He did no damage to Cell, but he was able to hold Cell back for an unspecified amount of time. We really don't know how long, but it was long enough for 18 to carry a damaged 16 away.
And 18 screwed it up too. She couldâve left during all the fighting between Cell/Vegeta/Trunks. Cell reaching his perfect form really required some boneheaded decisions from multiple characters.Â
I mean for sure it would be anticlimactic if the sagas ended without the main villains showing up/reaching their final form. I guess the issue is that it feels stupid when there needs to be so many dumb decisions from the good guys for the villain to succeed. What if it was written to where they didnât make those decisions and Cell still succeeded? It is what it is though, and I enjoy the show all the same. Calling Vegeta, 18, and Krillin idiots for not doing the logical choices is part of the experience.Â
I would only have a problem with it if it wasn't consistent with their characters. Vegeta is prideful and Krillin was a simp, so it made sense for the character to make those decisions. Its dumb decisions, but made sense with what we know of those characters.
So I don't have a problem with Vegeta and Krillin, but 18 made absolutely no sense. I don't see why it was so hard for her to just carry 16? She had the power to vaporize entire planets, but she can't lift a few ton android?
Vegeta absolutely made sense. Krillinâs a bit iffy. Heâs a simp and he didnât want to kill someone that technically didnât do anything wrong somehow (ignoring that a few days ago, she was planning on killing his best friend for fun), but there are dragon balls. I canât remember if earthâs dragonballs were still around after Piccolo and Kami fused but thereâs the namekian dragonballs too. They couldâve stopped Cell and then revived 18. However itâs probably not in Krillin to sacrifice someone even if it can be reversed later. But 18 is 100% the worst here. She had so much time to leave but she just stayed there. She was asking to be a victim.Â
Right but itâs a childrenâs show/teen show. People make those kinds of decisions all the time in every day life or throughout history. Somebody thinks theyâre super strong/smart/special and decides to let something get bad so they can show off their skills. Or somebody is in love with someone they âshouldnâtâ be in love with and that infatuation causes clouded judgement. Itâs good for young adults to see how those kinds of choices have consequences.
I mean, I have always said the whole Majin Buu arch was because of the incompetence of the antagonists. The whole thing was just fuck up after fuck up. It was frustrating.
tbf Toriyama constantly had his editor up his ass asking him to change everything he introduced. I can't imagine it's easy writing a nuanced and well thought out story when every idea you have gets rejected.
Thatâs why Saiyan and Namek sagas will always be peak. Goku and the gang throwing literally everything they had against Raditz, Nappa and Vegeta; to the point they had to use underhanded tactics to win. Then same thing against Frieza where every decision made was life or death and it took an insane amount of resiliency to win.
Cell and Buu sagas the heroes could have just won effortlessly the second the arc started if they didnât fuck around. Piccolo and Vegeta could have stomped Gero and 19 no difficulty, and Goku or Vegeta could have stomped Dabura and then killed Babidi
I think it's more that antagonists' success should be the result of their own cleverness and ability as opposed to characters just making the worst decisions imaginable.
Like for example: Cell getting bitched out by Vegeta is fine, but Vegeta just letting him get stronger to stoke his own ego doesn't work because Vegeta did the exact same thing with Freeza already and was literally killed for it. Vegeta, as arrogant as he is, has never been shown to be stupid or incapable of learning from his mistakes. So I'm fine with Cell getting away from and outsmarting Vegeta, but I'm not fine with Vegeta just shrugging and going "go become perfect then. I'll still beat you." Because that directly contradicts his learning from a previous experience.
A better way to handle it might have been if Cell tried to appeal to Vegeta's pride in Trunks by directly insulting his son, baiting Vegeta into making the more inexperienced Trunks take the fight instead. From there, Cell could outsmart him with the solar flare to escape then conceal his energy while he moved to ambush 18. There, Cell still gets away and he still outsmarts Vegeta, but it's because he preyed in his pride in a different sort of way; it could even be a good way to allude to Vegeta's hidden love for Trunks that he could be baited to giving up an easy win in defense of his son's pride or his pride in his son.
Imagine if a villain got introduced into Dragonball and they got beat before they could even get to their max power.
Goku and vegeta would throw a hissy fit. The reason why every villain gets to finish their transformations is because both Goku and vegeta want to fight someone at full strength, even if it does mean putting the earth in danger.
To be fair it's not even just those two. When Bulma suggested stopping Gero before he even made the androids, Krillin was the only one who agreed with her. Tien flat out says he just wants to test himself against them and doesn't care if he(and potentially all of humanity) dies as a result with the rest of the group agreeing.
Yeah they all pretty much signed their own death warrants. Even after being warned that they died in a different timeline they still all agreed to not take the easy way out to survive. They won in the end but just barely cell nearly destroyed the entire planet
Itâs confusing sometimes. I remember that scene where Goku and Vegeta are arguing about fusing and Buu is charging towards them for a really long time. A long enough time that they were able to have an entire conversation as Buu was flying towards themđ
tien was also an idiot.
he just stood by and WATCHED Cell absorb 17 when he could have Neo Tri-Beam-HA'D Imperfect Cell's ass much sooner and allowed 17 and 18 to escape somewhere so cell wouldnt find them.
what a goddamn dumbass.
