Octo is a Scylla who, thanks to the influence of The Little Mermaid narrative, has long been believed by the Mermaid Kingdom to be an evil sea witch.
Wrongly accused of causing the current "elopement problem" plaguing the populace, Octo seeks to clear the kingdom's misunderstandings so that she may live in peace, which she ultimately succeeds with the support of Kimihito and his homestay girls.
In Monster Musume, as with many manga/anime series, Scyllas are portrayed as cecaelias, of which one the most well-known members of this race is Ursula, the sea witch from Disney's The Little Mermaid.
Appearance
Octo's appearance is that of a Scylla, with tentacles acting as her legs from her hips down and is very buxom.
Her hair appears to be smaller tentacles, with two larger ones draping over the sides of her face. Her overall appearance is quite attractive, if not mysterious due to the amount of clothing she wears to cover herself.
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Personality
Octo's personality appears to be very playful, similar to Rachnera, as she appears to enjoy fondling the other characters with her tentacles, is openly flirtatious, and seemingly quite confident.
She quickly shows thanks towards Kimihito and the other girls when they offer to help clear her name, even going as far as to promise Kimihito with a "nice reward" when they are done.
While Octo has a playful side, she can easily be serious when needed. Although Octo was initially quite annoyed that so many people would come to her for advice on their problems, she later seems to have taken a liking to it.
As revealed in Chapter 66, Octo worked to earn money at the Sno Ball Hot Spring Resort at her own booth called "Ms Octo's counseling room".
As seen in the omake of Volume 16, Octo can also be quite inattentive at times, not realizing that the young man who pretended to keep asking her for advice on romance was actually in love with her, although it was very obvious.
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Abilities
- Cooking: Octo appears to be very talented in cooking various assortments of seafood.
- Bondage skills: Octo is shown to be proficient in bondage, using her tentacles as a way of binding and gagging trespassers who unwittingly stumble into her territory.
- Dexterity: Octo appears to be very talented in the use of her many tentacles and that includes the ones on her head, being able to use them to subdue people with bondage.
- Slimy skin: To protect her from drying out, Octo's skin is covered in a slime which is even more viscous than that of a Mermaid.
- Tentacles: In addition to being able to stretch out to a certain extent, Octo's tentacles also possess a strong regenerative ability. Even if she were to lose a whole leg it would grow back.
- Ink Discharge: Octo has the ability to shoot ink from an ink sac in her throat when she is in danger.
Story
Octo originally lived a peaceful life in her cave near the Mermaid Kingdom. This changed, however, when the Mermaid queen (Mero's mother) started spreading rumors that the Scylla was an evil sea witch who would use magic to seduce the Mermaids into eloping with humans.
As Mero's mother later explained, she didn't actually have anything against Octo personally, but simply used her because it suited her plan to sow discord in the relationship between humans and Mermaids.
Although there were many people in the Mermaid kingdom who were frightened of Octo by the rumors, some also began to actively seek her out, either seeking advice from her or believing she could make them look better with magic.
Among these people were the two Fishfolk butlers Flounder and Sebasstian and even the Mermaid king (Mero's father) before he eloped with a human woman.
Seeing no other way to clear up the rumors, Octo started looking for Mero, hoping that the princess might have the power to clear up the misunderstanding.
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After Octo learned in Chapter 35 that Mero was visiting her mother at the mermaid hotel, the Scylla tried to talk to the princess, in order to stop the rumors of her responsible for making mermaids eloping with male humans.
Mero believed Octo and was willing to help her to solve this problem, but since they couldn't talk to each other undisturbed in the hotel, the two sneaked out of the hotel and Octo took Mero to their cave.
Octo also left what she thought was a "friendly message" for the hotel staff to explain Mero's absence, but she didn't notice that the short message sounded like a threatening letter.
Kimihito and his other homestay girls, who visited the Mermaid hotel with Mero, were quickly informed of Mero's "kidnapping" by Sebasstian and Flounder, and the two butlers took the group in Chapter 36 to Octo's cave to "free" Mero.
When Kimihito together with Miia, Centorea and Rachnera enter the cave, they quickly clashed with the giant sea anemones, which quickly paralyzed Miia and Centorea with their poisonous tentacles.
Octo, who mistakenly thought that Kimihito and his homestay girls were pursuers sent by the mermaids, then intervened in the action herself by tying Kimihito up with her tentacles and capturing him.
She faces off with Rachnera, which led to a pat situation in the end, as the two tied each other up with their tentacles/spider silk.
Octo later invites them to have Takoyaki in her cave and explains to them with Mero's help that she has no intention of harming the mermaid princess nor is she responsible for the elopement problems in the kingdom.
Octo joined the group in Chapter 37 to explain the matter of the rumors to the Mermaid Queen (as they only learned shortly afterwards that the Queen was responsible for the rumors).
After a chain of events finally led to the Queen almost accidentally (albeit indirectly) causing the death of her own daughter, she finally abandoned her plan and informed her people that the rumors that Octo was an evil sea witch were not true.
After her name was cleared again, Octo opened an advice parlor, as revealed in the omake to Volume 9, in which people (who were kept anonymous to the audience) could seek Octo for advice.
After Octo had advised Lala and Manako more or less well, to her surprise, the Mermaid Queen also came to ask Octo for advice.
The Queen wanted advice on how to reconcile with her former husband, the mermaid king, but only because she found it "far more exciting" if "an obstacle" (the King) would stood in the way of her love for her human boyfriend.
Sometime later, Octo found employment in the Sno Ball Hot Spring Resort as a counselor in patching the relationships between female liminals and male humans they've been paired with.
In Chapter 66, Yukio and Kimihito briefly asked Octo for advice if there was a Liminal woman who had said at the counseling that she was dating multiple men.
This question was based on the fact that the dating results had shown that all participants, whether male or female, had found a partner, but as Yukio had previously explained to Kimihito, this could not be because there were always more male than female participants in the dating pool.
As later revealed in an omake of Volume 16, Octo was able to help all the couples who came to her with advice, but there was a young human man with whom she got stuck.
The reason for this was that the Liminal woman the young man liked was Octo herself, but he was too shy to tell her that and he only sought her out for advice to finally find the courage to do so.