Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28224025-20161226165516/@comment-4525039-20161227224057

(I would call an old friend to cover this for me but eh...)

To be honest, I actually like how Tenma's character is developed throughout the GO series. There were a few wasted potential (mostly with Galaxy), but I think that he does fit solidly as a good shonen protagonist. He is not something new but he isn't bad character or anything.

I would say that the difference between Tenma and Endou would be their experience. While you could claim that they were exactly the same, I would argue that Endou had an advantage in the beginning of his series when compared to Tenma.

Endou was a third year who already knew what to do as the captain of the team. Even if he has his moments, Endou is often quick to recover and knows exactly what to do as the captain even without their playmaker or ace striker everynow and then.

Tenma is as pure and innocent as you get. He started out only being good at dribbling and nothing else. Then there is the fact that unlike Endou, who had a grandfather that liked soccer so you get somesort of understanding that it was in the blood of the family and the training that made him a good goalkeeper. Tenma, at first, is just some random kid that really liked soccer. He has talent...but it's stems a lot from his neverending training. There is no real reason as to why Tenma is "good" at soccer other than he loved the sport so he keeps practicing.

Where Endou was already confident as a captain (with a few setbacks, but very easily fixed), Tenma was literally given the role of captain near the end of the first season of GO where he had zero intentions to be. A huge part of both GO (Dragonlink) and some parts of Chrono Stone (King Arthur) is about addressing Tenma as a captain. Yes, he is still your soccer freak that could be compared with Endou but he had a lot of growth for a character as well.

Just to note, that this is not saying that Tenma is better than Endou. I just want to appeciate that he isn't some static protagonist that stayed the same throughout everything. He grew up but still remained the core of his character. Being a lovable soccer freak.