anyways since nobody asked for it here's a scalding hot take on Tien
prefacing with an "I don't actually dislike Tien" that no one will believe
he's a vastly inferior prototype of Piccolo, who develops like a reverse Vegeta
Tien is fuckin' cool as an antagonist in his beginning arc way back in DB, then he just develops into an absolute nobody, becomes Stoic Training Fight Guy who interacts with basically no one, accomplishes jackshit all (amazing that the last hurrah for humans doing anything big in Dragon Ball Z basically amounts to stalling for time, tho I'd argue that Mr. Satan's contributions to the Buu arc are more significant, just not as spectacular). Like it doesn't actually surprise me at all in retrospect that the arc where Toriyama regained creative control is the same arc that writes Tien the fuck out (and he's not even dead)
meanwhile, you have Piccolo, a later model, who is just better in every way in terms of character, development, and ability, who shows that you can be a stoic training guy while still being fun and funny and having meaningful interactions with other cast members.
Meanwhile, you have Vegeta, who is an absolute piece of shit for almost all of Z, has great development, is fucking hilarious, still interacts with people in spite of being grumpy and srs >:[ all the time instead of becoming a fucking mountain hermit like someone else mentioned in this post, on top of not making Piccolo feel redundant.
so yeah Tien still having this strong fanbase in the west honestly kinda stumps me since, worse than Krillin or even Yamcha, Tien is just sort of... a jobber.
