Krillin's my favorite character in the Dragon Ball universe, as I've mentioned a few times befores. Tries hard, even when he's getting his guts kicked out. Clever, kind. Android (really, she's a cyborg) 18*, the first time we got to see her fight, she broke both Vegeta's arms with almost casual ease. That earns a character a lot of points with me.
I think they're a good couple. I know a lot of folks don't. Because Krillin is shorter, or because they think he's ugly. Or because he's physically weaker than she is. Or because he ended up getting a job, and she stays home and looks after their daughter, and they think she should be out fighting and kicking ass. Which I wouldn't mind if they both got to do more of that, preferably at the expense of screen time for Vegeta.
I can sort of see the argument. It does remind me of the marriages you see in a lot of sitcoms here in the U.S., with the attractive wife married to some sloppy moron. Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, The Honeymooners, about 1,000 others. Though Krillin's in much better shape than Ray Romano or Jackie Gleason, and he's a lot nicer. I'm pretty sure he doesn't forget their anniversary until the last minute.
There are a lot of fans that insist Eighteen doesn't even like Krillin, which is bizarre. Not that there aren't couples who stay together when they don't like each other, but it seems entirely against her character. Eighteen is reserved, but she's also blunt. If she thinks something's dumb, she'll say so. When her brother insisted they turn hunting down Goku into a road trip, rather than just getting it over with, she told him she thought it was dumb. When Vegeta tried talking shit, she didn't hesitate to humiliate him, mock his so-called power. When she believed Krillin had tried saving her because he thought she'd be so grateful to him she'd just swoon, she let him have it. Verbally. If she'd let him have it physically, he'd have been dead again.
Point being, if she wanted to be somewhere else, she would be. If she wanted to be sleeping with someone who looked like Captain America, she'd go find that guy. If she wanted to fight all the time, she could go do that. If all she wanted was money, she could find a wealthy person and wrap them around her finger, figuratively or literally. Or just rob banks. After the Cell Games, there are three people alive stronger than her, and none of them could sense her to figure out where she was (assuming Vegeta, Piccolo, or Gohan would try to stop bank robberies). Even if Krillin wanted to try and stop her, and that isn't his style, he couldn't.
But she stays with Krillin. Even when that meant living in Master Roshi's (a notoriously dirty old man) home, when I'm not sure if Krillin even had a job. They live in a decent two-story home later, they have a daughter, he's a cop. It pays the bills, but she's mentioned they'd like to go on a vacation as a family, only the money isn't there. They're solidly middle-class. But she doesn't leave, or go on a vacation alone. She once planned to use a wish from the Eternal Dragon, which could give her anything she wanted, specifically to get something for Krillin, because she appreciated how much he does for her and their daughter, and wanted to do something nice for him to show him. Because she was worried she hadn't done that. She got angry when someone she was fighting called him an ugly midget and said that the two of them being together was an insult to love. Eighteen kicked their ass, too.
She found someone that was simply a decent person, who even after she and her brother beat up his friends, even when they were planning to kill his best friend, still wouldn't destroy her when he could have. Because he saw there was no need (Goku was in the process of getting far stronger), and he didn't think either of the siblings were truly evil. If they were they'd have killed him and the others the first time they fought. A conclusion the Guardian of the Earth had come to as well. Yeah, Krillin had fallen for her, but it turned out he thought her brother was actually her boyfriend the whole time, he wasn't putting conditions on his help or concern, didn't really expect anything. He just thought she was a person who deserved a chance at a life. I think she was suspicious initially, suspecting an ulterior motive she hadn't figured out yet, probably curious, kept an eye on him, and things went from there.
As for Krillin, he said back when he was a kid he hoped being a martial artist would help him to meet and eventually marry a beautiful girl. Well, Eighteen loves him, has even said she finds him "cool". She appreciates his kind nature, but doesn't take advantage of it, as a previous girlfriend did. She isn't the most demonstrative in public, but she does little things to show she cares, that she appreciates him. Krillin can get down on himself, and Eighteen will support him, try to raise his spirits, but if that fails, she'll give him a verbal kick to the butt. She won't enjoy doing it, and she'll worry she's hurt him, but she'll do it.
They try to look after each other, pick one another up. She offers to go with him to face Frieza - who'd already killed him once - when that tyrant comes back to Earth. He appreciates the offer, but points out if something goes wrong, she's better able to keep their daughter safe. She's stronger, she has no ki signature to track, Frieza wouldn't even know she exists to come looking for her. (Granting that none of that does any good if Frieza just blows the planet up out of boredom waiting for Goku to show up, but in that event, everyone is screwed either way).
I didn't have any larger point to this post. Just wanted to talk a little bit about a favorite pairing.
* Apparently her original name was Lazuli, and her brother was Lapis, but neither of them remembers that now. The first time I saw that was in a story I read online, and I thought the writer just made it up, and they'd been watching a lot of Steven Universe. But Toriyama named a lot of characters after food, so why not rocks?
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