Krillin has always had a hard time in Dragon Ball Z. He was outclassed from a young age by Goku and never managed to make up the difference in terms of combat ability.
He spent most of his life getting his butt kicked by minor Dragon Ball villains, which included a few untimely deaths. Thankfully, death is cheap in the world of Dragon Ball, and Shenron was always on hand to return him to this mortal coil so that his cycle of suffering could begin anew.
Things weren’t always bad for Krillin; he managed to lead a relatively normal life after the Cell Saga and even married Android 18. It’s not as if he lost every fight he ever had either. There were times when even Krillin could rise above his lot in life and get a clean win in on his opponent.
We are here today to look at the foes in Dragon Ball Z that kissed the canvas after combat with Krillin.
From the psychic vampire kid to two of the most powerful villains in the series, here are the 15 Dragon Ball Z Characters Who Are Even Weaker Than Krillin.
15. Chiaotzu
It was usually Krillin’s role to be the jobber in the World Martial Arts Tournament. He lost to Jackie Chun during the first one and was beaten by Piccolo in the third. Krillin had to make Goku’s opponent in the finals look tough, so he had to push them as far as he could in order to show off their abilities.
The exception to this rule happened during the second World Martial Arts Tournament that we saw in the series. The students of Master Roshi went up against the students of Master Shen. It was clear from the start that Tien was the true threat to Goku, but Master Shen also had another student named Chiaotzu, who possessed strange abilities of his own.
Krillin finally had his day in the sun when he defeated Chiaotzu during the World Martial Arts Tournament. It turns out that Chiaotzu is to Krillin what Krillin is to the rest of the world. Chiaotzu lost in order to make Krillin seem like a legitimate threat to Goku in the semi-finals.
14. Yamcha
Yamcha was the first foe of Goku that fought him on even terms. It didn’t take long for Goku to outmatch Yamcha and turn him into another member of the B-team, though.
The question of the power rankings among the human members of the Z-Fighters is tricky to answer. Chiaotzu is obviously the weakest member of the group, but it’s not so clear about who is the strongest between Krillin, Tien, and Yamcha.
Daizenshuu 7 was one of the Dragon Ball databooks that were published while the manga/anime was still running. According to the book, Krillin is stronger than Yamcha during the Saiyan Saga.
Yamcha’s power level is 1480, while Krillin’s is 1770. This was also the point when Yamcha pretty much stopped training at the same level as the other characters, while Krillin kept it up until the Cell Saga.
13. Banan & Sui
After Vegeta was defeated, it was up to the Z-Fighters to travel to Namek in order to seek out a new set of Dragon Balls. Goku was still heavily injured from the fight, so Bulma, Gohan, and Krillin ended up going on ahead of him.
This led to the Gohan and Krillin partnership, which mirrored that of the relationship between Goku and Krillin. The two of them went on incredibly violent space adventures together, before teaming up to take on Garlic Jr. and the Spice Boys.
Krillin and Gohan were mostly outmatched by Frieza’s forces on Namek. The exception to this was a pair of scouts named Banan and Sui who were under Zarbon’s command. Krillin and Gohan suppressed their power levels (a trick they learned battling the Saiyans) in order to fool the enemies into thinking that they were weak.
This allowed the team to take down Zarbon’s scouts, in one of their few clean victories on Namek.
12. The Saibamen
When Raditz arrived on Earth, his power level was around 1500 (according to Daizenshuu 7). This isn’t a particularly high number for an alien conqueror who has spent most of his life in battle. Characters like Krillin, Tien, and Piccolo were able to get a higher power level in only a year of training.
It seems that Nappa and Vegeta weren’t impressed with their partner’s pitiful powers, which is why they owned a set of seeds that could grow into alien warriors with the power to match that of Raditz. These were known as the Saibamen and one of them managed to take down Yamcha, at the cost of its own life.
Krillin hadn’t slacked off on his training like Yamcha had, which is why he was able to destroy most of the Saibamen in a single attack. Only one of them managed to escape before it was killed by Piccolo.
11. Bacterian
The early World Martial Arts Tournament battles that we saw would often feature gimmick opponents or characters that were based on real life fighters. You had Ranfan, who fought by getting naked, and Giran, who used his monstrous abilities to gain an advantage over his foes.
Krillin had the misfortune of battling one of the most disgusting gimmick fighters in the series. Bacterian was a huge man who never washed and tried to use his repulsive stench to overwhelm his opponent. He even used the Rikishi Stink Face on Krillin. The only reason Bacterian was defeated was that Goku reminded Krillin that he doesn’t have a nose, so he shouldn’t be affected by the smell.
