become famous in Inkopolis Square for their music and for presenting Inkopolis News, in which Pearl had a similar relationship with Marina as Callie had with Marie. Their work included hosting Splatfest events, announcing the themes and singing and dancing to Color Pulse for the event's duration. Although Pearl and Marina did not make appearances during Octo Canyon, they were the first to break the news of Callie and the Great Zapfish's disappearances. They also announced their rescue on Inkopolis News, fulfilling a request to play Fresh Start over the credits.

### Octo Expansion

When the game starts up the first time in the 3.1.0. update, Pearl will put an Inkopolis Fashion Focus about a trend of "squidkids with weird hairstyles" which are actually Octolings. As the broadcast ends, Pearl says that that was the only best thing so she'll probably never do it again.

Off the Hook makes an appearance helping Agent 8 and Cap'n Cuttlefish by giving advice and commentary on Agent 8's tests. They meet the duo after Agent 8 passes Fake Plastic Station through Cap'n Cuttlefish's walkie-talkie as they were on Mount Nantai where the signal was the strongest, and Pearl and Marina call themselves MC. Princess and DJ\_Hyperfresh respectively. If Agent 8 loses all of their lives in a test at least twice, Marina will offer to use Agent 8's test data and hack the Kamabo Corporation's data base to trick the test into thinking Agent 8 passed. If Agent 8 has less than 100 CQ Points, then Pearl will take money from her dad's wallet and Marina will transfer them into CQ Points.

After Agent 8 collects all the Thangs, Marina discovers it makes a blender and the Telephone that had them find the Thangs is intent on actually blending Agent 8 and Cap'n Cuttlefish into raw material. Before it can do so, however, Marina activates Agent 8's CQ-80's distress signal, summoning Agent 3 and breaking the blender and phone in the nick of time. Marina then sees an unconscious Agent 3's employee model of the CQ-80 and tells Agent 8 that they can escape through the hole Agent 3 made. As Agent 8 escapes the facility, Off the Hook shows up with a fleet of helicopters to pick them up along with Cap'n Cuttlefish and Agent 3.

As Pearl raps with Cap'n Cuttlefish again, the platform Agent 8 was on rises up and turns out to be a statue with the phone now known as Commander Tartar intending on destroying all Inklings and Octolings with his blast of primordial ooze. Marina analyzes the statue and discovers that the statue is charging up via sunlight. If they can cover it with ink with the help of her prototype Hyperbombs that Agent 8 has to manually detonate, then the statue will stop charging, and Pearl will then finish it off with a "Hypersonic Scream" to destroy the statue, but they have to do so within three minutes, or Tartar will destroy Inkopolis.

After Agent 8 detonates them all, the statue is going to fire anyway, prompting Pearl to drop onto the platform below the helicopter and activate her Special, a giant Killer Wail stylized with her crown. As the statue fires, Pearl lets out a giant "Booyah" and battles with the statue's blast before pushing it back and destroying the whole statue with pink ink, along with Tartar, who's last words are telling the professor who created it that their reunion beckons before perishing. As the statue now collapses into the sea, Pearl and Marina celebrate with Cuttlefish, Agent 8, and a recovered Agent 3, and then watch the credits.}}

## Personality and traits

Pearl speaks rather bluntly using various slang words, matching a stereotypical rapper, as she appears to be (despite her "pop princess" appearance). Compared to Marina, she is more expressive and quick to jump onto topics with a bit of short temptations. Oftentimes her comments can be playfully sarcastic playing off her co-host.

Pearl originally had little to no idea how to write music, though she insists she had her heart in the right place. She demonstrated a notably more vulgar side with her song ‘‘#$@%\* Dude Be #$@%\* Sleepin’’

Pearl’s voice is capable of creating massive shockwaves. Sunken Scroll 1 shows an incident in which a young Pearl destroyed various parts of the Youth Folk-Singing contest, and Marina’s Chat has a clip during a death metal concert in which glass is heard shattering. When fully warmed up and amplified by the Killer Wail, Pearl’s shockwave is concentrated into a powerful ink laser able to counteract a mostly-charged cannon designed to destroy all sentient life.

