Livestream Summary & Rambling: Sanbaka "Overview"
Actually I already wrote a LizeAn blog post but then I figured Sanbaka should be the one I write first, so here you go. This blog will be about Sanbaka common knowledge and several inside joke (which I remember during the writing of this blog). Sanbaka (さんばか) is the unit name of Lize Helesta, Ange Katrina, and Inui Toko, all debuting in 23 March 2019, which makes them batchmates/generation mate or what we call "douki" 同期. First and foremost I will begin by straightening this very common misconception: Sanbaka does not mean Three Idiots. Sanbaka is the abbreviation of Sanba Carnival (さんばかーにばる). It is a pun, however.
Kay. Lets begin. This will also be quite long.
Members of Sanbaka "Short" Overview
All members of Sanbaka are particularly good friends of each other. They are so close they call each other "family" or "home" and often express their love to their douki in streams. This is why usually in JP if you are a fan of one of sanbaka, you will most likely hold the other members of sanbaka a special place as well. All sanbaka members try to never overlap each other's streaming schedule (unless stuff like collab with other livers happen). Very often they also end their stream before the other Sanbaka begins, thus it is very easy to follow all three of them.
Lize Helesta リゼ・ヘルエスタ
Lize is the second princess of Helesta Kingdom, 17 years old, and is student council president. Because she is a princess, everyone call her with honorary honorific "-sama" (Lize-sama - りぜ様), Her Highness (Denka - 殿下), or Imperial Princess (Koujo-sama - 皇女様). Lize's model has a lot of "wing"/"bird" concept in her, such as her hair with the wing-like feature. Helesta symbol also has feather symbol. The bird by her head/shoulder is Lize's butler Sebastian Piyodore, nicknamed Sebaspiyo or Sebas. Sebas can talk. His voice is high and he ends his sentence with ppi! (っぴ). Sebas calls Lize "Hime-sama" or "Lize-sama". Her name is in western order: Lize is her front name, Helesta is her family name.
Lize's streams consist of game stream (RPG and horror) and occasionally zatsudan 雑談(free talk). Lize's main attraction is her beautiful clear voice, extensive vocabulary, quick tsukkomi (straightman-play), intelligence, sense of humor, and overall kind personality. Lize is among those who are very good at picking up comments and responding to them, making interactions in her streams very intense and fun. She talks clearly but very fast and uses peculiar vocab (for example using words like "you flared my fury into ecstasy" to say "annoyed") while also throws niche niconico/manga meme and jokes, which I think makes her among the hardest to sub if you are not used to fast spoken Japanese, sarcasm, wordplay, and niconico joke. Lize often streams in what we call "Golden Time" (the time where people watch tv/videos the most) which is 8-9 PM JST, and on average ends her stream in 1-2 hours for free talk and 3 hours for most game play, making her streams easy to catch up and to watch in full. Her stream is also among the most family friendly of Nijisanji streams, making her audience comprise of wide age range from junior high school students to ojisans.
I may make a Lize-only post so I will end here for overview.
Fanname: Helesta Oukokumin (Helesta nationals/Helestan) ヘルエスタ王国民
Stream hashtag:#ヘルエスタ国営放送 (Helesta Government Broadcast)
Art hashtag: #ヘル絵スタ
Straightening common misconception:
She is not the first in line as heir to the throne. Lize is the fourth child of five siblings.
It's Helesta, not "Helestia" (suddenly I sound like Hermione)
Ange Katrina アンジュ・カトリーナ
Ange (pronounced Anju あんじゅ) is an alchemist from Helesta, is 26 years old, and is Lize's childhood friend as they have known each other for 10 years. They really have known each other before they become Vtuber. Her height used to be 147cm, until it was changed officially very shortly before Zepp Tokyo in March to 160 cm because she drank a potion meant to grow her boobs but instead grew her height. Her model/signature symbol is "triangle", featured in her pendant and numerous symbols in her sweater or her coat. Her name is in western order: Ange is her front name, Katrina is her family name. She is always called Ange (Ange-san/An-chan/Ange), never Katrina (except for jokes).
