Krillin is a fictional character in the Dragon Ball manga, authored by Akira Toriyama, and later adapted to anime.
Krillin is introduced in Dragon Ball as a rival of the main character, Son Goku. Later in the series, he can also be seen having a close relationship with Goku, as well as his child, Son Gohan. Krillin eventually settles down and marries Android #18 after the Cell Games to have a child named Maron.{|class="toc" id="toc" | |}
[]
Originally, Toriyama created Krillin along with the Tenkaichi Budokai as a method to help add depth to the story, as his publicist Torishima had stated that the series' main protagonist, Son Goku, was too plain.
[]
Krillin's appearance stays relatively the same for the majority of the series. He is first introduced at the age of thirteen, with a shaved head and still dressed in the clothing worn at the monastery he had been training at. He does not possess a nose, and has six spots of incense burns on his forehead, a reference to the practice of Shaolin monks. After the end of the Cell Games Saga Krillin stops shaving his head, and grows his hair out. His outfit also changes as the series progress. When he first appears in Dragon Ball, he wears the yellow-and-orange garb of a monk. Later, he wears the orange gi uniform that is presented to both himself and Goku by Master Roshi in honor of their first martial arts competition. Occasionally he is seen in casual clothes, but for the most part continues to dress for training or fighting at all times. During the Frieza Saga, he wears Saiyan armor provided by Vegeta, but during the Cell Saga he returns to wearing the orange gi, accompanied by a blue short-sleeved undershirt and boots. Prior to the Great Saiyaman Saga, Krillin opted to settle down with his new family, and allows his black hair to finally grow out. From this point on he is shown wearing a workout outfit consisting of a red short-sleeved shirt and brown drawstring pants. Finally, he is shown in DBGT sporting a moustache, wearing grey pants, shirt and tie with a cardigan in his few appearances.
[]
Krillin makes his very first appearance in chapter #25 Rival? Participating!! first published in Weekly Shonen Jump on June 3, 1985. Here, he arrives at Master Roshi's island to become his apprentice. After finishing their training, Roshi has Krillin and his other student Goku compete in the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament. Krillin makes it to the semi-finals, but is defeated by Jackie Chun, who is really Roshi in disguise, preventing his students from becoming arrogant with too many victories. Krillin continues to train with Roshi and helps Goku to collect the Dragon Balls by fighting against General Blue participating in Baba's tournament. Three years later, Krillin enters the 22nd World Tournament. Again, he makes it to the semi-finals by defeating Chiaotzu, but loses to Goku. Soon after, Krillin is killed by a henchman of Piccolo Daimao, who wanted to steal Goku's Dragon Ball. After Goku defeats Piccolo, Krillin is revived by the Dragon Balls. Another 3 years later, Krillin enters the 23rd World Tournament. This time however, he only makes it to the quarter-finals, losing to Piccolo Junior.
Several years later, Krillin confronts the Saiyan invaders Vegeta and Nappa along with his friends and is one of the few survivors from the fight. He then travels with Gohan and Bulma to Planet Namek to use the Namekian Dragon Balls to revive their dead friends, since the Earth's Dragon Balls vanished due to Piccolo's death. Once there, they save a young Namekian called Dende from death at the hands of Frieza's henchmen. After a few close encounters with Vegeta, Krillin and Gohan are forced to team up with him in order to fight Frieza's strongest warriors, the Ginyu Force. They are overpowered by them until Goku arrives and defeats the Force. After Krillin and Gohan collect the seven Dragon Balls, Frieza battles them until Goku appears. After a long fight between Goku and Frieza, the latter detonates Krillin from the inside, killing him instantly. After Frieza's defeat Krillin is revived by the Namekian Dragon Balls.
Krillin trains for the three years to confront Dr. Gero who wanted to use his androids to kill Goku. When the Androids, #16, #17 and #18 are released, he becomes infatuated with the female #18 which causes him to resist deactivating her with a controller Bulma created. Because of this, regardless of his efforts, the android Cell absorbs her and achieves his perfect form. He later participates in the Cell Games, a martial arts tournament created by Cell for entertainment, and fights one of the Cell Juniors who attack him and his friends, but is saved by Gohan. After Cell's death, Krillin uses the second wish from the Dragon Balls to remove the bomb from #17 and #18.