Pearl is also very protective of Marina, even after being told by Cap'n Cuttlefish of Marina's true nature as an Octoling and former member of DJ Octavio's army. Upon receiving the news, she remained loyal to Marina, including threatening violence against Cap'n Cuttlefish if he ever dared to splat her bandmate because of Marina's past in serving Octavio and his Octarians.

## Location

Off The Hook is located to the left of the Shoal.

## Trivia

* Pearl takes her Japanese name from the Northern pygmy squid (ヒメイカ Hime-ika).
	+ Pearl's Japanese name also references her "pop princess" appearance, as 姫 (Hime) is the Japanese word for princess.
* Her last name, Houzuki, comes from the japanese word for colossal squid.
* Pearl and Marina have some similarities with the Squid Sisters:
	+ Pearl shares Callie's magenta-colored scheme on her clothing.
	+ Their catchphrase, "Don't get cooked ... stay off the hook!" is similar to the Squid Sisters' catchphrase, "Staaaaay fresh!"
	+ They're both expressive and excitable like Callie, and sassy and sarcastic like Marie.
* Pearl and Marina's English names are possibly a pun on *Pearl Harbor*, as Marina's name is a synonym for harbor.
* Pearl and Marina seem to be fans of the Squid Sisters, as Pearl was shocked upon hearing the news about Callie's disappearance, and she and her friend also hoped that the Squid Sisters will return.
* In the Italian version, their names are changed to Alga and Nori, as a reference to "nori seaweed" in Italian.
	+ The duo is called "Tenta Cool" in the Italian version.
	+ Marina's name is Marie's name in the Italian version.
* The Octo Expansion reveals that Ebb & Flow was Off the Hook's first song and has three reiterations of it in the Expansion.
	+ Marina made a demo tape by herself with a half-broken keyboard on Mount Nantai before she met Pearl.
	+ An "Octo" remix of the song plays when there's one minute left on Turf War on the NILS Statue.
	+ A choral version of it plays when Commander Tartar is destroyed and Inkopolis is saved at the ending.
* Pearl and Marina's official amiibo come with their outfits from the Octo Expansion.
* According to dialogue in the Japanese version of the game, Pearl is referred to as "senpai" by Marina. "Senpai" is an honorific used in addressing someone of an elder with the same social standing or to one of more experience in a field or trade, implying that Marina looks up to Pearl as a respectable figure who came before her; in this case, the music industry (or the Inkling world, as Marina grew up among the Octarians).
	+ This is also due to the fact that Pearl is older than her by three years.
* Pearl seems to have a special connection with Snapper Canal from multiple news dialogues.
	+ Pearl's dad used to take her to Snapper Canal to learn how to ride a bike. But according to Marina, she still uses training wheels.
	+ Pearl mentions a boy from school took her to Snapper Canal as a kid, but she doesn't respond to Marina the circumstances of it. This also supplements the idea that Inklings have an education system that they ditch for turf war.
* According to many of her dialogues with Marina, Pearl comes from a rich family, explaining some of her attitude, appearance, and personality.
	+ Pearl remembers owning a ship of the same model as the Manta Maria when she was six years old.
	+ She owns a go-cart.
	+ She still gets an allowance despite having a job already.
	+ Her family had personal shoppers that went to MakoMart.
	+ Her family owns the stage Camp Triggerfish, and she designed it.
		- It is also implied that she wrote the lyrics for the official camp song for Camp Triggerfish (“♪ Triggerfish! Triggerfish! Pull that trigger, fish! ♪” or “♪ Trigger trigger trigger! Trig! Trig! Trig! ♪”).
* She is short in height due to the type of species she is, since the Northern Pygmy Squid is one of the world's smallest squid species at only 16 millimetres in length and it falls into the bobtail group, which consists of small squids.
* In Japan, Pearl's fans are known as Himeito (ヒメイト), a portmanteau of Pearl's name, Hime, and the English word "mate." The English equivalent to this name may be "Pearl Scout", as seen on the Pearl Scout Lace-Ups. "Pearl Scout" is a reference to the Girl Scouts.