Nagao Kei Reviews His Splatoon Tournament, Which Grew From About 60 Applicants to 96

NIJISANJI — Nagao Kei looked back on the 2026 Nijisanji Splatoon 3 tournament, Nijisanji Ika Matsuri 2026, in a stream of nearly five hours on Friday night. He called the event a success, saying he had met his main goal for it before the final rounds even began.

He started with how the competition played out. Apart from team 1, he said, it was hard to tell which team would win. Team 19 had little time to practice, and for team 1 he had not imagined how new to games one of its members, Taiga, would be. Nagao said he taught Taiga from the basics of jumping up ledges, and that within a week Taiga was landing kills from hiding and using specials to break through. He named Taiga the biggest riser of the tournament. He also pointed to the lowest-ranked players on teams beating team leaders, which he said would not have happened in past tournaments, and said he was beaten several times himself.

“Seven days, after all. That’s the right length.” — Nagao Kei, on the length of the tournament

On the format, he said this year’s mixed tier list was meant to be proved wrong by the players. Unless something comes up, he plans to go back to separate divisions next year, and is weighing mixed tiers every other year. He said the nine-day run was too long, and that seven days is right. The tournament overlapped a Splatfest, which he called unavoidable because he could not ask Nintendo when it would come. Asked why he does not hold beginner lessons ahead of time, he said a first Splatoon session should happen on stream.

Nagao then went through clips of the tournament, among them a main-broadcast moment in which two MCs joked about how awkward it felt to be paired, and a match in which a whole team stacked Tri-Tornado specials. When a team used the Camping Shelter, he said it was not in his data. Viewers sent eight Super Chats, several of them thanking him for hosting.

Near the end, he and the others on the stream said about 60 people had applied at first, and that a one-line message asking whether someone was not entering this year, with a link attached, brought in about 30 more, for 96. He said he will ask Nijisanji members how many want to play next year and hold the event if more than 50 do. If it uses Splatoon 3 again it will have divisions, he said, and if Splatoon 4 is out it could be mixed. An after-party for the event is set for the 16th, which he expects to be its last piece, and he said he would stream as usual the next evening.