B3-NK1 wears a yellow armor with purple shoulder-neck and waist pads, a number of blue beads and black gloves with gold linings. He has green facial features. He also carries a naginata.
In the anime, he is eager and hard-working in his quest for the "Heroic Screws" (Japanese: 英雄のネジ,Eiyū no Neji), which he believes he could awake the true power of his naginata.
Using his naginata, B3-NK1 can pierce through modern technology devices without making holes in them, and uses it for looking for screws needed for said devices to work in order to assimilate them with his weapon and forging the "ultimate weapon". In particular, he looks for Heroic Screws, special screws that represent the souls and powers any form of machinery, and it's said that collecting 1,000 of them will awaken the true power of his naginata.
B3-NK1 can be found in the area behind the 20 Gate Globe Door as well as once again in Gourd Pond Museum at night. He can also be freed from the Crank-a-kai with a Red Coin.
B3-NK1 can be found under cars in Breezy Hills, alternatively the player can find and befriend him in the Kyubot or Venoctobot Dungeons as a normal enemy.
B3-NK1 appears in Yo-kai B3-NK1, in which he causes some of the electronic artifacts in the Adams House to suddenly stop working. When confronted by Nate, he reveals he caused these malfunctions in his search for the "Hero's Screw", which he states that they can awaken the true power of his naginata, collecting his 998th from Nate's air conditioner, and the 999th from the vacuum cleaner near Jibanyan, Nate, and Whisper. To fix B3-NK1's messes, Nate summons Robonyan, who is then attacked by B3-NK1's polearm when the Yo-kai notes Robonyan's metallic body. However, Robonyan oddly turns out to enjoy its piercing, to the point where he kept prodding B3-NK1 to keep searching him for a Heroic Screw despite his denials to the group when confronted on it. Suddenly, Robonyan begins extending his limbs, tails, and neck, then quickly retracts them, and falls off of B3-NK1, leaving behind a Heroic Screw, and one of the best in the collection to boot, and assimilates it with his polearm, causing it to assume a brand new form. B3-NK1, out of gratitude, gives Nate his Yo-kai Medal. But at that time, Robonyan started a self-destruct process due to the knife he received and was about to destroy almost the entire city. Fortunately, Jibanyan punched Robonyan at the last moment and got Robonyan to fix himself. However, Robonyan was enraged again and told B3-NK1 that he owed him money and again asked him to stab him. This caused the others to go mad with anger.
He later appears in the Komasan Taxi segment complaining about this episode. Robonyan tells Komasan and Komajiro that his actions were B3-NK1's fault so the two stop the car and let B3-NK1 in. Robonyan continues to be distracted by him and although states he'll 'be good', he soon backtracks saying he's feeling strange protocols because of him again leaving Komasan exasperated.
He was among the Yo-kai who were summoned in EP064 to stop Bruff but was swayed by Bruff.
In EP119, he caused Robonyan F to lose the race after distracting him.
Etymology[]
"Karakuri Benkei" translates as "mechanical Benkei".
"B3-NK1" is the name "Benkei" partially cyphered to resemble a machine's serial number.
Origin[]
B3-NK1, like Benkei, B3-NK1 is based on the warrior monk-turned-lieutenant who served Minamoto no Yoshitsune (see Benkei#Origin).
His Japanese name, "Karakuri Benkei", refers to karakuri ningyo, mechanized puppets built during the years from the 17th to the 19th century for entertainment purposes, festivals and stage tricks.
Trivia[]
Even after B3-NK1 has awakened the new form of his polearm in EP023, the polearm seems to have returned to normal in his subsequent appearances.