Kaminaga Taiga’s Team Trades Knockout Losses for Close Finishes in Splatoon 3 Practice

NIJISANJI — Kaminaga Taiga of Nijisanji and teammates Mikogami Kotone, Hanakago Tsubasa and Fumi played their first team-versus-team practice for the Splatoon 3 tournament tagged #にじイカ祭り2026 on Nov. 3, and the matches changed character over the night. Early games ended in knockouts, with the team pinned down and unable to break out; by the end they were taking matches to the final minute and winning some of them. All four streamed the session from their own channels, and Kaminaga’s ran more than six hours.

Kaminaga opened with solo practice, saying he would meet his senior teammates at 10:30 p.m. Hanakago joined partway through and played with him, telling him there was no need to stick with the blaster he had been using and that he should try different weapons and keep whichever felt right. Kaminaga went back to the Splattershot Jr., a beginner-friendly shooter, and said it made his own movements easier to follow. Hanakago also told him that when his ink runs low on top of the tower in Tower Control, he can dive into the ink beneath him.

“It was fun. But the frustration when we lost was intense, and it keeps flashing back after every match.” — Kaminaga Taiga, closing out the practice

Mikogami, who led the team and played a charger, a long-range, sniper-style weapon, joined with Fumi; teammates called her “sergeant.” She told Kaminaga that no one is expected to do everything right at first and asked him to begin by calling out what he could see on his own screen, even just “there’s an enemy in front of me,” so teammates could come to his aid. The team then played another team in the tournament, rotating through Splat Zones and Tower Control stage by stage. After one match slipped away in overtime, in which Kaminaga’s and Fumi’s Big Bubbler barriers went off at the same time, Mikogami used it to show why calling out special timing matters. Kaminaga said it was his doing.

After the first lap through the stages, Mikogami asked the other team for a ten-minute timeout, which they granted, and used it to explain the Reefslider, a special that sends a player gliding across the stage before a wide explosion. The blast reaches players on lower levels too, she said, so the way to avoid it is to put a wall or a lower step between yourself and the explosion and to guess from the opponent’s position which side it will come from. She also asked Kaminaga not to push ahead when no teammate was in front of him. Later, after a break between laps, she led the group on a walk around a stage to practice routes and jumps, where Kaminaga learned to hold the B button for longer jumps and landed a squid roll after being taught it.

The first win of the night came in the third lap. After a long fight into overtime, the team took the match, and Mikogami, who said she had 27 kills in it, credited her teammates’ attention to the area objective for letting her keep picking up kills. A second win followed about seven minutes later, with Mikogami crediting a Big Bubbler from Kaminaga for getting the team to within one count. A comeback near the end of the night brought another win, though a few close matches slipped away. Chat filled with cheers during the wins, and one viewer wrote that it was moving to see them winning now.

Afterward the four discussed a team name to use as a hashtag from the next session, one based on 神の加護 (kami no kago), a phrase for divine protection. Mikogami said the team plans to practice almost every night, possibly starting as late as 1 a.m. once everyone’s work is done, and that she would join a Dream Match event on the night of the 4th before returning to team practice. Hanakago said the tournament was three or four days away, and Fumi said she expected to return to her usual streaming hours in a day or two. Kaminaga said he had planned a 7 a.m. morning stream but that, with practice running this late, it might not be possible this week.