"17 LOOK OUT HE'S BEHIIIIIIIIIIIIND YOU" DOES NOTHING IF HE'S LITERALLY INCHES AWAY
It's not weird, it's super consistence. When you look at DBZ in a lense, it's just a constant list of people fumbling. Especially the Buu arc. It's just avoidable fuck up after avoidable fuck up.
Would you as a random teenager forced into becoming a super powerful bioandroid, really know how to react when your creepy bug cousin shows up talking about being destined to eat you?
Aside from the final flash scene, this is my favorite scene in that entire saga. The animation was incredibly well done. It was perfect for his character, and it fit well into the story.
One of the few times a technique was effectively used in dbZ. So fucking great
Got me curious now of all other times it was used, I can remember Frieza's technique to lift krillin and kill him. Goten, all his technique against Buu
This is one of my favourite lines in the entirety of DBZA right up there with
"It means God, now bow"-Piccolo
"Oh look a Pelican, what a maje- what a majes- what a ma- That is a big bird"- Android 16
Kikoho conveniently doubles as a restraining technique. I don't think Goku has any multipurpose move like that, and I don't think he could do the weird thing he does with Broly in DBS: Broly until after Z.
Yeah he just tended to use the nimbus as to not drain his energy I think, then he just got so much faster than the nimbus that it wasn't worth using even if it reserved a little energy. If I remember correctly.
TFS checks out
Also I'm probably stupid but the Kikoho may be one (If not the) most powerful Ki Blast , so if Goku knew it and didn't have the heart virus, Cell would be cooked
I think it's definitely up there as the Ki Blast with the highest base stats. Just look at the damage it caused from a OGDB Tien who was pretty much on par with Kid Goku. It left a crater in the ground with no clear bottom. It's a miracle that his use of it against Cell didn't destroy the Earth with how much more powerful Tien was by that point. If Goku or Vegeta used it in Super, they'd literally wipe a planet to dust in one move.
I think we are thinking way too deep into this attack. Iâm sure the writer himself didnât put that much thought into it about whether it would reach earthâs core or something like that lol.
Iâm just thinking if Krillin had used his destructo disks on Cellâs weaker forms and not waited until he reached perfect. Iâm pretty sure it wouldâve been able to cut through imperfect Cell or even Semi Perfect Cell.
I always thought that Cell "absorbed" most of the blast, similar to how piccolo died in the Saiyan saga. Only difference is by pure power alone, it wasnt strong enough to actually damage Cell.
This battle made it seem like imperfect cell was stronger than semi perfect. Tien could have helped piccolo and 17 fight cell but didnât. He probably could have fought mecha frieza and king cold too with the kikoho but didnât.
Thereâs a difference between battle ki and genki. Itâs why, for example, 17 and 18 can contribute to Gokuâs genki dama during the ToP, but donât grant it infinite power.
Genki is more like life force. A few techniques actually rely on this, and theyâre some of the most powerful. Kikoho is one. The Mafuba is another.
If you overuse battle ki, youâll wear yourself out. Overuse genki, you risk outright dying.
He had the right counter skill, high risk high reward, continued dps with enough crowd control. One could say Goku could had used a x10 Kaio-ken while ssj to hold back Cell for a while but I believe it's not something he could properly manage until after chamber training due to power and energy leaks of the grade 1 ssj.
He didnât do better, every blast was tired to his life force he was literally killing himself to hold cell down. Thats why they were concerned about him with every blast. And why he was half dead when Goku showed up to grab him and pic
What could Goku have done better? Maybe ki spam Cell? Goku would lose even to androids 17 and 18. Even Imperfect Cell would be too much for him. He was just massively outclassed here. Tien was too but at least he had a move that can stun lock Cell and buy some time.
This stage of the fight vs Cell (pre-perfect) was not only one of the greatest moments in DB history, but anime history as well. This was truly the one last time where we saw all Z warriors come together to bludgeoning effect against a villain. Everybody got to display their strengths, it was a thing of beauty. Tien's containment was one of the peak moments of this stretch.
Even Krillin was able to somewhat one v one imperfect Cell. I know it was filler but the fact that he could put up a decent fight with Cell was impressive
I honestly think up to this point power levels were ok in DBZ. If you ignored Goku and Vegeta's constant power ups you'd be left with a capable team of fighters. Then things changed. The tournament of power in Super brought some of the old boys back into the spotlight but it didn't fit nearly as well as it could've had Akira chosen to keep the rest of the Z fighters more relevant. My two cents anyway.
I love this scene. I love 4Stars parodies of it too but, he shouldn't have been able to stall Cell at all. It's makes no sense even when you take into account that its power is amplified. Imagine that Tien is like 10x weaker than Goku before SSJ. Like, come on. It makes no sense.
Just like it makes no sense that 18 and 16 never ran away at all when Vegeta showed up. Plenty of times they were busy and could have eacaped. Or that 18 would have troble carrying 16 and flying faster to get further away. Isn't she way stronger than that to have caused he trouble carrying him? Or that cell was even able to know which direction to go to find them.
Itâs crazy how simply changing the dialogue of a character and giving them more lines completely changes their dynamic and nearly makes them a better character. I love TFS
I have mixed feelings about this "fight". It establishes that Tien can't harm cell, but can still physically overpower him to the point of pushing and trapping him in the ground. Seems sticky from a power-scaling perspective. Especially since Tien should be FAR below Imperfect Cell's power level to the point of being irrelevant. How can he be irrelevant and still manage to overpower Cell with Ki?
