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| “ | Don't you ever, ever call Rainbow Monkeys 'stupid!!' | „ |
| ~ Numbuh 3. |
| “ | So what are we gonna do tomorrow, Numbuh 1? (Numbuh 1: Uh, I'm not going to be here, Numbuh 3.) Oh. Then what about the day after that? (Numbuh 1: Uh, let me explain, Kuki...) Oh, I know you're leaving, silly! What do you think I am, an airhead or something? (Numbuh 1: Never for a second.) We're gonna miss you a lot, Numbuh 1. (Numbuh 1: I'm gonna miss you, too, Kuki. | „ |
| ~ Kuki's goodbye words to Nigel. |
Kuki Sanban (codenamed Numbuh 3) is one of the four deuteragonists of the 2002 animated series, Codename: Kids Next Door. She is a happy-go-lucky, 10-year-old 4th-grader Japanese girl who's in charge of Diversionary Tactics and she's the Medical Specialist of Sector V. She also takes care of the hamsters that power the treehouse. She's the youngest operative, and one of the two female members (alongside Numbuh 5) and the only Asian-American in her sector from the Cartoon Network show, Codename: Kids Next Door. She is best friends with her love interest, Wallabee Beatles and Abigail Lincoln. As an adult, she becomes the President of the Rainbow Monkey Corporation, and the first thing she did when she took over, was tear down a Rainbow Monkey Potty training amusement park.
Kuki's one of the two most popular characters of the show (alongside Wallabee Beatles), often topping the polls of fans choosing who their favorite KND character is.
She is voiced by Lauren Tom, who also voiced Jinx and Gizmo from Teen Titans & Teen Titans Go! in English, and Amy Wong from Futurama and by Ema Kogure in Japanese.
Personality
She's a happy-go-lucky, friendly girl who can be dimwitted or a comic relief sometimes. She is lovable and care-free. She's displayed a like-like bond with Numbuh 4, though he's oblivious to his feelings for her. She's also corruptible, when she gets a hold of power, for example, when she gained pyro-kinesis from her house's heated systems, or when she got a hold of Santa's technology, she decided to take all the presents for herself.
Appearance
She has black long hair, a green sweater dress, black tights, green socks and black and white shoes. Her hands rarely show when she's wearing a sweater dress, but when she wears different outfits, her hands show.
Character
Numbuh 3's described as the "Diversionary Tactics Expert", and she's the nurse of medic lab and the hamsters' caretaker of Sector V. She has a very short attention span, but she's long on charm, speaking in a slight Asian accent, and she alludes to her Japanese heritage often. She is girly, optimistic, bubbly, dizzy-headed, clueless, kind, caring, patient, gentle, and arguably smarter than her teammate, Numbuh 4, upon whom she harbors a crush on him, as seen throughout the show, though it is less obvious.
She loves Rainbow Monkeys, which she collects, fantasizes about, and she has extensive knowledge about. Due to her great love for Rainbow Monkeys, she'll irrationally defend them often, occasionally allowing her insanely aggressive side to show (generally accompanied by her face turning red, teeth, and ears becoming pointed and eyes flaming, resembling an oni, a Japanese demon). Despite being generally good natured, she'll occasionally have similar explosive tantrums when she;s ignored or doesn't get what she wants. As it was shown when the macaroni Rainbow Monkey painting's shattered by Numbuh 13 in Operation: M.A.C.A.R.R.O.N.I. by accident, she has the ability to scream at a deafening volume.
She's usually seen with a Rainbow Monkey doll, and her room in Sector V's Treehouse's filled with various stuffed animals and anything else colorful and fuzzy. A special ability of Numbuh 3's is that she can smell and sense Rainbow Monkeys with her nose and her heart as it was stated in Operation: R.A.I.N.B.O.W.S. and Operation: S.A.T.U.R.N.. She seems to also have a capability of speaking languages that would normally be dubbed gibberish or non-understandable, as it was shown in Operation: D.I.A.P.E.R. and Operation: V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E. (Baby and Firefly, respectively).
She's the pilot of Hippy-Hop, a giant mechanical rabbit that's equipped with a complete arsenal of weapons like missiles and drills, with a running gag throughout the show that Hippy-Hop gets destroyed whenever it appears. Despite her attitude, Numbuh 3 shows her intelligence in a few episodes, like in Operation: H.O.L.I.D.A.Y., when it's apparent that she can pilot an airplane. In Operation: H.O.M.E., it was revealed that she had a Rainbow Monkey called My First Rainbow Monkey. Also, in Operation: L.I.C.E. she had a stuffed animal named Mr. Mopsey.
But in some episodes she can be careless, like in Operation S.P.R.O.U.T, Numbuh 3 was ordered to quickly insert the shrunken I.T.S.B.I.T.S.Y in Numbuh 4's nose as the team had only 2 minutes to extract the sprout instead Numbuh 3 claimed that the shrinkification is complete and jokingly stomped her massive foot to cause an earthquake in front of the I.T.S.B.I.T.S.Y nearly crushing her shrunken teammates under her weight. She then picks up and runs around causing her to shake the vehicle violently and near her ear then she finally inserts the team in Numbuh 4's nose.
Like Numbuh 5, Numbuh 3 also has a motherly side, as it was shown in Operation: C.A.M.P.. In this episode, she and Numbuh 2 take care of a skunk named Bradley, referring to the skunk as her baby. She worries over Bradley often and she does whatever it takes to make sure that he's safe. Another example of her motherly side was shown in Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-T.H.R.E.E., when she helped Numbuh 1 take care of the baby chicks that had hatched from their eggs.
Trivia
- In the episode Operation H.O.T.S.T.U.F.F., Numbuh 3 serves as the main antagonist, but wasn't in control of her actions and has no memory what she was doing as she returned to normal.
- Coincidentally, the name Sanban means "number three" in Japanese.