Bacterian would later return as a pirate in Dragon Ball Online, which makes him one of the few early Dragon Ball characters to have a significant role in the games.
The Krillin nose gag didn’t reappear after the fight against Bacterian. He was later shown wearing glasses in Dragon Ball Z, despite the fact that he shouldn’t be able to keep them on without a nose.
10. Pintar
After Goku died at the end of the Cell Saga, most of the Z-Fighters returned to living a peaceful life. This meant that people like Hercule were able to dominate the fighting tournaments of the world, even though the entrants were only as strong as regular humans.
The impending return of Goku prompted everyone to come out of retirement and prepare for one last tournament. Everyone decided to enter the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament, which also prompted numerous entries from those who had become famous fighters in the period following Cell’s death.
Krillin was up against a regular human, named Pintar, during the first round of the tournament. Despite Pintar displaying great speed for his large size, he still wasn’t able to overcome Krillin.
It took Krillin almost no effort to flatten Pintar with his eyes closed. Pintar deserved it, though, as he spent most of the fight mocking Krillin’s small size.
9. The Former Students At The Orin Temple
Krillin actually has quite a sad backstory. He was left at the Orin Temple when he was four-years old, which suggests that he was an orphan, as we never hear of him contacting his parents later on in the story.
As he was the youngest student, he was constantly beaten and picked on by the older monks. It was this harsh treatment that led to Krillin seeking out Master Roshi in order to receive specialized training.
Karma awaited Krillin during the first World Martial Arts Tournament that he partook in: the bullies that he dealt with at the Orin Temple had decided to enter. They were unaware of how effective Master Roshi’s training was, which led to Krillin decimating one of them in battle. This victory helped instill confidence in Krillin for the upcoming rounds in the tournament.
The anime also shows the bullies trying to pick a fight with Giran, who beats them all up because they mocked him for drinking milk.
8. Majora
Is Krillin so desperate for a victory that he would take advantage of his opponent’s disability in order to win? Yes… yes he is.
Dragon Ball Super has given some of the non-Saiyan characters a chance to shine. Yamcha was allowed to be the hero of an episode when he helped his team win a baseball game (that ended up with him in his famous death pose at home plate).
Krillin has also been given some screen time and has starred in a few episodes. He even cut off his hair in order to resume his original appearance.
Krillin and Android 18 were both chosen to represent their universe during a great tournament in the Universal Survival Saga. One of their opponents was a being named Majora, who resembled a humanoid fox.
Majora is blind, yet his powerful sense of smell always allows him to know where his opponent is. Krillin took a page from Bacterian’s book and threw his smelly shoe at Majora. The smell was so bad that it overwhelmed Majora’s senses, which gave Krillin enough time to Kamehameha him out of the arena.
7. Great Lee
It was only natural that Akira Toriyama would parody the greatest martial artist who ever lived in his fighting series. A copy of Bruce Lee appeared several times in the Dragon Ball manga and anime.
Great Lee was one of the competitors at the original World Martial Arts Tournament. The Great Lee was originally annoyed at the fact that children were allowed to enter the contest and that he was up against Krillin. He used several of Bruce Lee’s signature moves during his match with Krillin. When Krillin stood up without any injuries, the Great Lee gave up.
The anime would bring the Great Lee back in a filler episode. He reappears as a street fighter, who offers strangers a chance to earn money if they beat him. Goku takes him up on this challenge and takes the Great Lee’s onslaught of attacks. The Great Lee is also unable to damage Goku, so he gives up.
6. Lucifer’s Demonic Hordes
There were quite a few Dragon Ball Z movies released during the original run of the series. The same cannot be said for the original Dragon Ball, which only had three movies and two of them were re-imaginings of established stories. The only Dragon Ball movie that had an original story was Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle.
Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle features Goku, Krillin, and Yamcha as they battle against a powerful vampire and his minions. The vampire is named Lucifer and he plans to destroy the sun so that he and his monster buddies can take over the world.
The eternal winter brought on by the lack of a sun would also kill all of the humans, meaning Lucifer wouldn’t have any fresh blood to drink, but he clearly wasn’t thinking that far ahead.
This was the movie that allowed Krillin and Yamcha to shine in Dragon Ball. The two of them were shown defeating the monsters in Lucifer’s horde, which gave their fans some much-needed support, as Goku was about to outclass them forever.