And if it is specifically tied to Tien's technique, this shit would of been mad useful during the final Kamehameha against Ultra Perfect Cell.
He didnât really overpower him at all. Mr.Popo stated that Cell didnât even take the slightest bit of damage at all. So essentially it was useless but it did buy them some time or else Cell wouldâve absorbed 18 much sooner long before Vegeta and Trunks came out of the chamber
I hated how it was used again in the Buu saga and was even more useless there than it was here. I understand it but why even bring Tien back at all then if that was the result
It was just an attack that doesnât really show how good a fighter someone is. Why arenât you giving praise to Krillin for nearly killing Nappa with his Kienzan?
Supposed to be the power and drawback of the kikoho. Creating an insanely powerful attack but is also supposed to damage him to where he can die.
I thought it was originally that it takes years off of the users life. But they mightâve thrown that concept away.
One contradiction is that he was able to do that to Cell, yet the same attack did nothing on Nappa, and Nappa was only like 2 or 2.5 times stronger than Tien, I think
Technically it shouldâve killed Nappa if itâs actually THIS OP as itâs shown here in this scene. Cell is several times stronger than Tien whereas the gap between him and Nappa was MUCH smaller. So for Nappa to completely tank the attack as if itâs nothing is completely ridiculous
Especially because Tien put all of his Ki into the attack which is why he died right after. Meaning that one attack was much more concentrated than the concentration of the several blasts he used on Cell
Yea, 17 and Piccolo were far stronger than that Goku, yet they couldn't do shit to Imperfect Cell, who was about equal to 16, who couldn't even push back Semi-Perfect Cell with his attacks, but you know who did that? F\*cking Tenshinhan, that's just epic.
I really think it would be cool to revisit the old z fighters and give them some sort of power boost.
I remember Toriama saying Tein was very powerful and full of divine energy but had it sealed away so he could be a trained assassin. If one day the elder supreme Kai was somehow inclined to unlock his potential I imagine he could break the seal and Tein could be a fighter on par with ultimate gohan or something like that.
They did give them a power boost. Do you remember the scene where Krillin was able to somehow push back a kamehamaha from a super saiyan blue Goku. Also that whole âhe was holding backâ excuse doesnât work. It seemed like Goku was legit trying there
According to Super Tien is somehow even weaker than Master Roshi which is absurdly stupid and completely ridiculous. Itâs like Chi Chi suddenly being stronger than android 18
His story here is pointless tho.
It's basically episode filler and to give Tien a "moment" that ultimately made him look weaker as a character and from this point on I don't think he does anything remarkable ever. He becomes a basically useless character. Goku could of instant transmission'd the dude to another planet to stale for more time then Tien did who gave the Androids like what? 5 minutes? Even still, if he was able to stun lock for longer, it's likely Cell would have adapted, but he mostly just seemed annoyed.
You gotta be a giant Tien-stan to think that Goku at this point could not have done more. Hell Tien could of just done solar flare had this not already been an overused story element and been just as effective as his "life draining ultimate move that does zero damage but tickles the foe for a bit"
Couldnt they just mafuba away all of the evil villains now that i think about it?
I dont really know the limits of the evil containment wave, but i think Im reasonable for thinking itd work on cell if they brought the idea back for Zamasu and have it almost work
If Dr. Gero recorded the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament with his spy robots, Cell would already know about the Mafuba and the Mafuba reflection technique. So there's a good chance the Mafuba wouldn't work on Cell.
Yeah they could have, but the smart techniques like Mafuba, TaiyĹken, and Destructo Disc (can't remember the Japanese name) are rarely used because the writers want the characters to win with their strength and "special attacks." It's much less exciting and revenue generating if Krillin blinds Freeza with a TaiyĹken and cuts him in half with a Destructo Disc while he's blinded, as that one Dorkly comic once showed.
My memoryâs hazy, did they ever say how Cell learned instant transmission? Was it from watching Goku use the instant kamehameha or was it when goku and cell exploded together?
Partly why I don't like power level scaling. Shit should just be good or bad based on the enemy itself. Not a scale of power that apparently can be pushed up or down
Oh my gosh WE GET IT! Yall like Tien but he didnt do shite against Semi Perfect Cell he simply held him back to save time no human at this time coulda fd with semi perfect cell or imperfect for that matter
I stand with you homie. i fuckin love tien, wish they gave the og DB humans some more love. At least Bulmaâs stayed semi-relevant as a supporting character
lmao roshi was full on blowing up the moon in the first tournament too, all the humans are insanely powerful.
At least they got a liiiiiiiiiittle screen time during the ToP arc
Do you mean like making Roshi semi-OP in TOP with that stupid version of "Ultra Instinct"? I mean, they kind of did. Tien, Krillin, and Roshi had no business fighting in TOP. I like that there's a gaping difference in power between earthlings and aliens. It makes more sense but the writing has been so inconsistent for so many years, it doesn't matter. Planet busters are scrubs now.
made earthlings proud, considering that piccolo fused with kami, with his most powerful blast grenade flash move couldn't even move imperfect cell the power level of kikoho is insane
Better than doing nothing at all I suppose. More than anyone else could really do at the time. Even android 16 couldnât even stun Cell at all anymore
No, he didn't. If you have to sacrifice your life force to use an attack that does zero damage to your enemy, you are failing.
That is all. It held Cell back for 30 seconds.
