Not to be confused with Cala Maria from Cuphead.
"My father was a sailor, my mother was a fish. Since I was little girl, I've only had one wish. A tiny dream belonged to me to be known across the seven seas. I started small, but my ambition grew, and now I'm known across the ocean blue. All my life, what I wanted to be, the fiercest monster in the deep blue sea! It's a lonely life, but the only life I would ever want for me. But I've come so far, and now I'm a star, and everyone knows me! Yes, I am number one sea beast…I am the Cala Maria!"
—Cala Maria, A High Seas Adventure!
Cala Maria is a minor character who serves as the main antagonist of The Cuphead Show! episode, "A High Seas Adventure!". She is based on Cala Maria from the original video game.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
Cala Maria is a giant slender mermaid (a fish-human hybrid). She looks mostly the same as her game counterpart.
In her normal form, she has a purple dead octopus as hair, pale purple skin, and turquoise eyelids. She has thin pink lips, a small and pointed nose, big blue eyes, big eyelashes and thin eyebrows. She has a turquoise fish tail and her seashell bra is now greenish-turquoise. She has two marks in each of her arms.
In her other form, her skin is greenish, her hair is messy and pointed and the tentacles of the octopus are now snakes with bright yellow eyes that are shown to mirror her expressions and her eyes are at first shown to be a bright red, but further in her debut they become yellow with slitted pupils. Her teeth are sharper, and her tongue is splitted in two in the end.
In Mugman's story, Cala wears a short-sleeve light blue off-the-shoulder blouse with a white loose bow on the center, a black underbust corset with dark gray laces, and a dark blue sash, a black choker around her neck, sea-green eyeshadow for makeup, a mole under her left eye, and a pastel green bow on her head.
Personality[]
Cala Maria appears to be hostile and dangerous, turning all the pirates into stone. She has a no-nonsense, down-to-business attitude, preferring to focus on her career as a sea monster rather than reciprocate the feelings of anyone who loves her. She is also very sassy and snarky, as shown when she flatly calls Mugman "Dinner" when he was introducing himself to her. Despite this, she is very merciful when she gave Captain Brineybeard a 10-second head start before attempting to eat him and his friends. She speaks using an ambiguous European accent.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Petrification: Like in the game, Cala Maria can turn people into stone simply by staring at them. Any damage sustained by the victim in this state will become permanent once they return to normal. Captain Brineybeard is the only known person who manages to free himself from the effect due to his intense love for her.
- Aquatic adaptation: Cala Maria is a natural swimmer and can presumably breathe underwater.
- Enhanced strength: Cala Maria is incredibly strong due to her size, and her tail is powerful enough to create tidal waves and smash ships to splinters.
- Enhanced breath: She can blow kisses powerful enough to dislodge a ship from rocks and send it out to sea.
Appearances[]
The Cuphead Show! Intro[]
Her first general appearance was in the intro, where she angrily glances at Captain Brineybeard before diving into the ocean.
"A High Seas Adventure!"[]
Cala Maria serves a major role in the episode, where she is first seen after Captain Brineybeard attempts to propose a heart box to her. She then states that he talks too much and zaps a ray at him, thus turning him to stone, before splashing his ship with her tail. She is then seen in her cavern singing to herself, until she notices Mugman applauding her. However, before she can zap the cup, Mugman goes on to explain on how Brineybeard attempted to propose the heart gift to her, and opens it up to reveal sea creature parts and organs in there, which she likes. She kisses Brineybeard in gratitude, which by the power of love allows him to break free from stone. The three run away after Brineybeard proposes to her some more, (and in which this case gives the trio a 10 second headstart before she eats them) thus leading to Mugman tossing the gift into the ocean, thus buying them extra time to retreat back to the ship. Cala then blows Brineybeard a kiss which causes the ship to break free from the boulders and venture back into the Inkwell Isles.
"The I Scream Man"[]
Cala serves as a minor character in Mugman's dream sequence while the cup reads his book, portraying as the story's love interest. Every time Mugman in the story attempts to kiss her, the Ice Cream man constantly interrupts his story. After Mugman rats out the Ice Cream man in reality, it causes Cala to reject him in the story and swim away, much to his chagrin.
Relationships[]
Captain Brineybeard- She had once dated him before the events of her debut. Brineybeard has intense feelings for Cala Maria which was strong enough to break out of petrification. At first, she was crude towards the pirate, petrifying him after claiming he "talked too much" and had issues remembering his name and was only able to remember their date upon being reminded of what they had for dessert which was tiramisu. However, she is flattered at his offering to her, and felt remorse for petrifying him, even kissing his statue form in gratitude, but was shocked when he broke out of it from his love for her. And while she is appreciative of his gestures, she puts her career first and believes it would never work between them. She even admitted that she planned to eat him on their first date, but didn't on since she "filled up on tiramisu". She even gave him a 10 second head start to flee before she tries to eat them, and blows him a kiss powerful enough to dislodge his ship from a rock clump.
Mugman- He was the first to catch her attention when he applauded her singing. Though, their interaction is short, she's shown to be frank and surly with him; instead of listening for his name; she interrupts him, calling him dinner off the bat, and groans in impatience when he tries to explain why they were in her domain. Despite this, he appears to have a fair amount of infatuation towards her, given that she is used in his fantasy while reading his book.
Trivia[]
- In her song, Cala Maria reveals that her father was a sailor, and her mother was a fish.
- While she had a cutesy, pitchy voice in the game, she gains a deeper voice and an ambiguous European accent in the show. Most lean towards her having a Russian accent while others still argue she’s leaning on a Greek accent.
- For what it's worth, her actress, Natasia Demetriou is English of Greek Cypriot descend and uses a voice similar to the one she uses in the TV comedy mockumentary series, What We Do in the Shadows, where she plays the female Greek Romani vampire, Nadja of Antipaxos.
- She is most likely inspired by Ursula from Disney's The Little Mermaid, as evident to being both similarly mermaids and villainesses.
- Cala Maria and Mugman being love interests in the latter's book in “The I Scream Man“ is most likely a reference to how they are normally paired together by fans of the Cuphead series, which mostly stemmed from Mugman's innocent and passive nature in contrast to Cala's somewhat alluring and seductive personality.
- In the video game version, she redeems herself at the good ending, alongside the other redeemed villains, by cheering up Cuphead and Mugman for freeing them from the Devil's deeds. But in this version, she remains a villainess.
- Her favorite food is squid livers.
- Cala Maria is implied to have somewhat of a sweet tooth; she is shown to indulge in the rather gross body parts of different sealife in the same way a lady might do with exotic chocolates. She sincerely refers to them as sweets and they can be used to distract her. Her taste for sweet foods is played more straight when she also mentions eating lots of tiramisu.
- Given that her hair is a dead octopus, it is unknown how it is also able to change into snakes when she's in her gorgon form.
- it could be possible that the octopus may somehow be attached to her.
- Since Brineybeard was able to willingly break free from his petrification, it is likely that anyone she petrifies is still conscious. (Well... That's disturbing to think about.)
- Although the Cuphead franchise is pretty comedic, with The Cuphead Show! being no difference, Cala Maria stands out as one of the only villains that's taken mostly seriously and only slightly comically instead of the other way around, with her destruction of several ships being played for horror.
- Since her hair can turn into snakes, she could possibly be inspired by Medusa, the gorgon from Greek mythology.
Gallery[]
