Frye

"Say it with sizzle... I'm Frye!"

- Splatoon 3 Direct

Frye is a character in and one of the three members of the band Deep Cut, alongside Shiver and Big Man, with whom she co-hosts both Anarchy Splatcast, the news show of Splatsville, and Splatfests. She is also the second boss of Return of the Mammalians. Her signature color is yellow.

Appearance
Frye is an Inkling with medium brown skin and a round face, with large eyes under round yellow triangle eyebrows. Her irises are golden, with yellow pupils in the shape of a plus, similar to that of the Squid Sisters and Pearl. Her inkling eye mask is fairly large and exaggerated, and ends in points that lift off the sides of her face. On top of the eye mask are thick yellow eyelashes with an orange gradient at the ends. Her top teeth are sharper and more prominent than other Inklings, sometimes peeking out of her closed lips like fangs.

Frye's yellow tentacles are thin and wavy, and reach about shoulder length. She styles them in two parts: one lock framing the left side of her face, and the other tucked behind her right ear. The left tentacle has an off-white cord criss-crossed around it. Her tentacles end with a purple gradient. Frye's ears are very long and pointy, and her right ear is pierced with three moray eel tooth-shaped earrings.

Frye has a fun, yet rebellious sense of fashion, with a possible root in traditional Indian culture. Her outfit consists of a sleeveless yellow turtleneck crop top under a small yellow shawl made from a shiny translucent material. She wears off-white pants that are extremely baggy, pulling inspiration from the traditional costume of certain Indian dances. Three holes on the left side of her pants reveal she wears black leggings underneath. Around her waist is a thin tan rope belt; hanging from it on the left side is a large golden squid charm with two purple tassels tied through holes in the ornament. On the top left of her head is a golden-colored hat made from cube-chunks, most likely resembling either fried batter or mango chutney. Her feet are partially covered by off-white toe-less socks.

In certain circumstances she also wears a tan and white eel mask, with possible inspiration taken from Japanese tanuki masks.

During Splatfests, any part of Frye's appearance that is normally yellow changes to match the color of her Splatfest team; while any part that is normally purple changes to match Shiver's team color, including her fingertips, toes, squid charm tassels, and pant hole edges. Her shawl also seems to light up with the music.

Return of the Mammalians
Frye and the rest of Deep Cut are initially hostile to Agent 3 and the New Squidbeak Splatoon, declaring that all treasure in Alterna is theirs to plunder and that they won't let anyone else have it. Later, when the Squidbeak Splatoon team agrees to give Deep Cut the Treasure (after using it to remove Fuzzy Ooze), they decide to become the player's ally and help them in defeating Mr. Grizz. Frye personally calls upon her dancing eels to conjure up whirling storm, in order to give the player a boost into outer space.

Boss

 * Main article: The Future Stares Back.

Frye is the second boss of the single-player campaign, Return of the Mammalians, and the first Deep Cut boss. Her boss kettle is found on the Cozy & Safe Factory island.

Trivia

 * In the Japanese version, she speaks with the personal pronoun washi (most commonly used by old men), adding "ja", "zo", and/or "na" at the end of her sentences, and addresses people she isn't close with as omae-san. While this is associated with being old-fashioned, this pattern is also close to the Chūgoku dialect, particularly that of Hiroshima, and has a "jolly" association with the tone. The connotation of speaking like an old person is lampshaded in the Japanese version, as she makes the comment:「最近の若いもんはつまらんのう」or "The Youth of today are so dull," during her first meeting with the New Squidbeak Splatoon.
 * Splatoon 3's Sunken Scroll #11 hints to the fact that Frye is descended from the Onaga Clan, along with a family tree at the bottom left-hand side of the scroll. The photo shows inklings wearing the same mask that Frye uses in her introduction to Deep Cut in the Splatoon 3 story mode.
 * Frye is described to "[sing] with a melody that makes you feel as if a desert is in sight". However unlike Shiver, her voice actress (still unnamed) has a musical background that is different from her singing style, being that of jazz.
 * In her boss battle, Frye uses the Indian pungi flute to summon her eels. This type of flute is used for a variety of practices, but is most commonly associated with snake-charming.
 * If the player has Color Lock toggled, Frye's ink color in her boss fight changes from yellow to blue. Her design also changes with the yellow and the blue swapping places, and the face of the Octostomp's remains change color to blue.
 * Frye is the first inkling to be explicitly shown to have a tongue in-game. The only time an inkling's tongue had been shown previously was in the artwork for Splatoon ' s Naughty vs. Nice Splatfest.
 * In her dialogue in both the Rock vs. Paper vs. Scissors and Gear vs. Grub vs. Fun Splatfests, Frye is shown to be very indecisive.
 * One of Frye's speech soundbites bears a strong resemblance to a common English expletive. This is likely to be a coincidence.

Etymology
"Frye" comes from the verb "to fry", the action of cooking food over heat, contrasting with Shiver's name, which suggests cold. A "fry" is also one of the collective terms for a group of eels.

"Utsuho" is a rare Japanese female given name usually spelled with the kanji 空 (sky/void) or 空穂 (sky/void-ear), which may also be read Utsubo. It is a pun on 鱓 utsubo, the Japanese word for "moray eel". This is in reference to Frye descending from a lineage of moray eel trainers.