Warning: Contains spoilers for Dragon Ball Super chapter #99.While divisive among fans, the Dragon Ball Super manga adaptation of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero has managed to justify its existence through small changes to the characters’ actions, and Krillin’s handling has been a shining example of that. Krillin originally didn’t have a large part in Super Hero, and when he did show up, he was largely just providing moral support or comedy relief without actually contributing much to the fighting.
From the moment that it was announced, the Dragon Ball Super Super Hero Arc, the manga’s adaptation of the movie Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero has been divisive among fans. The fact that the manga was recapping the film instead of telling a new story was an immediate negative, and the story being largely the same after the original prologue starring Goten and Trunks gave it an even further sense of redundancy for many people.
The Super Hero Arc in the manga, however, has given Krillin an overall much better showing than the film did, including fixing one of his worst moments from Dragon Ball Z, and that’s been great to see, overall. The fight with Cell Max in chapter #99 of Dragon Ball Super also does wonders to give Krillin a better showing compared to the film.
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Dragon Ball Super’s Super Hero Arc Makes Krillin More Competent Than The Film
Krillin gives a valid contribution to the fight with Cell Max and gets hurt to protect 18.
The main way that the Dragon Ball Super manga improves on Krillin’s character is that Krillin is far more competent in the manga adaptation of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero than in the original film. For example, the manga adaptation’s prologue to Super Hero had Krillin investigating the revived Red Ribbon Army, and at the end of it, he was involved in the arrest of Dr. Hedo. Krillin’s police work doesn’t go much further than that, but it still gives him a direct involvement in the story playing out the way it did, and that adds a lot to his overall competency in the manga compared to the film.
The fight with Cell Max really showcases how Krillin’s portrayal in the manga is much better than in the movie. For example, Krillin has a good moment where he saves Pan from getting caught in Cell Max’s attack instead of just standing around doing nothing, and in Dragon Ball Super chapter #99, when Krillin gets beaten down by Cell Max, it happened because he was trying to protect Android 18 as opposed to just getting caught up in Cell Max’s attacks. It all works to give Krillin a much better showing than what he had in the film, and both the story and Krillin’s overall character are all the better for it.
The Dragon Ball Super Manga Fixes Dragon Ball Z’s Worth Krillin Moment
One of the best ways that Dragon Ball Super improves on Krillin’s character, however, is by fixing his worst moment in Dragon Ball Z: the Destructo Disc (kienzan) failing to hurt Cell. The Dragon Ball Z anime very infamously had an original scene of Krillin’s Destructo Disc failing to hurt Cell, which ignored it being an attack that could hurt anyone and adding to Krillin’s reputation of being a joke. In Dragon Ball Super chapter #99, however, Krillin’s Destructo Disc damaged Cell Max’s wing enough for Android 18 to break it off, which was both a great showing for Krillin and an excellent way of fixing Dragon Ball Z’s poor treatment of him.
Krillin, like many characters in Dragon Ball, is someone whose reputation was greatly impacted by his poor handling in filler material, and the Destructo Disc’s failure to hurt Cell was one of the most infamous examples of that. Seeing the attack being effective against Cell Max, however, does a lot to rectify that, and overall, it’s another big factor in how much of a better showing Krillin has had in the Dragon Ball Super manga’s version of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.
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