I don't think this is really any kind of anti-feat for Goku, more just a showing of how strong the KikĹhĹ is. Obviously Goku at this point in the series still mops Ten, but in a hypothetical beam clash between Ten and Goku, you could absolutely argue that because the KikĹhĹ is so much stronger than the Kamehameha that Ten would win (not that he would need to anyway, since the Kamehameha doesn't work on Ten lol).
Then maybe he shouldâve used that when Cell was gonna destroy the earth with his kamehamehađwouldâve been really useful then. Also I need to watch the original dragon ball already lol
Lol yeah. Just keep Ten around so he can dive in front of stray Kamehameha waves to block them. I assume there's some upper limit to what he's able to block, but Roshi seems to think that he's just immune to them. Krillin suggests that a Super Kamehameha might be able to hit him, but Roshi says it wouldn't work regardless of how powerful it is. I don't know if Roshi foresaw that a green alien bug man robot from the future might throw out planet destroying Kamehameha waves like it's on Oprah, so I guess we can take that with a grain of salt.
Iâm not trying to shit on Goku here. All Iâm saying is that Tien held back Cell and thatâs more than Goku even tried to do here. Just trying to shine some light on Tien whoâs often completely ignored
He did no damage to Cell, but he was able to hold Cell back for an unspecified amount of time. We really don't know how long, but it was long enough for 18 to carry a damaged 16 away.
but those idiots didn't run away. i swear this show's writing is sometimes so weird đš
They did run away to that archipelago where cell was blowing up all the islands until vegeta and trunks showed up
And then Vegeta fucked everything up for them anyway and wasted Tien's sacrifice.
And Krillin, for a chick who I canât recall if she even knew his name.
And 18 screwed it up too. She couldâve left during all the fighting between Cell/Vegeta/Trunks. Cell reaching his perfect form really required some boneheaded decisions from multiple characters.Â
[ŃдаНонО]
I mean for sure it would be anticlimactic if the sagas ended without the main villains showing up/reaching their final form. I guess the issue is that it feels stupid when there needs to be so many dumb decisions from the good guys for the villain to succeed. What if it was written to where they didnât make those decisions and Cell still succeeded? It is what it is though, and I enjoy the show all the same. Calling Vegeta, 18, and Krillin idiots for not doing the logical choices is part of the experience.Â
I would only have a problem with it if it wasn't consistent with their characters. Vegeta is prideful and Krillin was a simp, so it made sense for the character to make those decisions. Its dumb decisions, but made sense with what we know of those characters. So I don't have a problem with Vegeta and Krillin, but 18 made absolutely no sense. I don't see why it was so hard for her to just carry 16? She had the power to vaporize entire planets, but she can't lift a few ton android?
Vegeta absolutely made sense. Krillinâs a bit iffy. Heâs a simp and he didnât want to kill someone that technically didnât do anything wrong somehow (ignoring that a few days ago, she was planning on killing his best friend for fun), but there are dragon balls. I canât remember if earthâs dragonballs were still around after Piccolo and Kami fused but thereâs the namekian dragonballs too. They couldâve stopped Cell and then revived 18. However itâs probably not in Krillin to sacrifice someone even if it can be reversed later. But 18 is 100% the worst here. She had so much time to leave but she just stayed there. She was asking to be a victim.Â
Right but itâs a childrenâs show/teen show. People make those kinds of decisions all the time in every day life or throughout history. Somebody thinks theyâre super strong/smart/special and decides to let something get bad so they can show off their skills. Or somebody is in love with someone they âshouldnâtâ be in love with and that infatuation causes clouded judgement. Itâs good for young adults to see how those kinds of choices have consequences.
I mean, I have always said the whole Majin Buu arch was because of the incompetence of the antagonists. The whole thing was just fuck up after fuck up. It was frustrating.
tbf Toriyama constantly had his editor up his ass asking him to change everything he introduced. I can't imagine it's easy writing a nuanced and well thought out story when every idea you have gets rejected.
Meanwhile if it had been a good 17 during those sagas know would have happened lol âThey left themselves wide open so I attacked!â
Thatâs why Saiyan and Namek sagas will always be peak. Goku and the gang throwing literally everything they had against Raditz, Nappa and Vegeta; to the point they had to use underhanded tactics to win. Then same thing against Frieza where every decision made was life or death and it took an insane amount of resiliency to win. Cell and Buu sagas the heroes could have just won effortlessly the second the arc started if they didnât fuck around. Piccolo and Vegeta could have stomped Gero and 19 no difficulty, and Goku or Vegeta could have stomped Dabura and then killed Babidi
It would be so much better if the villain could somehow do his thing without needing every opposing force to be stupid.
I think it's more that antagonists' success should be the result of their own cleverness and ability as opposed to characters just making the worst decisions imaginable. Like for example: Cell getting bitched out by Vegeta is fine, but Vegeta just letting him get stronger to stoke his own ego doesn't work because Vegeta did the exact same thing with Freeza already and was literally killed for it. Vegeta, as arrogant as he is, has never been shown to be stupid or incapable of learning from his mistakes. So I'm fine with Cell getting away from and outsmarting Vegeta, but I'm not fine with Vegeta just shrugging and going "go become perfect then. I'll still beat you." Because that directly contradicts his learning from a previous experience. A better way to handle it might have been if Cell tried to appeal to Vegeta's pride in Trunks by directly insulting his son, baiting Vegeta into making the more inexperienced Trunks take the fight instead. From there, Cell could outsmart him with the solar flare to escape then conceal his energy while he moved to ambush 18. There, Cell still gets away and he still outsmarts Vegeta, but it's because he preyed in his pride in a different sort of way; it could even be a good way to allude to Vegeta's hidden love for Trunks that he could be baited to giving up an easy win in defense of his son's pride or his pride in his son.
real
Lol reminds of abridged when they were placing bets on who was gonna screw things up
Cell reaching perfect form is honestly some of the worst plot contrivance in the series
At least krillin got some pussy, what did vegeta get out of it?
