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Pearl Houzuki is a major character in the Splatoon franchise. She is one half of the Inkopolis pop duo Off the Hook, alongside Marina Ida. She and Marina are the former hosts of Inkopolis News, succeeding the prior hosts, being the Squid Sisters, and both her and Marina are also former hosts of Splatfests.
She is voiced by Rina Itou.
Appearance
Pearl is a short Inkling woman, something she's sensitive about, with medium cream coloured tentacles ending in pink tips. Like all the other Inkling idols in game, she has golden irises with cross-shaped pupils. She also has oval eyebrows and a beauty mark near her mouth. On her head she wears a large, cream crown that's also pink at the tips, and wears black fingerless gloves, a white dress with a large golden zipper as well as pink leggings with black-soled white shoes that also have golden zippers.
In the Octo Expansion, Pearl's outfit resembles the rapper The Notorious B.I.G. She now wears a rose-gold crown with pink jewels and a large gold necklace with a circular pendant that has a plus symbol in the middle, similar to her zippers. She wears an oversized pink hoodie with yellow sleeves, silver rings on her fingers, grey shorts and rainbow metallic platform shoes.
In her album art for Damp Socks ft. Off the Hook, Pearl now wears transparent orange sunglasses with a golden crown. She wears a large white jacket, a metallic golden dress with a blue inside, black sleeveless gloves and leggings as well as white boots with gold-rimmed soles. Pearl keeps this appearance for her Inkling form in Side Order.
During the events of Side Order, Pearl is initially stuck in the form of a drone thanks to being uploaded into the Memverse, though she gains the ability to revert to her Inkling form later on. She appears as a round, cream-coloured drone with a large fan on its bottom and two tentacle-like wings. She has a black screen with white LED eyes in the shape of stars, two gold knobs representing her eyebrows and a large rose-gold crown on her head.
Background
Pearl comes from a very rich background and was born in Calamari County. Her rich family is brought up many times during her Inkopolis News conversations with Marina, where she tells Marina that she was bought a ship that was just like Manta Maria, as well as stating at times that she owns a go-cart and that her family owns the stage Camp Triggerfish. Pearl had a musical interest since an early age, and was temporarily a heavy metal singer, and wrote and sung a vulgar song called "#$@%* Dudes Be ＃$@%* Sleepin". She evntually met Marina on Mt. Nantai, and taught her about Inkling the societly, the two eventually forming the band Off the Hook. The duo eventually became famous after they released four songs, with the first being Ebb & Flow.
Biography
Splatoon 2
Pearl and Marina eventually became popular enough to succeed the Squid Sisters as the hosts of Inkopolis after the Sisters began to diverge into their solo careers, which leads to Callie's disappearance. At the start of Splatoon 2, Pearl and Marina can be seen showing the disappearance of the Great Zapfish and Callie live on Inkopolis News. They appear whenever the player boots up the game to anounce the current stages in rotation, as well as news regarding the Splatfest events, with the duo also being the hosts of said events.
Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion
Pearl and her bandmate Marina play a major role in this DLC pack for Splatoon 2, where they help Agent 8 navigate the many tests given to them by Kamabo Co, alongside Cap'n Cuttlefish. The player can view messages sent by Pearl, Marina and Cuttlefish on a group chat Marina made, with sessions of the chat being unlocked as the player progresses through the campaign.
Off the Hook are seen in person after Agent 8 finally escapes the metro after fighting a brainwashed Agent 3, where they pick up Agent 8, the unconcious Agent 3, and Cap'n Cuttlefish in their helicopter, as the NILS Statue emerges upwards, revealing Commander Tartar who reveals it has been watching over the Inklings and Octolings and was horrified, so it plans to fire a laser of sanitized ink at Inkopolis and destroy everyone in it. Marina analyzes the statue and comes up with a plan to save the world, which includes her dropping her Hyperbomb prototypes which is filled with ink over the statue so that it can stop receiving power from the sun, while Agent 8 goes and detonates the bombs, while Pearl charges up energy so that she can use her voice to fire her Princess Cannon to counteract Tartar's laser and save the world, with Marina's plan working exactly as intended, defeating Tartar and saving the world.
Splatoon 3
Pearl and Marina have teamed up with a three-person band named Damp Socks to form the aptly-named Damp Socks ft. Off the Hook, with them doing several of the battle songs you can hear in Splatoon 3. Off the Hook are slated to make an appearance in an upcoming DLC for the game.
Personality
Pearl can act rather bluntly and impulsive and at times, and has rather expressive body movement. She can be brash at times, but she does mean well and, while she can make rude comments towards Marina, most of it is playful and harmless banter, and she is shown to care about Marina, shown when she threatens Cap'n Cuttlefish if he were to ever attack Marina after finding out she is an Octoling. She is said to have trouble sitting still and tends to fidget or move around when she's stationary. Like Callie, some of her Splatfest choices are outgoing and fun, being on Team Adventure for the Adventure vs Relax event, and representing Team Chaos for the Chaos vs Order Final Fest.
Gallery
Trivia
- Concept art shows Pearl was originally going to be an Octoling, like Marina, but she was changed to be an Inkling for unknown reasons.
- It's possible that Pearl's beta design was partially reused for Acht as their lime-green eyes are very yellow in colour, similar to that of the former's beta design.
- In Japanese, Pearl's surname was revealed to be Houzuki in the Octotune album booklet, with the interview being set in her mansion.
- Pearl is apparently rather eccentric, eating cereal with a fork and owning an entire pool filled with nothing but mayonnaise. In dialogue from the Family VS. Friends Splatfest, Pearl also claims to have mailed her uncle a live Splat Bomb as a present, technically making her a domestic terrorist.
- While it's heavily implied Marina has romantic feelings for Pearl, drawing comics idolizing her and showing a great deal of attachment to her, it is unknown if Pearl herself is aware of these feelings, as she seemingly hasn't reciprocated yet.
- Pearl mentions in some elevator dialogue in Side Order that she and Marina sleep in the same bed (with the latter hogging most of the space), which confirms they live together under the same household and further implicates a romantic relationship between them.
- This is also somewhat alluded to in the song "Suffer No Fools" as when Pearl compliments Marina, Frye calls the latter a "grouper", a pun on "groupie" which often refers to women that have romantic relations to musicians who they follow around on tours, implying that Frye's aware of the two's relationship and is mocking Marina for how attached she is.
- While Off the Hook and Deep Cut apparently have a friendly relationship (appearing in the 2024 concert together and Marina having dialogue on the two bands' relationship), Pearl in particular seems to have a rivalry with Frye, with the two commenting on each others' large foreheads in some Japanese localised dialogue and Pearl remarking that Frye either ends up hugging or punching her every time they meet when the latter's palette is obtained in Side Order.
- As seen from Pearl's palette in Side Order, her favoured weapon type is the Dualies.
- If the player idles for a while outside of the Spire, Pearl will transform back into her humanoid form and rest on a structure near Marina.
- According to a developer interview, Pearl’s jacket in Splatoon 3 is meant to resemble a spacesuit and cost 200 million G to produce, thanks to it being a haute-couture designer jacket.
- At roughly 26 years old, Pearl is the oldest idol in the franchise.
External links
- Pearl on the Inkipedia
- Pearl on the Splatoon Wiki
- Pearl on the Near Pure Good Wiki
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