Ange's stream is mostly free talk (zatsudan) and game streams. Her main attraction is her deep "ikebo" voice, next-door comfortable atmosphere, her numerous hilarious personal experience talk, her dedication to humor (including risque humor), and very kind personality. Ange has good articulation and her jokes are a lot more "common" so easier to pick up for most people. She is good at playing both straightman (tsukkomi) and the stupid play (boke). She often streams at night, around 11 PM. Unlike Lize, whose target audience is very wide (from students to old men), Ange's audience are mostly adult male, thanks to her frequent shimoneta or lewd jokes. Ange is very open, friendly, and she reads her comments a lot, making her stream, too, has very intense interaction. She is also the "easily teased" personality, often playing tsukkomi-boke with her comment section and thus can talk for hours while still being engaging and interesting. She has a record of 6 hours of free talk with totally no plan. She often uses her 3D more frequently than any of Sanbaka, and is naturally very animated/moves a lot, which suits 3D usage. Although she speaks in Kansai-ben time and time again, Ange most often use standard Japanese and probably the easiest in the three Sanbaka to sub.
I may make Ange blog post, so I will end the overview here.
Fanname: Formerly Kenja Kids 賢者キッズ (Philosopher's Kids). Now: FCL (フルチンリスナー）
Stream hashtag: #賢者の時間 (Kenja no Jikan - philosopher's time)
Art tag: #絵ンジュ
Straightening common misconception:
Ange is not Royal Alchemist and not tied to Helesta Kingdom as alchemist
Inui Toko 戌亥とこ
Inui is a cerberus who works in a tea shop, thus her maid costume. Her other two heads are the two small dog head hair ornaments. Their names are Ban バン and Ken ケン (from guardian dog or Banken 番犬, as cerberus is guardian dog of hell or Jigoku no banken 地獄の番犬). Both can talk but very rarely. Inui is most displeased if people call her a dog, she would even warn/go displeased even if that was Ange/Lize who accidentally said it. Her name is in eastern order: Toko is her front name, Inui is her family name. Ange calls her Inui, Lize calls her Toko-chan or Toko-taya (taya is a more slurry version of chan, the history of how this is created is a meme story of its own).
Inui's stream consist of mostly free talk stream (even if she does Minecraft, she does what we call "night fishing" which basically just her fishing in minecraft and do free talk) and singing stream. Inui's main attraction is her really beautiful singing, her comfortable lax atmosphere, her fast and witty tsukkomi (for example towards marshmallow), her carefree personality, and very engaging talk. Her singing is so beautiful, when she starts talking in her relaxed voices many even ask, "are you the one who just sang? (sounds like a different person)" . Inui usually streams at night, like Ange, or as she sees fit, being a free spirit as she is. She is bad at games so does not do game playthroughs much. Her comment section is among the most warm and peaceful comment sections. Just like both of her Sanbaka friends, she scoops comments smartly and very engaging with her listeners. Inui speaks with dialect (Kansai Hell dialect) which might make subbing her hard for many subber.
I may make Inui blog post, so I will end the overview here.
Fanname: みんな（everyone）so basically none in particular
Stream hashtag: #いぬいどんどんすきになる (Inui dondon suki ni naru - liking Inui more anf more)
Art tag: #いぬいらすと
Straigthening common misconception:
Inui is NOT from Helesta. Her tea shop is also not in Helesta. Inui lives in Hell (Jigoku).
She is not childhood friend with Lize and Ange. Lize and Ange are childhood friend, but not Inui. Inui met them because of Nijisanji.
Her name is Toko, not Touko. Toko is onomatopoeia of trotting dog/cat, which is "tokotoko" とことこ. "Touko" is the "girl" name of Kenmochi Touya.