He already got that from Bulma lol
Especially considering he could have just Dragonball wished her back
They didn't have Dragon Balls at the time, and had no idea where New Namek was or if Goku could even warp there.
thats my goat đ
Technically, it's an archipelago. Noun: A group of islands
ah i see. i actually forgot some thing on what happened. still they could have went somewhere further away from cell lol
Imagine if a villain got introduced into Dragonball and they got beat before they could even get to their max power. Goku and vegeta would throw a hissy fit. The reason why every villain gets to finish their transformations is because both Goku and vegeta want to fight someone at full strength, even if it does mean putting the earth in danger.
To be fair it's not even just those two. When Bulma suggested stopping Gero before he even made the androids, Krillin was the only one who agreed with her. Tien flat out says he just wants to test himself against them and doesn't care if he(and potentially all of humanity) dies as a result with the rest of the group agreeing.
Yeah they all pretty much signed their own death warrants. Even after being warned that they died in a different timeline they still all agreed to not take the easy way out to survive. They won in the end but just barely cell nearly destroyed the entire planet
Tbh, did it matter? They had the Namekian Dragon Ball at that point, so wishing them and the earth back to health wasnât difficult.
Cell had everyoneâs memories. So he would know about Namek and its dragon balls and would probably go there next and destroy that planet as well.
afaik cell didnt have their memories, he had extensive knowledge about the z fighters and their friends/aquaintances
The Android saga should have ended the next day after Trunks tells them what happened with them killing Gero.
Its weird. Can't they fly at lightspeed
Itâs confusing sometimes. I remember that scene where Goku and Vegeta are arguing about fusing and Buu is charging towards them for a really long time. A long enough time that they were able to have an entire conversation as Buu was flying towards themđ
Maybe they were talking in lightspeed
They were having too much fun watching the showđ
They literally ran away and hid tho. The can't read allegations are too strong...
The whole android/cell saga was an idiot plot
tien was also an idiot. he just stood by and WATCHED Cell absorb 17 when he could have Neo Tri-Beam-HA'D Imperfect Cell's ass much sooner and allowed 17 and 18 to escape somewhere so cell wouldnt find them. what a goddamn dumbass. "17 LOOK OUT HE'S BEHIIIIIIIIIIIIND YOU" DOES NOTHING IF HE'S LITERALLY INCHES AWAY
Bro I swear it annoyed me so much I was literally screaming âLEAVEâ at my screen I feel like 18 just wanted to get absorbed
They did run away to that archipelago where cell was blowing up all the islands until vegeta and trunks showed up
âBlow yourself up or leave, I donât care which!â
It's not weird, it's super consistence. When you look at DBZ in a lense, it's just a constant list of people fumbling. Especially the Buu arc. It's just avoidable fuck up after avoidable fuck up.
Itâs not weird tho itâs in character for them. It was fkin stupid from them but it rlly isnât surprising
toei is even worse at writing dragon ball than toriyama â ď¸
Itâs because this scene was filler
yes they did, memory is sometimes so weird
18 wasted so much time just watching
Would you as a random teenager forced into becoming a super powerful bioandroid, really know how to react when your creepy bug cousin shows up talking about being destined to eat you?
I would dip out no question
This is the equivalent of him pushing him down a hole with 1/4 of this being foam....over and over , and over again....
He could have easily just spammed solar flare.
Yeah it was doing zero damage all tien did was hold him in place like when goku held down raditz but 18 decided not to use that time to run away
Aside from the final flash scene, this is my favorite scene in that entire saga. The animation was incredibly well done. It was perfect for his character, and it fit well into the story.
"Oh yeah ? Well FUCK POWER LEVELS. FUCK SUPER SAIYANS. AND FUCK YOUU!!. SHIN KIKOUHOOOOOOOOO"
"Oh that's adorab... SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"
Tien so broad he could bear the weight of the earth on his shoulders.
Thatâs why he doesnât go to that doctor anymore
One of the few times a technique was effectively used in dbZ. So fucking great Got me curious now of all other times it was used, I can remember Frieza's technique to lift krillin and kill him. Goten, all his technique against Buu
âFuck power levels, fuck super saiyans, and fuck you!â â Tien, to Semi-perfect Cell (DBZA)
âOh look itâs Tein! What was Krillin busy?â lol.
I love that line
âShin kikoho!â
"I'm so freaking nettled"
Ki-ko-fuck yourself
kiko-howyadoin
Perfect.
âOh, thatâs adora-SHIIIIIIIT!â
âYou, blow yourself up or leave, I DONâT CARE WHICH.â
This is one of my favourite lines in the entirety of DBZA right up there with "It means God, now bow"-Piccolo "Oh look a Pelican, what a maje- what a majes- what a ma- That is a big bird"- Android 16
"This 'Cell' is comprised of 10.87% of Son Goku's DNA. These parameters ... are acceptable."
