Judd

Judd is the cat who counts the paint. At the end of every Turf War he waddles onto the stage, raises a flag for the winning color, and declares a result nobody argues with. He is round, slow, and dignified, and he has been doing this since the first game without any apparent interest in who wins.

The scroll

Judd is also the strangest character in Splatoon. A Sunken Scroll in the first game reveals that he is not a sea creature at all but a mammal from the human era. His owner, a scientist who foresaw the flood, sealed him in a preservation capsule with instructions for his care. Millennia later the capsule opened, and a cat walked out into a world of squid. He has been the Turf War judge ever since, the only mammal in Inkopolis and, until Splatoon 3, the only mammal anyone knew of.

Fans have long theorized that Judd's owner was the same professor who built Commander Tartar, or a resident of Alterna. The games never confirm it, but the timing fits, and the idea that one human's love for a cat outlived the species is one of the series' quietly devastating details.

Li'l Judd

In Splatoon 2, Judd is joined by Li'l Judd, a small cat who judges alongside him. Li'l Judd is implied to be a clone created as a backup, and his sweet appearance hides, according to Sunken Scrolls and some pointed animations, an ambition to replace the original. Judd seems unbothered.

Character

Judd says nothing but "Meow," and the games translate it into cheerful bonus-cash announcements and gentle advice. He is a fixture rather than a personality, and that is the point. The last living link to the old world does not lecture the kids who inherited it. He sits on his cushion, keeps the score, and sleeps a great deal.