Build-Up

[Piccolo Daimao]

I was thinking last night about instances of how the story builds stuff up, and while there was times when it goes right, there are times when it's just forgotten about and brushed over. For example, Goku, Tenshinhan and co. get a good amount of build-up, but primarily Goku and Tenshinhan, at the 22nd Tenka'ichi Budokai as marking the new generation of warriors. Yes, Goku goes on to do great things and Kuririn's a pretty prevalent character up until the Freeza arc and still plays a role with the whole #18 remote stuff, but Tenshinhan? I expected him to be a big player on the frontlines - someone who got some development (yeah yeah, I know he flip-flopped from evil to good in a matter of however long that period was, but he was marked as the beginning of a new era of martial artists) and a lot of build-up as a gifted martial artist, but in the end, after the 23rd Budokai, he was killed by Nappa (but everyone was just basically getting their asses beat waiting for Goku to come save the day and look all the badass in the process), but was basically shafted.

No, this isn't one of those rants about "more times to shine for humans", because I'm bored of them now. I can understand Yamcha and Chaozu, since...well, they're Yamcha and Chaozu, and to be fair, Kuririn still had a part to play throughout the story. But Tenshinhan was bigged up as only second to Goku, yet he ends up just as much of a sideliner as Yamcha.

And then there's the Boo arc. Gohan's built up as the next hero to take over after Goku's death, but that doesn't last for long (besides, Gohan's not a warrior at heart anyway), since he's immediately shafted for the new kids on the block (in the process shitting on all that wasted build-up), and Gohan, Goten and Trunks are all shafted by Goku, who gets to be the hero again.

What are your thoughts?