Dragon Ball‘s official site just shone its Weekly Character Showcase spotlight on a Z-Warrior who rarely gets top billing during the Majin Buu arc: Tien Shinhan. The new entry revisits his desperate stand against Super Buu, plus drops a wild trivia nugget: Goku came shockingly close to fusing with him via the Potara earrings, only for one brutal kick to wreck those plans.
It’s a small footnote in a saga full of over-the-top power-ups, and it reframes just how near Tien came to becoming part of one of its strongest fighters.
| TITLE | Dragon Ball |
| CREATOR | Akira Toriyama |
| IMDb RATINGS (as of August 30, 2026) | 8.5/10 |
| WHERE TO WATCH | Crunchyroll |
Dragon Ball: Tien’s Kikoho Bought Gohan Precious Time Against Buu
The showcase (via the official site) leans hard into Tien’s most selfless moment from the arc. By this point in the story, Super Buu has already absorbed both Super Gotenks and Piccolo, leaving Gohan to face him essentially alone. Things look grim fast, and Gohan quickly realizes he’s outmatched against a monster who keeps getting stronger with every single absorption he pulls off along the way. That’s when Tien reappears out of nowhere.
Just as Dende is about to be finished off by one of Buu’s energy blasts, Tien steps in and evaporates the attack with his signature Kikoho, buying Dende the precious seconds he needs to survive a little longer. It’s classic Tien: no flashy transformation, no last-minute power spike, just raw guts and a technique he’s leaned on since the very first World Tournament sagas. He doesn’t get to celebrate for long, though. Tien openly admits he’s out of his depth once Buu winds up for an even bigger attack, muttering that the fight is simply beyond him now.
Goku manages to teleport in and yank him to safety for a moment, but Buu catches up fast and knocks Tien out cold with a single kick before he can do much else to help out. It’s a small, almost throwaway scene in the grand scheme of the Buu saga’s chaos from Dragon Ball Z, but the official showcase frames it as proof that Tien never stopped pulling his weight, even against threats that had long since outgrown him. He wasn’t there to win the fight. He was there to buy everyone else the time they desperately needed to keep on fighting.
How a Single Knockout Kick Cost Goku a Potara Fusion With Tien
Here’s where the real surprise comes in. According to the showcase’s trivia section, Goku had every intention of using the Potara earrings, gifted to him by the Old Kai, to fuse with whoever was strong enough to take Buu down for good. His first choice was Gohan, and the plan nearly worked before things went sideways in an instant. Goku tossed one of the earrings toward Gohan, but Gohan fumbled the catch and lost precious time searching for it on the ground – time Buu used to absorb him entirely, taking him off the table as a fusion candidate for good.
With his son suddenly gone, Goku needed a new partner fast, and that’s exactly where Tien would have come in as the backup plan. The problem was timing: Tien was still very much alive and in play right up until Buu’s kick sent him crashing to the ground, unconscious and completely unable to hold up his end of a fusion that requires both participants to be alert and willing to go through with it. Had that kick landed a moment later, or missed entirely, Dragon Ball history could have gotten a Tien-Goku fusion that never made it past the drawing board.
Instead, Goku eventually fused with Vegeta, giving fans the legendary Vegito, arguably one of the most requested and rewatched fusions in the entire franchise’s history. Still, it’s wild to think how differently that whole stretch of the story could have played out had Tien simply stayed on his feet a few seconds longer than he actually did. The showcase even teases next week’s character as someone Tien risked his own life fighting head-on, promising fans another deep cut from the Buu saga’s packed roster.
What are your thoughts on Tien and the almost Tien-Goku fusion we never got to see? We’d love to know them and your opinions in the comments below.
All Episodes of Dragon Ball are available to watch on Crunchyroll.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
from FandomWire https://ift.tt/LYnDilu
No comments: