Risuia

It was a very difficult piece to work on, but I'm glad I pushed through and finished it.

Realising how much you changed throught time. Mourning what used to be, your memories, your hapiness.

Traditional practice! Made with watercolor and gouache. (slight color adjustement made on photoshop)

- First of all, let’s put basic stuff:

like the fact that sea anemones aren’t corals: they aren’t as rigid, since they are invertebrate, (corals have a skeleton!) and thus, soft. But they are still sea animals heavily related corals.

(I’m not an expert AT ALL on this subject, this just scratch the surface, but hopefully this is correct)

Now, in Splatoon:

In the first game, there is a sunken scroll with a “realistically accurate” (from our point of view as human from their past) sea anemone, …

… acknowledging an evolution that was made through time. Similarly, to inkling and octoling, depicted in a “realistically accurate” way that we see throughout the three games.

While, in the announcement of 3’s DLC we saw, well, dead corals everywhere.

(And they obviously didn’t evolve, them not being sea animals like sea anemones.)

- Now the basic stuff is put, let’s talk about Annie:

In Splatoon 1, while her artwork seemed dull in comparison of her render, it’s important to take account of the warm light source in her shop, which in the end made her “hair” as vibrant as the art.

Let’s compare with the matching light source with the render of her new design:

The main color went from a vibrant pink-orange warm color to one waay less vibrant and more cold-ish, the orange in the color is gone. The same goes with the green accent, they can even seem even white. (or transparent at some point?? With less opacity?? but that may be just me)

White like dead corals.

Once again, corals and sea anemones are different as talked before. But they are still related, and it made me ask:

Are sea anemones affected by the source of what is causing coral death? (which some of us theorized to be from a nuclear winter)

- I could have stop there. But Annie isn’t the ONLY sea anemone, enter Harmony:

She wasn’t in any game before 3, the only resources we have from her BEFORE the 3 is an artwork for Chirpy Chips for each of the two first game.

Here they are, with the art and render from splatoon 3:

She went from pale to vibrant, unlike Annie.

If there’s truly coral dying and impacting sea anemones, there wouldn’t be any reason why Harmony isn’t hit as well.

-Putting aside the ‘coral dying impacting sea anemone’ thing, I thought of other possibilities:

Age:

We can easily imagine Annie being way older than Harmony, being a shopkeeper, and online shopkeeper as well.

So, what If their color is fading growing up?

-But it still won’t fully line up with Harmony, which led to the last idea:

Health:

Harmony is known to have issue taking care of her (poor) clownfish, their color indicating neglect.

She may have been neglecting herself prior Splatoon 3. Maybe from overworking herself, or even from her own neglect to her clownfish (since sea anemone and their clownfish have a symbiotic relationship).

(And thinking about their symbiotic relationship, could it be Annie’s clownfish, Moe, dying? Since their lifespan is different and all.)

-Oh, and by the way; what about the urchins?

Nothing.

They aren’t corals, nor as close by family or whatnot to them!! They are closer to mollusks. So, no ‘withering’ like coral!

Of course, it could be simply just a change of style from Annie, and for Harmony, as I said, there’s not much to work with, all of it is thin ice in the end!!

But I still find it odd the change made for Annie, no other NPC had any change similar like that (change of color, not like Spyke and Murch who had simply grown) but, maybe, in the end, she simply grown old as well!

Pheww, anyway, that’s it!! Thank you for reading this theory/headcanon thingy!! Hope it’ll give ideas or watnot for headcanon or OCs!!!

(also I don’t know if anyone already talked about this before, but here u go!)