Why is Piccolo the greatest character in Dragon Ball?

[Emmeth]

Give me good reasons why. You can't say "he isn't" because he is.

 

[withheldforprivacy]

Because he's the only one who always keeps his shoes on.

 

[Let's Go Fearless!]

Because he's a better father than Goku?

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Saiyan Arc Piccolo is. He's one of the few characters Toriyama bothered to put any subtlety into, with his line to Gohan of "Curse your fate, just as I do," offering what we needed to know about him and why someone who was a 1-dimensional supervillain last time we saw him has changed so much. His entire reason for existing was to kill Goku and that being his only purpose he was incapable of for so long left him with time to be caught in existential thought about his overall purpose. The fact that, as Kami made apparent, he'd lost the Mazoku trait of his victims being made to never rest in the afterlife showed he'd started to become less attached to his previous life as Piccolo Daimao and even when he manages to kill Goku, it's not in a way he can get satisfaction from. Along with this, the time he spends training Gohan and learning to bond with someone offers good character development and his arc comes full circle with his sacrifice against Nappa.

Sadly, his character arc was complete after that and the rest of his tenure in the series was just more exposure of an already complete character due to him being a fan favourite rather than him actually growing more. For that, he's overall not quite as well written as Kuririn, who remained consistent with interesting qualities throughout the series until his retirement in the Boo Arc due to his character arc being complete.