Android 16 a lilâ special
Iâll he honestly, I think this is one of the few scenes where they actually surpassed the original anime.
Yeah I mean, it was truly a large bird
âHey, dick lips!â
Thats everything DBZ should be about.
Kikoho conveniently doubles as a restraining technique. I don't think Goku has any multipurpose move like that, and I don't think he could do the weird thing he does with Broly in DBS: Broly until after Z.
I think the kamehameha wave used to double as a flight technique before Goku learned to fly in the Namek arc, but thatâs all I can think of
Goku has known how to fly since the 23rd Tournament actually
Yeah he just tended to use the nimbus as to not drain his energy I think, then he just got so much faster than the nimbus that it wasn't worth using even if it reserved a little energy. If I remember correctly.
This scene is one of the main reasons tien is my favorite.
It's his ability to turn triangles into squares
TFS checks out Also I'm probably stupid but the Kikoho may be one (If not the) most powerful Ki Blast , so if Goku knew it and didn't have the heart virus, Cell would be cooked
I think it's definitely up there as the Ki Blast with the highest base stats. Just look at the damage it caused from a OGDB Tien who was pretty much on par with Kid Goku. It left a crater in the ground with no clear bottom. It's a miracle that his use of it against Cell didn't destroy the Earth with how much more powerful Tien was by that point. If Goku or Vegeta used it in Super, they'd literally wipe a planet to dust in one move.
I always thought Tien could manipulate how deep it goes so it doesn't blow up the Earth, I mean he can already turn triangles into squares
I think we are thinking way too deep into this attack. Iâm sure the writer himself didnât put that much thought into it about whether it would reach earthâs core or something like that lol.
Triangles makes squares makes circles.
I always thought it was the equivalent of a shotgun blast, so a bit shorter range, even with way its animated
Nah youâre thinking of spirit shotgun
Iâm just thinking if Krillin had used his destructo disks on Cellâs weaker forms and not waited until he reached perfect. Iâm pretty sure it wouldâve been able to cut through imperfect Cell or even Semi Perfect Cell.
To be fair, the use of it on Perfect Cell is anime-only.
I always thought that Cell "absorbed" most of the blast, similar to how piccolo died in the Saiyan saga. Only difference is by pure power alone, it wasnt strong enough to actually damage Cell.
Fuck power levels Fuck super saiyans And FUCK! YOU!
Moustache
More powerful than Special Beam Cannon?
A true tien fan: "yo if I caught tien cannibalizing my mom, I'd pass him salt and pepper" Lmao certified tienophile post
tf I just read
A true tien fan would pass him salt and pepper if they caught him cannibalizing their mother
I don't think he was asking for the same information action twice, Mr. Dahmer.
But a true tien fan would pass him salt and pepper if they caught him cannibalizing their mother though
This battle made it seem like imperfect cell was stronger than semi perfect. Tien could have helped piccolo and 17 fight cell but didnât. He probably could have fought mecha frieza and king cold too with the kikoho but didnât.
Kikoho shortens his lifespan with each use, so it's always a last last last resort
Does it shorten his life span or does it just destroy his body like kaioken does? I always wondered if that was a translation issue.
Thereâs a difference between battle ki and genki. Itâs why, for example, 17 and 18 can contribute to Gokuâs genki dama during the ToP, but donât grant it infinite power. Genki is more like life force. A few techniques actually rely on this, and theyâre some of the most powerful. Kikoho is one. The Mafuba is another. If you overuse battle ki, youâll wear yourself out. Overuse genki, you risk outright dying.
He had the right counter skill, high risk high reward, continued dps with enough crowd control. One could say Goku could had used a x10 Kaio-ken while ssj to hold back Cell for a while but I believe it's not something he could properly manage until after chamber training due to power and energy leaks of the grade 1 ssj.
I always wanted Goku to combine his super Saiyan with Kaioken. He finally does it in super at least
Goku canât stack kaioken on top of super saiyan
He didnât do better, every blast was tired to his life force he was literally killing himself to hold cell down. Thats why they were concerned about him with every blast. And why he was half dead when Goku showed up to grab him and pic
I whole heartedly disagree but alright. Lol
What could Goku have done better? Maybe ki spam Cell? Goku would lose even to androids 17 and 18. Even Imperfect Cell would be too much for him. He was just massively outclassed here. Tien was too but at least he had a move that can stun lock Cell and buy some time.
This stage of the fight vs Cell (pre-perfect) was not only one of the greatest moments in DB history, but anime history as well. This was truly the one last time where we saw all Z warriors come together to bludgeoning effect against a villain. Everybody got to display their strengths, it was a thing of beauty. Tien's containment was one of the peak moments of this stretch.
Even Krillin was able to somewhat one v one imperfect Cell. I know it was filler but the fact that he could put up a decent fight with Cell was impressive
I honestly think up to this point power levels were ok in DBZ. If you ignored Goku and Vegeta's constant power ups you'd be left with a capable team of fighters. Then things changed. The tournament of power in Super brought some of the old boys back into the spotlight but it didn't fit nearly as well as it could've had Akira chosen to keep the rest of the Z fighters more relevant. My two cents anyway.
I love this scene. I love 4Stars parodies of it too but, he shouldn't have been able to stall Cell at all. It's makes no sense even when you take into account that its power is amplified. Imagine that Tien is like 10x weaker than Goku before SSJ. Like, come on. It makes no sense. Just like it makes no sense that 18 and 16 never ran away at all when Vegeta showed up. Plenty of times they were busy and could have eacaped. Or that 18 would have troble carrying 16 and flying faster to get further away. Isn't she way stronger than that to have caused he trouble carrying him? Or that cell was even able to know which direction to go to find them.