Various years later, Krillin has quit fighting, married #18, and has a daughter named Marron. However, after learning of Goku's return from the Afterlife to compete in the 25th World Tournament, he decides to also participate. After the Supreme Kai enlists them to help him defeat the wizard Babidi, Krillin joins them, but he later evacuates Earth after the demon Majin Buu's awakening. When Buu has transformed, he finds Krillin's groups and kills them. During Goku and Vegeta's fight against Buu, Krillin is brought back to life by the Namekian Dragon Balls and gives his energy to Goku's Super Spirit Bomb, which is used to destroy Buu. In Dragon Ball GT , he is killed by Android #17. He is revived by Shenron after the defeat of Omega Shenron and has a match with Goku, who decided to leave Earth.
[]
In the original Japanese anime, Krillin is voiced by Mayumi Tanaka in all related media.
When Dragon Ball received a second dub by Ocean Group in the early 1990s, Krillin would be voiced by Terry Klassen. He would reprise his role in the Blue Water dub of the series. When the series was
taken over by Funimation, Krillin would be voiced by Laurie Steele as a child in Dragon Ball and Sonny Strait as an adult in both anime and video games.
[]
Krillin has many abilities including, super-strength, super-speed, and the ability to fly using his chi energy, also known as Bukū-jutsu . His main techniques include the Kamehameha , an attack he learned from Roshi, which enables him to emit a powerful chi energy blast from his hands. Kakusandan , another chi attack, involves firing two blasts, one from each hand, and merging them before directing the blast above an opponent where it will break up and rain down on them, he was only seen using this twice—the first time was very successful as he managed to wipe out three Saibamen with it. He has also been known to use the Double Kihō . From Tien, he obtained the Taiyōken , an attack Krillin is capable of using to blind his opponents, sometimes used to make a quick escape. A technique he uses is the Kienzan , which he does by putting his hand in the air and creating an electric floating disc, using it to slice through his enemies.
[]
Krillin appears in multiple Dragon Ball-related video games, sometimes as a playable character. Krillin also appears in the crossover game Jump Superstars. In the 1992 Videkko game Dragon Ball Z: Get Together! Goku World, Krillin along with Goku, Trunks, Bulma, and Gohan travels back in time to examine event in the past.
In June 1988, Krillin along with other Dragon Ball characters were featured in two PSA shorts. The first short was entitled The Goku Traffic Safety , and the second called The Goku Fire Fighting Regiment where he along with Master Roshi, Yamcha, and later Goku become volunteer fire fighters.
Krillin would be featured in the crossover manga Cross Epoch where he and Tony Tony Chopper run the Kuri-Chopa Marine Train Coster.
In 2003 Krillin would appear in the interactive feature entitled Kyutai Panic Adventure! . Where he and Gohan attempt to save visitors of at Fuji Television's orb section from drowning, while Goku battles Frieza. In the 2004 followup Kyūtai Panic Adventure Returns! , Krillin is one of the seven Dragon Ball characters who delivers the Dragon Balls to restore the aqua city of Odaiba after Goku and Monkey D. Luffy's battle with Enel.
Krillin has performed many songs throughout the years. These songs feature Mayumi Tanaka in character singing cheerfully about certain thing pertaining to Krillin. First with the song "Asa - Hiru - Yoru - Kimi - Boku" from the album Dragon Ball Z Hit Song Collection IV: Character Special released in 1990. Then with "Ichido wa Kekkon Shitai Manbo" from Dragon Ball Z Hit Song Collection 8: Character Special 2 released in 1991. Where he happily sings about the desire to get married. And the title track from Dragon Ball Z Hit Song Collection 17: Hippy Hoppy Shake!! released in 1995.
[]
Various publications for anime, manga and other media have commented on Krillin's character, adding praise and criticism to his traits and development in the series. In a review for the Broly Triple Feature, Matt Rox stated that he did not understand why Krillin appeared to be the only character to fight Broly in the three movies. Yet he was just happy to see Krillin get so much screen time as he was his favorite character. David F. Smith of IGN comments that Krillin and #18's relationship really help make the storyline more interesting. Additionally, he liked Krillin's appearances in the fight against Cell as has more screentime than the main character, Goku. Tim Jones from Themanime.org liked Krillin's development in the series as, initially, he was not a friend from when they first
met. Anime News Network writer Carl Kimlinger also liked Krillin and Goku's childhood, noting it to be the warmth that Dragon Ball Z does not have. Although Chris Beveridge from Mania Entertainment thought that Krillin had a drastic change in Dragon Ball GT, he mentioned that fans from the prequels would like some of its episodes due to the appearance of Krillin and other older characters. During January from 2007, Oricon made a poll in which they asked Japanese fans from manga and anime which characters from any series they would most like to see in spinoff series. Krillin ranked third in the men's poll and sixth in the overall poll.