Sanbaka Episodes
Inui Dondon Suki ni Naru
When all 3 sanbaka first met for the first time, Lize and Ange likes Inui so much, whenever Inui says anything they keep saying "I like Inui more and more..." or "Inui dondon suki ni naru" いぬいどんどん好きになる. Lize speaks of the event in her first debut stream and that continues to Inui's stream, where it then becomes her overall tag. Inui talk more about this in this interview. This also becomes a meme with template Inui dondon XXXX naru (Inui becomes XXXX more and more). One of the examples was during Virtual to Live Concert when Inui sang Chiisaki Mono so beautifully Mayuzumi Kai made the hashtag "Inui dondon kami ni naru" いぬいどんどん神になる (Inui turns into a God more and more). In Otaku slang, you usually said to something so good/amazing as "Kami" or "God".
Gomi (trash) bgm
This official clip (kirinuki) explains about the evolution of Trash wav > mp4 > 3D choochoo train best.
During their debut stream, Sanbaka decided to do a relay project. Lize and Ange suggested on making music with only their voices and Inui was like braindead ok'd it. Turned out it was not a good idea at all. The order was Lize (Melody) > Ange (Bass) > Inui (Vocal). Midway they realized just what a bad idea it was, why the heck it was melody first instead of bass and also what would one sings if you already have melody. Anyway Lize managed to squeeze something by having Sebas sang for her, Ange did bass (while apologizing to Inui for not being able to protect her from the abomination), and Inui managed to sing with the lyrics "Welcome back, Ange, to reimprisonment" which is a reference to Ange's first video on her twitter, which was her getting caught for doing human transmutation.
During their 2.0 upgrade, they do another relay using the trash bgm. This time the order was Inui > Lize > Ange. Once they want to to Exile's choochoo train one day (which you can see it looks like this) using the bgm and so they do it with 2.0 since they can now move their head more freely. Then the gomi.mp4 was created. They attempted to do the choochoo train again in 3D. By the way what they meant as choochoo train is the wave movement at the beginning of this video:
(choochoo train is such a boom it is a frequent meme in Japanese entertainment since the 90's)
This whole ordeal is tied to two other story, one is the Gomi BGM 2021 made during their Idol costume relay (which is a story of its own) and the other one is this:
"Iya, Kanpeki yatta na" "Sou da ne!" "See yaro ka?!"
During the making of the gomi.mp4 in their 2.0, Actually after the song in her attempt on making the video, Inui said, "darn, that's perfect" (iya, kanpeki yattana) which carried on to Lize, who when playing it back over and over while doing her takes, had Inui's voice kept saying "darn, that's perfect" in repeat and Lize was like "WHAT IS?!" but then in the end when she managed to do her take, she said, "I know right!" (sou dane!), which carries on to Ange. In Ange, she got the "Darn, that's perfect!" "I know right!" and went, "I... wonder... about that...". In the end, by Ange's time, the completed gomi_douga.mp4 has "darn, that's perfect" "I know right!" "You sure?!". You can see the complete one here.
After that time, time and time again the comment section will whip out "darn that's perfect" or "I wonder..." as a meme when the livers failed but went "darn perfect".
Ange soko! Inui koko! Lize Hiyoko!
Inui's name, "Toko" sounds so much like Japanese words "koko" (here) "soko" (there) or "doko" (where). Inui's membership stamps also has "i" "nu" "to" "ko" and "do" so many use the stamps to make "Inui doko?" (where is Inui) "Inui koko" (Inui here). Inui, too, often reply to "Inui doko?" (for example where she has yet to show her avatar) with "Inui koko!" in the same intonation as when she said her name "Inui Toko". This creates this trend of playing with Inui's name, such as:
Inui doko? Inui koko! > as explained above. Usually asked by listeners at the comment section when Inui is gone from the screen. When Inui sang HERE by JUNNA, people also said Inui HERE. btw you can hear it here (timestamped):
Inui hako (box) > During Sanbaka's first ever off collaboration which was promotional collaboration with Amazon, all Sanbaka were supposed to play Apex Legend on the laptop provided by Amazon. Somehow trouble happened during stream, where both Ange and Lize were looking for Inui and when they found her she was already turned into a box (the one when you die in Apex, you turned to a box) and thus the term was born.