5. Paul
After Goku killed King Piccolo in battle, he was sent to train with Kami in order to prepare for an upcoming battle with King Piccolo’s spawn. This meant that Chiaotzu, Krillin, Tien, and Yamcha would also go on a journey to train together. They left the Kame House and went on a journey to seek out Korin so that they could train with him in the same way that Goku had done previously.
The anime decided to dedicate some time to the journey that these characters went on. They traveled to the village at the foot of the Popo Poco Volcano and were forced to stop it from being destroyed when the volcano erupted.
They are first invited to the village by a girl named Mint, whom Krillin is trying to impress. Mint’s brother Paul notices and challenges Krillin to a fight. This turned out to be a terrible idea on Paul’s part, as Krillin defeats him with a single headbutt.
4. A Bear In A Karate Gi
The world of Dragon Ball is home to numerous species of monsters and humanoid animals. The average population doesn’t seem bothered by this, which suggests that the Dragon Ball world is truly multi-racial. This is probably helped by the fact that the ruler of Earth is King Furry, who also happens to be an anthropomorphic dog man.
The World Martial Arts Tournament received several entrants who weren’t human. One of these was a huge bear who speaks in a posh British accent.
This version of Paddington decided to leave London and become a kick-butt martial artist instead. The unnamed bear went on to become a black belt in Karate, though we don’t know how legitimate this recognition of his abilities was (are you going to tell a bear that he can’t have a black belt?)
Krillin was unfazed by his ursine foe and quickly defeated him in the preliminary rounds of the tournament.
3. Misokatsun
Krillin was briefly given a chance to shine in Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle. The same cannot be said for the Dragon Ball Z movies. These were all about how awesome Goku and the Super Saiyans were. Piccolo occasionally looked cool for like, five seconds, but the rest of the Z-Fighters were just jobber fodder for the movie villains.
The third Dragon Ball Z movie was called The World’s Strongest. The villain was Dr. Wheelo, who used biotechnology to create life forms that followed his commands. Dr. Wheelo wanted to use these creatures to try and take over the world before he runs afoul of Goku and the Z-Fighters.
One of Dr. Wheelo’s monsters was called Misokatsun, who had the ability to stretch his body. Goku managed to stretch his body beyond its capacity by using the Kaio-Ken and killed him.
The pamphlet that was released alongside the film gave the power levels of all the characters. Misokatsun’s was listed as 4300, while Krillin’s was 5000. This meant that Krillin could have defeated him in a fight. Goku just hogged all of the glory.
2. All Other Earthlings
The question of who the strongest human is in Dragon Ball Z usually comes down to either Krillin or Tien. Uub is stronger than both of them, but we don’t see him until the final few pages of the manga/last episode of the anime, so most discount him.
Tien is most likely stronger than Krillin because he never stopped training, while Krillin settled down on numerous occasions. The thing is: Tien technically isn’t a human.
One of his parents was a member of the Triclops race of aliens, which is why he has three eyes and why he can perform bizarre techniques that other Z-Fighter’s cannot emulate (like growing the extra arms). If you are going to count half-humans, then Gohan, Goten, and Trunks would also count.
One of the features for Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ lists Krillin as the most powerful earthling. That’s all the evidence we need to give Krillin this accolade.
1. Perfect Cell & Frieza
We have proof that Krillin is stronger than both Perfect Cell and Frieza. You can blame Yamcha and the filler episodes for this.
When Goku travels to the afterlife after he dies during the Cell Saga, he decides to train. The anime decided to create a filler tournament arc, which introduced several warriors from other parts of time and space.
One of these is Olibu, who was once a hero on Earth. Olibu loses to Pikkon after a close match in the quarter-finals. Pikkon is later shown easily defeating Perfect Cell and Frieza after they attempt a coup.
Krillin and Yamcha are then killed by Buu, along with almost everyone else on Earth. We see Yamcha easily defeating Olibu and another fighter.
Yamcha was easily able to beat Olibu, who had previously came close to beating Pikkon. We know that Pikkon is easily stronger than Perfect Cell and Frieza and that Krillin is stronger than Yamcha because Yamcha had given up on his training a lot sooner than the other Z-Fighters.
With this logic in hand, we can safely say that Krillin is stronger than two of the most of the iconic villains of the series… but only in the filler episodes of the anime.
What do you think? Is Krillin more powerful than you thought? Do you know of any other Dragon Ball Z characters who are weaker than him? Let us know in the comments!
