Dear Pearl

"The Squid Research Lab has secretly acquired a manga written in Inkling language!"

- Note before the first page

Dear Pearl is a short manga written and illustrated by Marina that parodies shōjo manga. It was first announced on CoroCoro's website before being released in full as a bonus feature in Splatoon, Vol. 10.

Description
The manga was created by Marina, a fan of shōjo manga and amateur artist, in what seems to be her debut in manga creation. Dear Pearl is extremely short, containing one cover and six pages total, and is exclusively rendered in black and white. The manga's title and fictionalized autobiographical content suggest the intended audience is Pearl, though whether or not it has been shared with anyone or published is unknown.

The manga itself features over-exaggerations of tropes commonly found in shōjo manga that center on romance:
 * Marina portrays herself as overly clumsy and unskilled, becoming very flustered or dazzled around Pearl, similar to shōjo protagonists.
 * Marina's exaggerated clumsiness is delivered through her operation of heavy machinery, a type of work that clashes strongly with what is typically included in shōjo manga.
 * Pearl is portrayed as very handsome and knowledgeable, similar to shōjo love interests.
 * A humorous amount of sparkles and flower petals are present in almost every panel that features Pearl.

Plot
The manga starts with Marina reminiscing about how she imagined the world on the surface, before she defected from Octarian society; she thought it to be filled with song. It then cuts to the construction of MC.Princess Diaries, showing an excavator piloted by Marina that throws the three steel beams carried in its claw at the NILS Statue, knocking it over. Marina gets frustrated by this and tries to pull herself together, yet fails again on her second attempt. Pearl, drawn like a bishōjo, appears with a can of Tentacola and praises Marina, startling her. Pearl chuckles in response and, now wearing her clothes from Chaos vs. Order, reminds Marina that the final Splatfest is drawing near. She then starts elegantly jumping from side to side after declaring that they should "go off with a bang", a maneuver similar to how she warms up to use her Princess Cannon during Turf War, causing Marina to be awestruck by her coolness. The last page shows Pearl using the Princess Cannon, with Marina watching admiringly. The manga ends with Marina wishing she could "shout out a Killer Wail too" over a panel showing a love letter to Pearl and an envelope sealed with a stamp showing the Splatfest symbol.

Localization differences
In the original Japanese version, rather than by Pearl's coolness, Marina is instead awestruck by her stylishness. In the panel where Pearl is using the Princess Canon, Marina says in her inner monologue that Pearl has a huge presence despite her small stature, rather than that "[she is] so small...but [she is] so big." In the panels showing the letter that Marina is writing, she muses about wanting to shout out "these feelings [for Pearl]" through a megaphone similar to Pearl's use of her modified Killer Wail (which is called the Megaphone Laser in Japanese), rather than simply wanting to use a Killer Wail in general. The stamp on the envelope was also changed to the Splatfest symbol in the English localization, as it was originally an octopus symbol that bears a similarity to the octopus portion of the Splatfest symbol.

Quotes
"Today, Shogakukan Inc. has released the 10th volume of the Splatoon manga. The "X-Blood Arc" to determine the Ranked Battle champion is at its peak! As a bonus, this issue includes a Japanese translation of Marina Ida's 6-page manga, "Dear Pearl", which was acquired in absolute secrecy."

- The Squid Research Lab

Trivia

 * Unlike other bonus content from the manga, Dear Pearl is not listed in the volume's table of contents.
 * The manga's Japanese name is the same as the Shifty Station MC.Princess Diaries, Dear Senpai. Interestingly, all Shifty Stations are in Japanese named after a real-life shōjo manga with the exception of MC.Princess Diaries.
 * This manga marks the second time Marina's artwork has ever been shown, the first of which was drawings of Agent 8 and Pearl in a shōjo manga style shown on Marina's laptop during finale. The construction of MC.Princess Diaries took place after the events of Octo Expansion, suggesting Marina began working on more ambitious creative works sometime after.

Etymology
The word "Dear" followed by the intended reader's name is one of the most common salutations in epistolary writing (letter sending). At the end of the manga, it's revealed that Marina is writing a confession letter to Pearl, which likely contains the title in its greeting. Alternatively, the manga as a whole may be intended as a love letter to Pearl.