1. Its odd being a DB fan and not caring about the Saiyans. The Saiyans are objectively the most interesting and developed cast members in the franchise. Just on concept alone, they are inherently cooler than the rest of the cast, which is why even minor, one-off Saiyan characters like Nappa have big fanbases.Nickolaidas wrote:Speak for yourself - Krillin is my favourite Z Fighter and he was the reason I was watching original Dragon Ball back in the day. I don't give a flying f*&k about Goku, Vegeta or the Saiyans in general.AnimeNation101 wrote:Na. People complain about the Goku and Vegeta show but realistically, no other Z-Fighter can really hold their own in their own arc. Not in terms of strength, but in terms of interest. No one is interested enough in Roshi, Tien, Yamcha, Krillin, etc for them to have their own arc. And tbh, all these characters are done developing already. Doing any more would feel kinda forced.
Anyways, the only reason Goku and Vegeta 'hold their own' is that the show creator(s) have brainwashed the audience into thinking that by shoving them into our throats in every single episode. If they could give us 2-3 arcs with #17, Frieza and maybe Gohan perform similar awe-inspiring feats as they did in the ToP, the audience would consider them must-have additions into every single arc afterwards. The only reason Tien isn't as popular as Vegeta is because Toriyama and Toei simply chose to treat Earthlings like garbage. DB is a shonen, and in shonen power boosts popularity. And despite that, the mere fact that Krillin still has a fandom despite the fact that he is completely useless for the past 300 episodes speaks volumes of how much of a popular character he is and his potential.
And I can't help but shake my head at the posters who play the 'fanservice' card whenever they talk about Krillin, Frieza, #17, etc. being in the series once more. As if Vegeta's role from the android saga and afterwards isn't the very DEFINITION of fanservice. The Wolverine Effect in full force.
Anyway, I said it once and I'll say it again - limiting the power level potential of Earthlings (and heck, almost all non-saiyans) was the biggest writing sin Toriyama committed. But I guess he wanted a good chunk of characters to be useless next to Goku in order to show us what an amazing, bona fine hero he is and how much everything is depending on him and that only he can do our today's Villain.
2. Shoving a character in the audience's face doesn't automatically make a character popular. There are many series and movies were the main character(s) are the least popular and most hated among the fans and critics.
3. Tien was relatively unpopular compared to the other main fighters even before Z (likely due to there not being much to him), and Toriyama already stopped making him relevant after the 22nd TB arc. Krillin's popularity post-Namek arc comes from being the likable weakling who still shows bravery and tries his best despite being way outclassed by nearly everyone around him (he was still relatively strong before the Android arc). And Yamcha's popularity comes from being a meme character (which was a thing even before Z).
4. And your fanservice/author bias argument holds no weight, since Toriyama made it clear that he didn't like Vegeta back in the day and only kept him around after the Saiyan arc because he thought he was narratively useful (despite being the overall 2nd most popular character in series since debut), while Piccolo (who is Toriyama's favorite character and popular in his own right) gets sidelined compared to the Saiyans.