Ange soko! Inui koko! Lize Hiyoko! > During one of Inui's stream, a comment went on, saying" Ange soko! Inui koko!" and Inui, who said it, wondered what Lize should be and said, "Lize hiyoko!" (Hiyoko means small bird/chick, a reference to Sebas). And thus the term is born. That is tied to the next one, and later on, to their song (which then gives birth to yet another "meme")
Inui toko! Lize Hiyoko! Ange pettanko! > using the same intonation, many have tried to make Inui said it. Pettanko means flat chested, obviously poking on how Ange's chest is flat. Inui has only said it once however.
Omatase Matta? Uun, Ima Kita Toko! > Omatase Matta? Uun, Inui Toko!
Ange's stream greeting is "Omatase, matta?" (sorry, did you wait?) which should have been replied by the listeners "Uun, Ima kita toko!" (no, I just arrived), however when with Inui, whenever Ange said, "Omatase, Matta?" Inui replied, "Uun, Inui Toko!"
Sanba Carnival and 3 Bai! Sun Shine! Carnival
During their early days when they have yet to have any unit name and still looking for names, they got a lot of suggestions, some of them are quite awful and so on. They also got marshmallow and comments saying they dont want their oshi unit name to be something negative. Thus, the name Sanba Carnival abbreviated as Sanbaka, written in hiragana, is born, bearing a positive and forward looking meaning, instead of deregatory "idiots". Btw sanbaka unit as Three Idiots, written in kanji, already exist before Sanba Carnival was made, so they also put emphasis in "Sanbaka, written in Hiragana", to separate themselves.
Lize said the "Sanba" comes from their gomi.mp3 in their debut, since it is sanba-ish (you sure?), and Ange and Inui said "Carnival" is because when the three of them are together, everything is fun and exciting, just like a carnival. This carnival theme is important, since they carried it on very much and reference the terms a lot in their streams and projects. For example, during Ange's Animal Crossing, she has a loud sanba-ish music in her toilet as a reference to Sanbaka, or the "most Carnival" award in their Sanbaka Idol Costume Contest which they held on twitter. This is also important as it is the "theme" of their original song in Nijisanji music album Smash the Paint!!. Their song, 3 倍! Sun Shine! Carnival (3 fold! Sun Shine! Carnival!) has really upbeat, carnival-ish melody. This song:
This song incorporates so much of each of their own personality, also highlighting their popular memes. It begins with "Ange soko! Inui koko! Lize Hiyoko!" <<< this "Lize Hiyoko!" intonation is actually said accidentally but Inui likes the intonation so much that she said she doesn't want it to be any other version but that one, and thus the current "Lize Hiyoko" is used. The "Lize Hiyoko" intonation in the song is sure has that unique feel to it, since it "rise up" by the "Hiyoko". Other livers also note how the "Lize Hiyoko" part is very peculiar and prolly can only be said by Lize.
The song also feature an "upgraded" version of their gomi.bgm at the bridge and used Inui Dondon Suki ni Naru phrase as the call and response part of the song, which then proceeded with "Yes we are Sanba Carnival!"
The whole lyrics also described their respective personalities (such as Ange's unadorned relaxed stream, Inui's carefree personality, and Lize who always make up a plan of some kind before streams).
You can see the breakdown about the song in my post here.
Anyway, I think I have talked about them long enough so I will cut it here. The most notable projects that they have done together are:
- Sanbaka 24 hours
- Sanbaka 1st Anniversary 3D Offline Collaboration
- Sanbaka Idol Costume project, which connects to the story of Gomi BGM 2021
- Sanbaka Comicalization <!!!!!!! This, you can read for free. It is illustrated by 221 Sensei.
Each are a story of their own. If you are interested about Sanbaka, I would like to suggest this short Q&A section of Comptiq and this character sheet translations. Probably you will get a gist about their different personalities more.
That's all for me, sorry it ends abruptly lol. Cheers!
