Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-4435241-20141101174542/@comment-1457172-20151003162246

Firststef wrote: Yeah maybe someone with a internal fight between right and wrong, someone serious that possessed light but also dark powers. I don't think they need that to be the protagonist, we already had someone close to that with Matatagi. And Zanark. And Tsurugi. And a lot of the Fifth Sector members, actually.

Tenma didn't work because he didn't really have a personality. He was a guy who was "always happy and loved Soccer more than anything, never giving up no matter what." The difference between him and Endou being that Endou did have a personality. He was stubborn and sometimes easy to set off. He was charismatic and the backbone of the team. But I think the biggest thing was that Endou grew as a character overtime and had to face trials, while Tenma didn't (heck, he went backwards after losing his catchphrase).

We watched as Endou struggled at losing his teammates, learned what it meant to be captain, and learned move after move. With Tenma, though, it wasn't like that. Shindou was captain for him. He didn't struggle to learn moves because most of the time he just learned them and that was it (the only one he practiced was Fire Tornado DD, compared to...all of Endou's), and Tenma lost his teammates...only to get them back pretty quickly. Nothing steers his development as a character. We don't see him mature like Endou does- he's pretty much the same in GO as he is at the end of Galaxy.