The fight with the Juppongatana is a completely different beast than, say, the good guys VS the Ginyu Force.
After all, unlike Goku, Kenshin can't make it halfway across the planet in a couple of seconds to interrupt the fight and instantly win it for his side, and he's not so much stronger than everyone else on his side that their presence is actually detrimental to him - Sanosuke and Saito are, while not quite at his level, close enough that they can actually be considered to be in the same ballpark. By contrast, Goku, and sometimes Vegeta, are in a wholly different ballpark altogether, so any enemy that would be defeatable by the rest of the cast would be a joke to them. So much so that it would probably not even interrupt their fight with the big guy.
Put simply, the idea of having a Quirky Miniboss Squad for the support cast to defeat falls apart because the difference in power between the support cast and the main fighter is so astronomically huge that it doesn't make any sense and requires a LOT of forced circumstances in order to be used.
edited 13th Dec '15 11:29:25 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimariI've been keeping an eye on the "rename Kepler-22b to Namek
" petition, and it's creeping along at a steady rate of about 1,000 new signatures a day now.
It at 123,000 right now, which means it still needs 27,000 more to reach its goal.
"It's liberating, realizing you never need to be competent." — UltimatepheerThe only real Quirky Miniboss Squad in Dragon Ball was the Ginyu Force. And 4/5 of them were taken out by Goku. And then Vegeta killed them because he felt like it. Really, that entire segment was more of a way to justify Zenkai boosts than anything to do with the supporting cast.
The more I look at it, the more I realise Dragon Ball was never about trying to use its cast efficiently. At least, not in a pure fighting format. We look at One Piece, or Yu Yu Hakusho, or Naruto, and see supporting cast members there with their own unique skills and abilities, but...Dragon Ball was never trying to do that.
The supporting cast was there for their character interactions. Not really for their fighting skills. Or for screentime.
The *Legendary* Super Saiyan is motivated by a crying infant! He is a literal giant f***ing baby!Ah, right. Forgot about Jeice.
But either way, the only reason there was 5 members was to drag out the fights for a while. They were never trying to do the usual "let's have each supporting cast member take on one Ginyu Force member".
The *Legendary* Super Saiyan is motivated by a crying infant! He is a literal giant f***ing baby!Goku really only took out Recoome, after being badly worn down, and Burter.
Captain Ginyu was more a team effort. Or rather Vegeta destroying Goku-Ginyu and then Goku throwing a frog to interrrupt the "Chaaaaaange".
Jeice and Guldo were all Vegeta.
So you could see it as Goku taking out one half of the Ginyu force and Vegeta taking out the other half but getting all the kills.
At the very least, the upcoming Tournament Arc in the Super manga will let him and a few other non-Goku & Vegeta characters shine for once.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Toriyama does like Piccolo, so that's true.
And he's pretty unique in the universe. Super aside, being stronger than him is an incredible feat in and of itself.
One Strip! One Strip!Talking about the importance of the side characters reminds me of one Tumblr post I saw one time;
(Source. Link is to a reblog since the original blog no longer exists.
)
I still don't like Piccolo being weaker than Goten and Trunks. I'd like to think Piccolo was referring to their greater potential (i.e. in a video game, do you use the character you've already maxed out or the one you haven't maxed yet but has better stat growths?) but I realize there's very little evidence.
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To answer your aside, that depends entirely upon what game I'm playing, whether or not the higher stats are worth the extra effort, and if the lower leveled character can even survive the fight.

Now see, I don't know ones that do it well...or at least ones that don't serve a purpose beyond just being fight fodder. Almost every Shonen series I watch has no other purpose for a Quirky Mini Boss Squad beyond just having more flashy fights.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.