Tien Shinhan
fictional character from Dragon Ball
Tien Shinhan (Japanese: 天津飯, Hepburn: Tenshinhan), known as Tenshinhan in Japanese media and Viz Media's release of the manga, is a fictional character in the Dragon Ball franchise created by Akira Toriyama. He made his appearance in chapter #113 "The 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai", first published in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine on February 24, 1987, entering the World Martial Arts Tournament to defeat Son Goku and his fellow-students. However, he later teams up with them to defeat King Piccolo, accompanied by his best friend Chiaotzu. Tien becomes Goku's rival for a period and is notable for being the first person in the series to fly using Bukū-jutsu (舞空術; lit. 'Air Dance Technique') and to use the Taiyōken (太陽拳; lit. "Fist of the Sun", "Solar Flare" in Funimation's anime dub) technique.
The character of Tien has received praise from reviewers of manga and anime. They praised his quest for redemption in the King Piccolo arc, and his fights have been celebrated as dramatic, intense, and entertaining. Numerous pieces of merchandise have been released bearing his likeness, including action figures, key chains, and capsule toys.
Design
The character is named after tenshindon, a chūka dish consisting of a crabmeat omelet over rice. Toriyama said that although Tien is strong and cool, he based his name on a well-known Chinese food just to be "silly."
Tien is loosely based on Erlang Shen from Journey to the West, a three-eyed Taoist deity who first appears as an adversary of Sun Wukong, later becoming his ally and rival.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tien Shinhan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.