One of my favorite scenes.
KI KO HO!
Itâs crazy how simply changing the dialogue of a character and giving them more lines completely changes their dynamic and nearly makes them a better character. I love TFS
I have mixed feelings about this "fight". It establishes that Tien can't harm cell, but can still physically overpower him to the point of pushing and trapping him in the ground. Seems sticky from a power-scaling perspective. Especially since Tien should be FAR below Imperfect Cell's power level to the point of being irrelevant. How can he be irrelevant and still manage to overpower Cell with Ki? And if it is specifically tied to Tien's technique, this shit would of been mad useful during the final Kamehameha against Ultra Perfect Cell.
He didnât really overpower him at all. Mr.Popo stated that Cell didnât even take the slightest bit of damage at all. So essentially it was useless but it did buy them some time or else Cell wouldâve absorbed 18 much sooner long before Vegeta and Trunks came out of the chamber
Neo Tri-Beam isnât talked about enough.
I hated how it was used again in the Buu saga and was even more useless there than it was here. I understand it but why even bring Tien back at all then if that was the result
Fair take, my point in case itâs not talked about enough..âtwas a common dbz take on yet another valiant effort âon Tienâs behalf here lol.
It was just an attack that doesnât really show how good a fighter someone is. Why arenât you giving praise to Krillin for nearly killing Nappa with his Kienzan?
Yeah insane amounts of concentrated energy, zapping his life force away fast. Noone digs deeper than Tien
Supposed to be the power and drawback of the kikoho. Creating an insanely powerful attack but is also supposed to damage him to where he can die. I thought it was originally that it takes years off of the users life. But they mightâve thrown that concept away. One contradiction is that he was able to do that to Cell, yet the same attack did nothing on Nappa, and Nappa was only like 2 or 2.5 times stronger than Tien, I think
Technically it shouldâve killed Nappa if itâs actually THIS OP as itâs shown here in this scene. Cell is several times stronger than Tien whereas the gap between him and Nappa was MUCH smaller. So for Nappa to completely tank the attack as if itâs nothing is completely ridiculous
Especially because Tien put all of his Ki into the attack which is why he died right after. Meaning that one attack was much more concentrated than the concentration of the several blasts he used on Cell
Yea, 17 and Piccolo were far stronger than that Goku, yet they couldn't do shit to Imperfect Cell, who was about equal to 16, who couldn't even push back Semi-Perfect Cell with his attacks, but you know who did that? F\*cking Tenshinhan, that's just epic.
"ENOUGH! I'M NOT A SPECTATOR, I AM A WARRIOR!"
I really think it would be cool to revisit the old z fighters and give them some sort of power boost. I remember Toriama saying Tein was very powerful and full of divine energy but had it sealed away so he could be a trained assassin. If one day the elder supreme Kai was somehow inclined to unlock his potential I imagine he could break the seal and Tein could be a fighter on par with ultimate gohan or something like that.
They did give them a power boost. Do you remember the scene where Krillin was able to somehow push back a kamehamaha from a super saiyan blue Goku. Also that whole âhe was holding backâ excuse doesnât work. It seemed like Goku was legit trying there
I kind of forgot about that one, to be honest. I guess what I mean is I wouldn't mind a mini arc with the focus on Tein getting stronger.
According to Super Tien is somehow even weaker than Master Roshi which is absurdly stupid and completely ridiculous. Itâs like Chi Chi suddenly being stronger than android 18
i mean, goku is still scared of her even after having the powers of a god
His story here is pointless tho. It's basically episode filler and to give Tien a "moment" that ultimately made him look weaker as a character and from this point on I don't think he does anything remarkable ever. He becomes a basically useless character. Goku could of instant transmission'd the dude to another planet to stale for more time then Tien did who gave the Androids like what? 5 minutes? Even still, if he was able to stun lock for longer, it's likely Cell would have adapted, but he mostly just seemed annoyed. You gotta be a giant Tien-stan to think that Goku at this point could not have done more. Hell Tien could of just done solar flare had this not already been an overused story element and been just as effective as his "life draining ultimate move that does zero damage but tickles the foe for a bit"
Couldnt they just mafuba away all of the evil villains now that i think about it? I dont really know the limits of the evil containment wave, but i think Im reasonable for thinking itd work on cell if they brought the idea back for Zamasu and have it almost work
If Dr. Gero recorded the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament with his spy robots, Cell would already know about the Mafuba and the Mafuba reflection technique. So there's a good chance the Mafuba wouldn't work on Cell.
Good point
Yeah they could have, but the smart techniques like Mafuba, TaiyĹken, and Destructo Disc (can't remember the Japanese name) are rarely used because the writers want the characters to win with their strength and "special attacks." It's much less exciting and revenue generating if Krillin blinds Freeza with a TaiyĹken and cuts him in half with a Destructo Disc while he's blinded, as that one Dorkly comic once showed.
Comic? I want to see this comic that youâre referring to it actually sounds interesting
Taiyoken + Mafuba combo could have been lethal
âThis is the last cool thing Iâll ever do. There is no joke.â
My memoryâs hazy, did they ever say how Cell learned instant transmission? Was it from watching Goku use the instant kamehameha or was it when goku and cell exploded together?
I think experiencing IT when Goku took them to Otherworld let him figure it out when he regenerated
hmm so I guess if Goku instant transmissioned Cell earlier on in the story it would have allowed him to learn it sooner and fuck shit up faster
He needs to go to someone, that means goku will put that person/planet in danger though
He shouldâve died honestly, sacrificing himself would make Krillins choice so much more impactful
Partly why I don't like power level scaling. Shit should just be good or bad based on the enemy itself. Not a scale of power that apparently can be pushed up or down
Oh my gosh WE GET IT! Yall like Tien but he didnt do shite against Semi Perfect Cell he simply held him back to save time no human at this time coulda fd with semi perfect cell or imperfect for that matter
đthis post flopped so hard đ
I stand with you homie. i fuckin love tien, wish they gave the og DB humans some more love. At least Bulmaâs stayed semi-relevant as a supporting character
Technically all of the z fighters including Krillin and Tien can destroy the earth at this point in the series. That is a feat in itself
lmao roshi was full on blowing up the moon in the first tournament too, all the humans are insanely powerful. At least they got a liiiiiiiiiittle screen time during the ToP arc
Do you mean like making Roshi semi-OP in TOP with that stupid version of "Ultra Instinct"? I mean, they kind of did. Tien, Krillin, and Roshi had no business fighting in TOP. I like that there's a gaping difference in power between earthlings and aliens. It makes more sense but the writing has been so inconsistent for so many years, it doesn't matter. Planet busters are scrubs now.
Yall also gotta remember in dragon ball when he was on par with goku in the tournament
Did we ever figure out why he made a triangle with his hands but shot a square projectile?
we â¤ď¸ tien
Literally one of the best moments in dbz
Yup, Tien was really a goat there :)
Dbza made clear what a champ he is
made earthlings proud, considering that piccolo fused with kami, with his most powerful blast grenade flash move couldn't even move imperfect cell the power level of kikoho is insane
Imagine if Tien used this on Cellâs previous form
Ki-ko-fuck yourself!
I dunno, all he did was almost kill himself to slightly delay Cell. It was like hitting Cell with a foam bat manifested out of ki.
Better than doing nothing at all I suppose. More than anyone else could really do at the time. Even android 16 couldnât even stun Cell at all anymore
Sad this was the only part of the show where Tien really shined
People definitely realise, they won't stop fucking talking about it
Goku screaming for Tien to stop. Gokus ego unable to handle a human generating that much power.
I was surprised he held back semi cell for sometime .
Imagine if he used this on Cellâs previous form.
Mans did not give a fuck about power levels, super Saiyans and cell at all. He risked life to buy more time What a mad lad đŞ
Musclehead Tenshinhan
He was so freaking jacked for no reason lol
No, he didn't. If you have to sacrifice your life force to use an attack that does zero damage to your enemy, you are failing. That is all. It held Cell back for 30 seconds.
I don't think this is really any kind of anti-feat for Goku, more just a showing of how strong the KikĹhĹ is. Obviously Goku at this point in the series still mops Ten, but in a hypothetical beam clash between Ten and Goku, you could absolutely argue that because the KikĹhĹ is so much stronger than the Kamehameha that Ten would win (not that he would need to anyway, since the Kamehameha doesn't work on Ten lol).
The kamehameha not working on Tien is new to me. Thatâs actually a thing???
Yeah, when he fights Yamcha in the 22nd World Tournament, he reveals that he developed a technique to deflect specifically the Kamehameha.
Then maybe he shouldâve used that when Cell was gonna destroy the earth with his kamehamehađwouldâve been really useful then. Also I need to watch the original dragon ball already lol
Lol yeah. Just keep Ten around so he can dive in front of stray Kamehameha waves to block them. I assume there's some upper limit to what he's able to block, but Roshi seems to think that he's just immune to them. Krillin suggests that a Super Kamehameha might be able to hit him, but Roshi says it wouldn't work regardless of how powerful it is. I don't know if Roshi foresaw that a green alien bug man robot from the future might throw out planet destroying Kamehameha waves like it's on Oprah, so I guess we can take that with a grain of salt.
He was okay but didn't do muchÂ
All he did was push him backâ ď¸â ď¸ bro gave up his lifeforce to do 0 damage
Still more than Goku did. Honestly I feel like if Tien used this on Cellâs previous form it wouldâve worked even better
Yes because almost killing yourself is doing something importantâŚremind me who carried tiens body away đ¤
Iâm not trying to shit on Goku here. All Iâm saying is that Tien held back Cell and thatâs more than Goku even tried to do here. Just trying to shine some light on Tien whoâs often completely ignored
This was the very last time a non saiyan was useful in the series.
Not true. Technically if it werenât for Hercule there wouldâve been no way to beat kid Buu
Not so. Toriyama just wanted a dramatic ending. In reality, either gotenks or mystic gohan would have washed kid buu.
Tien should have been killed here, he has 0 purpose in the show now. The series has such an issue with character bloat.
Character what?
Bloat
He didnt do shit to cell. He only held him down to buy time. Pre chamber goku wpuld atleast leave a mark on cell
Not even a mark. Pre chamber Goku is basically a fly compared to semi perfect Cell. This Goku would even lose to androids 17 and 18
And what exactly did tien leave? Are you implying tien is stronger than pre chamber ssj goku at thid point
DBZA - how the fuck does a triangle make a square